Plato had a fetish for Forms? What else is new?

He's talking of what we nowadays call concepts, and their definition. He is asking "define piety". Your "interpretation" of Plato is still extremely basic. Plato 101.

He used alphabetic letters too, mind you. Hence his message must be about the use of alphabetic letters, right?

A pattern is not an instrumental cause, it does not cause anything to be like it. It is, rather, that by which we can identify something as being of that kind. — Fooloso4

Our friends are saying that Plato believed in forms and used that concept in Euthyphro, and therefore that this MUST be the message of Euthyphro.

That's like saying: Plato used the letters of the alphabet to write the Republic, therefore the message proclaimed by the Republic is simply: I BELIEVE IN ALPHABETIC WRITING SYSTEMS !

Your interpretation is quite trite though, and could potentially apply to any of Plato's work. Looks more like the traditional conceptual frame of reference for Plato than an interpretation. It's Plato 101. He believed in forms.

All this brouhaha for that?

Anyway, whatever rocks your boat...

By contrast, my own suggestion is far more plausible. — Apollodorus

What suggestion is that? That the moral of the dialogue is "there are forms and ideas"?

Sounds a bit dry.

I think you're agreeing that he might have just been superstitious with a little consciousness of his social standing in the mix. These two qualities would have made him pretty average — frank

Average, and therefore worthy of some scorn by the wise... But I think you are not picking up the clues Plato left about Euthyphro's venality and ruthless ambition. The text does not exclude ulterior motives for prosecuting his own father, and perhaps I agree with "Fooloso4" that the mention of Naxos implies some ulterior motive.

how do we know about the ideal of justice? — frank

You tell me.

I think Euthyphro did have an agenda. He could have done what his father did and asked an exegete, an official who expounded the sacred and ancestral laws of the city. Instead he brought it to a public forum to demonstrate his own expertise in such matters. — Fooloso4

Or to use his expertise.

From the dialogue, we can assume that Euthyphro thinks he is quite skilled at manipulating this particular tribunal. So bringing the case there could be highly tactical. I mean, he probably lost already in some first jurisdiction in Naxos, and is bringing the case to a higher court that he thinks he has good chance of overcoming.

Not at all. He just would have known that Socrates was the victim of superstition. — frank

And he would have written a dialogue about it, right? Where this Euthyphro superstitious character would be a fool, unable to justify himself...

You're avoiding the question? — frank

I've already answered it. I think that Plato is not looking for tradable, relativist value, like money, but for absolutes that are absolutely desirable. He doesn't think that piety is inherently and absolutely desirable. Rather is is like money: a tradable good. A means to an end. And the real absolute end, for which piety is only a means, is proposed to be justice.

This is what the Athenians did to Socrates. The sentenced him to death to cleanse their city of his influence. We know this had a profound effect on Plato. But he would have known that the scapegoating that swept the city was coming from innocent superstition energized by the pain and dishonor of defeat. — frank

And according to your interpretation, Plato would have agreed with his teacher Socrates' scapegoating.

I'm talking about money itself. It's an abstraction just like piety. — frank

Unlike piety, money can be quantified, stored, stolen, changed, and exchanged against physical goods and services. I see it as a very practical thing and not an abstraction.

Euthyphro may have no agenda than to be pious. Being impious could bring disaster down upon his house, so he may want to attend to it before he embarks on a project. — frank

But then, what is the metaphysical or moral message of that interpretation? Do all you can to cleanse yourself/your house/your city of impiety, even if you need to prosecute your own father?

In context, that sounds unlikely to me, coming from Plato, a student and admirer of Socrates, met in the dialogue at the door of the tribunal prosecuting him for impiety. And if Euthyphro is justified, why is he presented as somebody who cannot even explain piety to Socrates?

Think about the dilemma this way:

Do we love money because it's valuable? Or is it valuable because we love it?

Notice the unresolvable circularity? As if it might be both. — frank

IDK. In economic terms, the monetary value of anything is a complex function of desire, utility and availability, and yes it is iterative (rather than circular), but this kind of thinking seems too relativist for Plato. He is all about eternal absolutes. More probably he is telling us something about the inherent desirability and universality of justice vs the relativity of religious practice.

That's one way to interpret it. There are others. — frank

Alright. What are some of the other possible interpretations then? Let's try and be constructive here.

belief in god is not necessary for being good." — Apollodorus

True. And vice versa, it is easy to hide evil under the guise of religion.

If all those who think the discussion is a waste of time could kindly walk their talk and leave this thread, perhaps the discussion would be less of a waste of time.

This is good for working, though a bit hypnotic like house music can be. It's about rhythm in life and speech in an African context. Not without its clichés but a decent take.

Life has a rhythm, it's constantly moving.
The word for rhythm ( used by the Malinke tribes ) is FOLI.
It is a word that encompasses so much more than drumming, dancing or sound.
It's found in every part of daily life.
In this film you not only hear and feel rhythm but you see it.
It's an extraordinary blend of image and sound that
feeds the senses and reminds us all
how essential it is.

I'm gratified that he posted it — Wayfarer

This thread is dedicated to the relevance to our personal philosophies of modern popular songs and musics -- jazz, blues, rock, pop, to which I add a meager spicing of franco-italiano-spanish chansons, often poorly translated in English by your humble servant not to offend the gods of TPF. This place is for songs saying meaningful things to people.

Songs in German have been posted here. That should tell you how open we are. ;-)

You were kind enough to link me up to a song about (essentially) philosophy, or the pursuit and love of wisdom, written by a TPF regular (yourself), a song which I liked quite a lot. You bet I'm gonna post it here. Thank you for it.

Welcome. I love Casal for her music, now realize that the lyrics are a bit bland... Anyway. Deep is relative.

The question then is why did Euthyphro wait five years? — Fooloso4

We don't know that the text implies that. Plato may not have remembered the dates so well. Naxos could just be a place reasonably far away from Athens for the story to work.

You are welcome to totally ignore me, sweetie pie.

I don't really care about what you disputed and what not. This is not about you.

As I said, in Luke 10 the Jesus character is involved in a dialogue with another fellow, just like the character Socrates in Euthyphro. Both dialogues are about what pleases God(s), and they both include a story about a man beaten up and left to die by the roadside. Their message also overlap: what pleases God is justice, not formalistic piety.

Luke's good Samaritan passage also alludes to other things possibly not present in Plato's, such as a certain universality of the human race (the original question is: "who is my neighbour?").

How and when did you discover this amazingness ? — Amity

By PM.

For good measure...



And I don't care about it at all
Whether you laugh or dream, what you say or what you do
I don't care about anything
As much as I try, I'm playing and I don't care about anything….

The horizon is a dark line, with no option
Two bodies that were once one
Break that union
They gave way to indifference and disappointment
I know it was all part
Of an ephemeral agreement

I want to see the red of the dawn
A new day will shine
It will take away loneliness
I want to be the red of dawn
The sun will shine again
It will take away loneliness

In me you planted
Images of you, of me that come to mind
They are so intense and real
They make me suffer
I don't know how I manage to bear the situation
Of a game with its intended end
Between you and me

I want to see the red of the dawn
A new day will shine
It will take away loneliness
I want to be the red of dawn
The sun will shine again
It will take away loneliness

Quiero ver el rojo del amanecer
Un nuevo día brillará
Se llevará la soledad

Yes, "our" Wayfarer. :-) He also plays the piano.

BTW, he titled it (or subtitled it?) "For Sophia", aka our good friend Wisdom.

You and I are everlasting lovers
And I know this love will never die
We will drift like clouds across the sky
And watch the world spin by
A lover's paradise

You and I have always loved in freedom
And I know this freedom is so rare
So I say that you can go or stay with me
You are the light that ends the night
You are the reason why

Yesterday my life was very empty
All my dreams were shadowed in despair
When you came you reached into my soul
You melted me like snow
in springtime's warming glow

You're the one that I have always wanted
And I know you've ever needed me
So I'll stay forever in this ecstasy
You are the light that ends the night
You are the reason why...



(composed and written by )

Too much unnecessary detail for a sim. — 180 Proof

Spot on. This world is just too generously rich in infinite details and complexity to qualify as a simulation.

The narrative is in the third person: “When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her … “ (John 4:7). — Apollodorus

I mentioned Luke, not John, and the good Samaritan parable, which I assumed everyone knew about. But that was evidently not the case.

For the edification of the ignorami among us, let me quote the entire parable.

With a little attention and luck, you will note that there is this character Jesus in there. The Jesus character is involved in a dialogue with another fellow, about what God wants from us, and he tells a story somewhat similar to the story of Euthyphro, involving a man beaten up and left to die by the roadside. So the parallels with Plato's dialogue are numerous.

But he [a pharisee], desiring to justify himself, asked Jesus, "Who is my neighbor?"

Jesus answered, "A certain man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who both stripped him and beat him, and departed, leaving him half dead. By chance a certain priest was going down that way. When he saw him, he passed by on the other side. In the same way a Levite also, when he came to the place, and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a certain Samaritan, as he travelled, came where he was. When he saw him, he was moved with compassion, came to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. He set him on his own animal, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. On the next day, when he departed, he took out two denarii, gave them to the host, and said to him, 'Take care of him. Whatever you spend beyond that, I will repay you when I return.' Now which of these three do you think seemed to be a neighbor to him who fell among the robbers?"

He said, "He who showed mercy on him."

Then Jesus said to him, "Go and do likewise."

Luke 10:29 and following

I did not get a chance to read the posts that were deleted — Fooloso4

Basically, Amity and I complained to our beloved Euthyp... err... sorry, Apollodorus about his personal vendetta cluttering the thread, then Frank joked that we were cluttering the thread with our complains about cluttering, and then a mod came and deleted half a dozen posts.

Apparently they have no problem with overdrawn personal feuds.

I don't think Plato puts that in there without reason. — Fooloso4

Not completely without reason; I believe he just chose a plausible location for his story. For the story to work, it had to be far away from Athens because a judge had to travel there, and had to arrive too late, after the criminal labourer had already died of his wounds.

I'll write another post about Luke, who indeed may not have been as good a Greek writer as Plato, but then, he had a better teacher of philosophy than Socrates.

Likewise, Euthyphro being real or not is a meaningless detail which makes no difference whatsoever to the philosophical meaning of the story.

Which to me, incidentally, is exactly the same meaning than that of the good Samaritan parable: God is unimpressed by empty, ritualistic piety, be that from the high priest, the levite or Euthyphro; He loves justice best, even when it comes from the impious.

Exactly. Any plausible place for the story.

It could well be the case as a theoretical hypothesis, but unlikely as it wasn't Jesus who was telling the story. — Apollodorus

That makes no difference. Whoever invented the story might have chosen whatever location came to his mind.

No offense, but Umberto Eco said somewhere that there can be such a thing as over-interpretation. It's about ignoring the noise/signal distinction.

A somewhat similar case in Luke's gospel is in the story of the 'good Samaritan', which happens on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. Some scholars have asked why this location, and what would a Samaritan do there, far away from Galilee. But it could well be that Jesus just invented whatever location came to mind, not even aware that there weren't many Samaritan's outside of Galilee.

I take it as one of these details a skilful writer will include in his prose to make his story sound real and grounded in one place or another.

What's the essential difference between a skull and a vat?

I remember - a long time ago - trying to figure out what position, if any, I had re analytic v continental philosophy.
— Amity

My approach is the read those philosophers who interest me. — Fooloso4

Why yes. Sometimes though, one encounters the phenomenon of schism: imagine you like two philosophers, and in studying them you happen to read a virulent critique of one by the other and vice versa. Sometimes I ask myself in these cases: how to position myself in this dispute, even if only in my own mind? Do I need to? Is the debate meaningful or is it hiding more than it's showing (personal feuds)? Other times, you hate one philosopher and love another, and you find a glowing review of one by the other... These things are a bit destabilizing, in a good way I think. They break the silos, the churches.

What would be the relevance of the Naxos reference?

them anti-materialists. — Apollodorus

Do you define yourself as anti-materialist?

Reminds me of some blogger who defines herself as a "chocolate mint hater". I hate chocolate mint too, and have only scorn for materialism too, but I wouldn't define myself by what I dislike. I could say that I am a chocolate lover, reason for which I don't mix mint in my chocolate. Also I have a passion for the study of human reason and ideas, reason for which I stay away from reductionist ideas.

dry British positivism — Wayfarer

AP is less of a school of thought with its own tenets than a manner of thought in my view, if not a mannerism i.e. a style that progressively turned into meaningless flourish.

It's another way to defang our good friend Sophia: make her a bureaucrat.
— Olivier5

That's one for the ages. — Wayfarer

If you say so... :blush:

Careful here. Collingwood did contribute his "2 cents"; Popper and Whitehead too, to mention only two other non-analytic philosophers. The fact that analytic philosophers dominated academic philosophy in the British isles during the 20th century cannot be explained (in my view) by the untimely death of any one philosopher. There was something deeper, more structural than that at play, a sort of escapism from the difficult questions into mere word play, e.g. "is there something Mary thinks about when she thinks about something?".

This is the kind of question a salaried philosopher can safely indulge in without ruining his career. My idea is that the academic environment in Oxford incentivised such small, safe, boring analytics over more fundamental and risky questioning.

It's another way to defang our good friend Sophia: make her a bureaucrat.