Plato - Five Dialogues (Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Meno, Phaedo)

EUTHYPHRO - Context: Socrates meets Euthyphro at the king-archon’s court; Socrates charged with impiety by Meletus; Euthyphro prosecutes his father for murder. - central aim: define piety (dikaiosynē) with universal criteria, not mere instances. - key moves: Socrates pushes for a Form-like definition rather than examples; early dialogues look for universal terms. - important concepts in Euthyphro:- hosion: “piety” initially tied to ritual knowledge, later widened to general righteousness. - pious vs impious: attempts to distinguish the form from particular actions. - Genus/Species passages (11e–12d): elaborates the move from many pious actions to a single form. - The Euthyphro dilemma: is something pious because the gods love it, or do the gods love it because it is pious? - Form of the pious: Socrates seeks the one form that makes all pious actions pious, not merely that it is loved by the gods. - outcome: recurring failure to produce a satisfactory definition; illustrates the Socratic method and the pursuit of universal definitions in ethics.