Philosophy: Plato’s 5 Dialogue Question
Other
My assignment is this:
Post a thoughtful response to both of the following questions (your response should be at least two paragraphs in length):
1. How could the sort of investigation Socrates suggests make any progress towards an answer when the questioner (Socrates) is ignorant and the respondent (Euthyphro) is now in confusion? Mustn’t somebody know something in order for the inquiry to get off the ground or move in the right direction?
2. The dialogue ends with no progress being made — or does it? What positive results (if any) does the Socratic method yield? Do we know any more about piety at the end of the dialogue than we knew at the beginning?
So far this is what I have written..
1. From what we know of Piety, it is related to religion and justice. What then makes something pious (just)? This is what Socrates wanted to know, and so, he asked Euthyphro to help him understand. The questioning from Socrates’s showed that Euthyphro had contradictions in his definitions of what is pious. Socrates simply questioned and brought up flaws in Euthyphro’s answers, which Euthyphro then proceded to answer with more contradictions. In the end Socrates was left with no clear definition of “pious” and Euthyphro was shown to be ignorant. This doesn’t mean that they did not make any progression. In finding contradictions through questioning, we can say that we are a step closer to finding an answer to what is “piety”. We are also introduced to Socrate’s method of questioning which helps people think for themselves and be aware of their logic.
2. Unfortunately, we do not have a clear definition of what is pious. We do know that Socrate’s method of questioning Euthyphro led to a step by step process known as “Socrates method”. The socratic method in the dialogue brought out the inconsistences in Euthypro’s answers and made him aware of them. This made Euthyphro think and bring up new ideas, which is a positive aspect to the method. We do not know what piety is but we are a step closer to finding out a universal definition.
I am very new to philosophy and its a bit difficult to understand, so I’m not sure if what I wrote makes much sense. If it does make sense, I feel I need to write more but I’m at a blank to what I need to add or write down. Need help understanding, and what else I should be focusing on. Both answers sound similar as well, which makes me doubt my understanding of the questions.
Thank you
