Olivier5

You are being disingenuous. @Fooloso4 is just saying that Euthyphro plays the role of the fool in the dialogue, a fool ready to prosecute his own fath...

It's complicated. Constantine himself was no theologian and couldn't care less which version of JC the bishops would chose. He just wanted the dispute...

It could of course had been worse. Like the Huns could have sacked Constantinople and Rome, or a large meteorite could have wiped out mankind. It coul...

Yes. Only some archeology of knowledge can evidence how philosophical ideas shape and reshape themselves organically over time, compete with one anoth...

No, it just intrumentalized it, tried to control it, and thus stifled it. Porphyry's books were banned by Emperor Constantine. Even Christian philosop...

The Eastern Roman Empire had a larger population than the Western Empire. It was the most developed and richest part of the Empire. And yes, it spoke ...

It happens all the time. Ideas have their own life, they hybridize all the time.

Some of the church fathers were trained as philosophers, eg St Augustine. So perhaps a bit of both. It is clear to me that monotheism responded to a d...

Like everything, there were pros and cons with Christianity. It was more universal, less warmongering than the national or city-bound religions of the...

Christianity, of course. It changed everything.

Me? I don't really subscribe to the idea of gods. I suppose that for Plato, justice and wisdom were eternal forms somewhere out of the cavern. Ideals ...

Have you considered that perhaps some of us are just no fool?

That's the modern constitutional implication. But it's nothing trivial. It's based on the metaphysical idea that the gods themselves are pious, that t...

I think the point was not to drop piety altogether, but to understand that the gods themselves do not always agree and men do not always agree on what...

For the second time: of course it does. Who said it didn't? All I am saying is that you grossly misunderstand this metaphysical message.

How do you interpret it?

You've heard of generational divides? E.g. in the Republic, when exploring the theory of the four political regimes, Plato explains "how the democrati...

And you never heard about conflicts between parents and children about what to do and not do? You don't strike me as the innovative type, that's for s...

I think the political dimension of Plato cannot be denied. It is NOT metaphorical but literal. He went all the way to Syracuse to try his hands at pol...

When we are grown up, we have personally "abolished our own childhood" so your comparison doesn't work very well. I repeat: new metaphysics often comp...

Have you envisaged the possibility that Socrates' accusers could have had a point? Not saying that they were right to sentence him, but that they may ...

To be continued...

Obviously, a new metaphysical message is always a critique of the old one. Politics was an important purpose for all learned folks at the time. Plato ...

I am not saying that the character is unusual, on the contrary he is used as an archetype, an apt example or better, a caricature of the common, up-an...

It seems pretty clear from the Republic that Plato's Socrates is antidemocratic, and holds a sort of Sparta ruled by a philosopher class as the ideal ...

No way. Euthyphro examplifies the ambitious demagogue, plotting against his father in the most unprincipled way and covering it up with good old relig...

More probably, Anytus thought that Socrates had corrupted his son.

Maybe I can take that. The end of Euthyphro is best understood as ironical, a tone frequently associated to Socrates. SOC. Let us begin again from the...

I found this piece informative and well argued: http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/socrates/ifstoneinterview.html

What do you make of the theory that Socrates and Plato were connected to the Thirty, and that Socrates was sentenced to death because of that, in defe...

Realism and materialism are ideas, aren't they?

Thank you. I'm not much into Plato to be honest, but your summary in the OP was well done, a very decent work of extracting the gist, and I know that ...

Don't you worry about me. I'm a master at spotting good masters.

Wild guess.

@Fooloso4 started an interesting thread and he presented his position clearly. He certainly taught little me about this dialogue. So he can be a teach...

No problem, I took your post as such, and thanks for the info. I was just commenting that I liked her pugnacity, personally.

That may be our loss; she was a combative philosopher.

Someone should start a thread on what is your darkest philosophical thought.

Well, if your critique is aimed as academic philosophy, I share your doubts, but people do philosophy all the time in their lives. Even "academic phil...

1. Everything is philosophical when you dig deep enough. Why did you chose Karens? Why are Karens seen as real bad right now in the US? What's the zei...

People who haven't been seriously tested yet should be grateful for that, and not look down on those who've been tested. Life is some kinda test. Darw...

Have you also considered the consequence of this fact, which is that we cannot rely on piety alone to justify anything. Piety is not a good enough sta...

And sometimes, this self-confidence they have comes from having gone through a period of doubt, serious doubt, and having overcome it or survived it s...

Yes, and sometimes this self-confidence is well-placed.

After much philosophical reflection, La Rochefoucauld concluded that self esteem is the reason why we do most of what we do. We want to feel proud of ...

Of course. Most people today would think the Athenians wrong to prosecute Socrates for impiety, so nobody needs to defend Socrates against the charge ...

It says that piety can be used to justify any crime, even the most disgusting. And that is true.

I mean, he was indeed impious. The final chapter reads as: "unfortunately I'm still not convinced about this piety business".

And thus the dialogue points to the hypocrisy of the kind of "pious" folks who can justify pretty much anything by reference to theology, mythology or...

This is a rather cold case, and one could argue that Socrates himself didn't do such a great job at this task. Euthyphro's basic reasoning could be su...