Socrates unfinished quest on pious.

[Confused]

In "Plato: The Trial and Death of Socrates", many philosophical queries can be derived. But one I never could completely come to terms with his quest to define what is pious. The circular reasoning went something like: all the actions we call pious are considered pious because we consider the action just. However, the action could be considered impious if we considered the same action to be unjust. But we consider what is just by what is pious. Just as we consider what is unjust by what is impious. He questions if where there is piety there is also justice, but where there justice there is not always piety, for the pious is a part of justice.

Euthyphro tries in earnest to explain what piety is, but fails quite miserably.

Is it possible to define piety? Is it related to justice? Is it related to the good? Is the godly and pious part of the just concerned with the care of the gods? Is any pious action an action that is pleasing to the gods? Or is piety a human construct that will forever defy any absolute definition?

[Furrowed Brow]

I have not read the Trial and Death of Socrates. However I read The Republic and some other stuff. At times Plato seems to be using Socrates as a cipher for his own ideas. Plato's way of breaking out of the circle is to escape to some platonic realm in which the Good resides and everything we might deem as "good" is but a pale shadow of the original.

You will probably know what I shall say next - I can't abide platonic metaphysics.

So I'd say in part the answer is human construct. I'd also say there are multiple uses of the word "good" e.g.

Good Goal
Good Samaritan
Good night
Good day
Good times
Good food
Good friends
It's good to see you.
It's good you came
olive oil is good for you

and we do not have to generalise to find a commonality between all uses of the word. To understand their meaning we have to look at the context and how the word is used. This approach would be very later Wittgenstein and very not Plato.

Tollowing through on this line of thought justice, piety and morality will also be human constructs. Their meanings not resulting from universal abstractions or nether worlds.

[Confused]

I have not read the Trial and Death of Socrates. However I read The Republic and some other stuff. At times Plato seems to be using Socrates as a cipher for his own ideas. Plato's way of breaking out of the circle is to escape to some platonic realm in which the Good resides and everything we might deem as "good" is but a pale shadow of the original.

You will probably know what I shall say next - I can't abide platonic metaphysics.

So I'd say in part the answer is human construct. I'd also say there are multiple uses of the word "good" e.g.

Good Goal
Good Samaritan
Good night
Good day
Good times
Good food
Good friends
It's good to see you.
It's good you came
olive oil is good for you

and we do not have to generalise to find a commonality between all uses of the word. To understand their meaning we have to look at the context and how the word is used. This approach would be very later Wittgenstein and very not Plato.

Tollowing through on this line of thought justice, piety and morality will also be human constructs. Their meanings not resulting from universal abstractions or nether worlds.

Yep, I knew which road you would take, but you fall right into what Euthuphro tries to reason. He gives good as a construct of what is pious. But Socrates then delves into what is good? Is it good because it is just or is it just because it is good. Hence is pious just or is it just because it is pious.

[AClockWorkOrange]

pious is just being reverent to like...a god or something....


Tying that to "being good" is irreverent.


...Ive never liked Plato or Socrates...

Socrates used dialogoue like a weapon, not a tool for learning. He set up people into a discussion constructed on HIS terms, waited till he wrapped them up, and bludgeoned them with his preconceived answere that was not neccesarily right.

Socrates was a jerk.

[Confused]

pious is just being reverent to like...a god or something....


Tying that to "being good" is irreverent.


...Ive never liked Plato or Socrates...

Socrates used dialogoue like a weapon, not a tool for learning. He set up people into a discussion constructed on HIS terms, waited till he wrapped them up, and bludgeoned them with his preconceived answere that was not neccesarily right.

Socrates was a jerk.

While I won't deny his word games, in doing so, he brings some very valid points however. But he never did give a preconceived answer as to what pious was. Euthyphro ties it in with godly. Socrates does what we do, tries to filter out the subjective terms in an effort to find some universal understanding. This is the only book of his that I have read that never finished it's quest for understanding. The concept of pious was considered a godly term, not a human construct. So we should have some universal meaning behind it form that time period. Yet one is never found. Euthuphro politely backs out and I find it quite unsatisfactory that no middle ground was ever met. At least, has one been, I would have an issue of debate. But the absence of a resolution leads me to wonder if we can find a universal understanding of what is pious, even if it is in terms of godly construct.

[QED]

Perhaps this ties-in to the notion of apparently universal morality that I have just started a fresh debate on here: CS Lewis: Proof of God through universal morality?

Once you have a set of universal morals, piety follows from their observance.

[Furrowed Brow]

Yep, I knew which road you would take, but you fall right into what Euthuphro tries to reason. He gives good as a construct of what is pious. But Socrates then delves into what is good? Is it good because it is just or is it just because it is good. Hence is pious just or is it just because it is pious.

But it sounds like Euthuphro is making the mistake of trying to generalise. The lesson I take from the later Wittgenstein is to study the use of words in situ. Don’t generalise. The sense and meaning of a word is how it is used in context.

To link what is “good” to what is “pious” just compounds what I see as a mistake brought about by a philosophical urge to generalise meanings of words into abstraction

Pious may at times be a synonym for Good. But rather that abstract into universals, just let the different contexts and situations in which the words are used stand as their definition. There may be some overlap, and there will be some differences. But there is no universal rule by which to measure those overlap and differences, other than the rules of the situations and context in which the words are deployed.

If you ever read Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations it is a very frustrating. He seems to just want to offer examples of how words are used without drawing any substantial conclusions or building any kind of coherent argument. But that is the point of this kind of philosophical approach. The meaning is already given in the context of use.

[Confused]

Yep, I knew which road you would take, but you fall right into what Euthuphro tries to reason. He gives good as a construct of what is pious. But Socrates then delves into what is good? Is it good because it is just or is it just because it is good. Hence is pious just or is it just because it is pious.

But it sounds like Euthuphro is making the mistake of trying to generalise. The lesson I take from the later Wittgenstein is to study the use of words in situ. Don’t generalise. The sense and meaning of a word is how it is used in context.

To link what is “good” to what is “pious” just compounds what I see as a mistake brought about by a philosophical urge to generalise meanings of words into abstraction

Pious may at times be a synonym for Good. But rather that abstract into universals, just let the different contexts and situations in which the words are used stand as their definition. There may be some overlap, and there will be some differences. But there is no universal rule by which to measure those overlap and differences, other than the rules of the situations and context in which the words are deployed.

If you ever read Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations it is a very frustrating. He seems to just want to offer examples of how words are used without drawing any substantial conclusions or building any kind of coherent argument. But that is the point of this kind of philosophical approach. The meaning is already given in the context of use.

As always, you point out the obvious that I am blind to.. I hate it when you do that. But after reading this post, I went back and reread the story. You would be correct.