Heritage Comics

Heritage Comics

Heritage Comics

Plato's Euthyphro is a dialogue between Socrates and the young 'prophet' Euthyphro outside the court in Athens just before Socrates is to go to trial. As Socrates has been charged by the Athenians with 'impiety', and as Euthypho claims to understand piety perfectly (5a) Socrates, sarcastically, asks the younger man to explain "what is piety and what is impiety?" Having at first stated that he can easily define 'piety' as well as "many other stories about divine matters"(6c) it soon becomes clear that Euthyphro has no idea what piety is and no clear idea about "that accurate knowledge" (14b) of the will of the gods he boasts of repeatedly.

The importance of understanding the meaning of this concept of 'piety' is impressed upon a reader in that Euthyphro is at court to prosecute a case against his own father for impiety (his father allowed a laborer, who had killed a slave, to die, bound in a ditch, while he awaited word from the authorities on how he should proceed against the man) while Socrates, of course, is there to defend himself against the same charge of impiety for "corrupting the youth" and "inventing new gods" (3b). The man prosecuting Socrates, Meletus, is presented as being about the same age as and having the same understanding of piety as Euthyphro does; so in questioning the young man on the meaning of piety, Socrates is symbolically questioning his own accuser and, more importantly, questioning that complacency of accepting easy answers to the most difficult problems.