Plato's Euthyphron (notes & reflections)

1) Several core conceptions of this short dialogue

τὸ ὅσιον: das Fromme / the pious (substantive form of the corresponding adjective)
τὸ θεοφιλὲς: das Gottesgeliebte / (the) loved by the gods (difficult to be expressed in English)
τὸ δίκαιον: das Gerechte / the just

2) the argumentative structure

Socrates asks Euthyphron to define the word 'pious': Λέγε δή, τί φῂς εἶναι τὸ ὅσιον καὶ τί τὸ ἀνὅσιον; (5d)

Socrates rejects an extensional definition of the 'pious' but insist to be told what the original form of the pious is, through which all pious actions are called 'pious'. He asks to know what the Idea 'ἰδέα' of pious ist (6e).

The first attempt of Euthyphron to define: τὸ ὅσιον=τὸ θεοφιλὲς (7a).
Socrates destructs this definition by telling him that the gods disagree and battle with each other, thus it is impossible to please all of them. What some gods hate is loved by the others, thus it is the same, according to this definition, to be pious and impious. Ad absurdum.

The second attempt: modification of this definition as "pious is what is loved by all gods" (9e).

Socrates shows, that both concepts "pious" and "loved by gods" are not synonym, because the pious is loved because it is pious, but it is not pious because it is love (1oe) - an (semantical) asymmetry.

Third attempt by using another concept: the just. What is just, is pious, a suggestion made by Socrates himself (12a), but the same Socrates shows that neither does this suffice, because what is pious, is just; but what is just, is not always pious (12d) - again an asymmetry. But if what is just contains what is pious, the pious should be able to be defined through restriction of the concept 'just'. Thus Socrates asks Euthyphron to tell what part of the just is pious (12e).

Fourth attempt: Euthyphron follows the suggestion of Socrates and restricts the pious to the service (θεραπεία) of gods (13a).

Socrates asks, if it is a service to gods, isn't it a kind of bargain with them? A bargain can't be pious because it bases upon mutual benificies. But what we do for gods can't be of use to them. What we receive from them is in opposite of great use to ourselves.

Euthyphron encounters that what we do as a service to gods is loved by them, but not useful to them, and so returns to his first attempt (15b).

A circle and seemly nothing achieved, but wait, he gives up his plan to sue his own old father.

3) reflections

What is specially interesting is the dialectical method which contains scrutinization of two opposite concepts (in this case the pious and the impious) and the semantical analysis of concepts (whether they are semantically equivalent or not). It reminds one of the Topics of Aristotle, where a similar method is applied. They say that Aristotle's Topics is still quite obliged to the Platonic Academy, no wonder then.