(i) Ian will be joining us, which is awesome.
(ii) Ian thinks that the (italicized) introductions to each dialogue should count as part of the day's five pages. They certainly take time to read, and the idea to read five pages a day came by considering the total length of the volume, not excluding the introductions. So, unless there are protests, we can retroactively declare yesterday's reading to have ended at 6c, and today's at 11b.
(iii) At 9d Socrates says that he "will not insist on this point; let us assume, if you wish, that..." Given that any instance of something's being granted or posited for the sake of argument in Plato deserves some attention, I took a quick look at the Greek, and the 'assume' here appears to be a use of ἀφίημι, which the LSJ says has a primary meaning of 'let go of.'
(iv) For whatever it's worth, the Greek text available at perseus.tufts.edu has a couple instances of Euthyphro's name in that speech of Socrates's (9c-d) that our Cooper translator (G.M.A. Grube) has not preserved in the English. Perhaps there is a textual issue here that I'm not aware of.
(v) At 10a, when Socrates says that "there is something loved and--a different thing--something loving," the "things" translate pronouns, not (say) pragma. (I've got this book on the brain.)
Happy reading!
(1) Regarding the introductions before each dialogue, I just thought that we should include them in the daily five pages for neatness's sake. If nobody else wants to do that, I will easily fold despite my aesthetic inclinations.
ReplyDelete(2) 10d: I am curious why Socrates and Euthyphro think that the gods love pious things because they are pious. Does it make sense to think of the gods as thinking in terms of piety? Wouldn't the gods love what they love for reasons of their own? That they love something might make it pious without their reason for loving it having to do with its piousness. And, each god's reason might be different than the others' so that piousness couldn't glom on to some other property. I have never quite understood that move.
Welcome, Ian! And thanks for your comments, Nate.
ReplyDeleteA few more things:
8a-b: I'm always a bit puzzled about what exactly Socrates thinks has gone wrong with Euthyphro's second attempt at defining piety. The general form of my question is: Has this second definition gone wrong qua definition (contrary to Socrates' claim at 7a: "You have now answered in the way I wanted"), or does it have the right form qua definition, and is just a bad definition? (But if the latter, I'm not sure what to make of Socrates' explanation of why it's wrong: So what if the property of being god-loved is possessed by some of the same things that possess the property of being god-hated? Plato's metaphysics allows particular things of all kinds to participate in opposite Forms at the same time, and that's no objection to the claim that they *really do* participate in both Forms.)
I've tried out a variety of answers to these questions in the past, but I'm still not fully satisfied.
9e: Euthyphro has gone from "impiety is what is not dear to the gods" in his second definition to "what all the gods hate, is impious" in the third. This third definition of impiety gets closer to picking out something like a single form for impiety, but I'm still a bit puzzled at why Socrates keeps asking Euthyphro to provide two definitions at once (see, e.g., 9c-d again).
(ia) I am more than happy to count the italicized introductions as part of the reading: 6c-11b~ish it is, then.
ReplyDelete(ib) Indeed, I think that one of the downsides of the Cooper collection is that it does not contain the more extensive introductions that are published with the works when they are published in singly or in smaller collections. Those introductions can often be very thorough and interesting.
(ii) Comments on this portion of the 'Euthyphro':
8b: Why would the punishing of the father be displeasing to anyone except Cronus (castrated by Zeus) and Uranus (castrated by Cronus)? Why would Hera find this displeasing?
8d-e: S suggests that there is universal agreement that one who does wrong must be punished.
9b: cf. Resp. 327d-e.
9a-e: There is a lot of talk here that strikes me as a bit strong: S asks for proof (τεκμήριόν), and asks that E show him conclusively (μάλιστά)--does S normally make requests of this sort, i.e., prove conclusively that P? Or does he just ask for an argument? ("Tekmêrion" is the term that Protagoras uses at Prt. 323a, I think.)
9c: S claims that if E can show him that some act, X, is pious, then S will have learned from E the nature of piety and impiety. So, one cannot identify that some action X has property P, unless one has a better grasp of what property P is.
[The "have a better grasp" is my gloss on S's rhetorical, "to what greater extent".]
10a: Euthyphro's Dilemma. I heard that Ayer, or maybe Hare, thought that an ability to see that this was a problem was a good indicator of philosophical aptitude.
11b: E indicates a quality that some property has, without having shown S what that property itself is.
Also, thanks to Ian for his comments - I hadn't seen them before I posted. Oops!
ReplyDeleteAnd thanks to Andrew! Sorry, guys...
ReplyDeleteLooks like we're all posting just around midnight--ha!
ReplyDeleteOn a different note, this is funny.
Good stuff, folks! I have little to say in response to these questions, but I've spent a little while thinking about them, to my benefit and pleasure...
ReplyDeleteIt might be worth us thinking about what the aims are, for each of us, to be involved in this project. So, one obvious benefit is that in a few short months, we will have read all of Plato's work. And that'll be (a) sweet, and (b) useful if we ever go on to work in academia.
ReplyDeleteTwo ways that it might be useful: it is useful to have a list of points or problems or questions that different people might raise about the dialogues; it is useful to remember that, e.g., tekmêrion gets used in a few places.
But it one sense, that's more setting up the ground for future work, rather than solving any problems or issues as we read. It would not surprise me if there was not much debate that could be satisfactorily dealt with, between we the readers, simply because of the busyness of all of our lives--ars longa, vita brevis.
Here's just one way that we could give ourselves some space for debate: by allowing the two days (or longer, if we want) following the completion of the reading of a dialogue to be given over to reflection on and discussion of that dialogue.
That would be a modification of the original plan, but the rules aren't carved in stone.
Any thoughts?
Pryio--
ReplyDeleteVery true that we shouldn't treat the rules as carved in stone. I think that for myself, the best way to be more responsive to others' comments is not to take time off but simply to just leave some time for it on days when I'm actively reading, either by devoting more time to the project or by spending less time writing. I very strongly suspect that when we're not reading the Euthyphro, I won't be jumping out of my seat quite so often at the significance of every single line. So I think it will not be too hard to leave plenty of time for blog discussion.
Moreover, it might be nice if much of the discussion happened in the 'real world' (or, as XKCD diction would have it, 'meat-o-sphere'). You and Ian are both within walking distance--perhaps we could just get together for tea here every so often?
Finally, I doubt that I will always have discussion-worthy things to say about the text. Many days, I might be posting in a very minimal way, and I think that's OK.
Does that make sense?
Good question, priyo. I agree that it would be nice to get some discussion and response going; to be honest, I'm not sure how best to do that. I, for one, plan to start posting a bit earlier in the day, which might give me the chance to think through possible responses to other folks' comments - either on previous days or for the current readings.
ReplyDeleteBut I also think it's nice that contributors don't feel pressure to post specifically "discussion-worthy" content. I myself been struck by the "Hmm. Cool!" type of response several times so far, and that fits well within my own goals for this project.
That said, I'm willing to go along with the majority's view of the matter.
Pryio--
ReplyDeleteI think it's right to be struck by the request for _tekmerion_. I'll definitely keep an eye out for that. My sense is that this is unusual.
Ian--
Yeah, good question. My sense is that my hesitance to think of the gods judging on the basis if piety might involve a difference between English 'pious' and Greek 'hosiotes.' But what do I know...
pryio --
ReplyDeleteI would be more than willing to open up some space for further discussion and debate, as mostly I am simply posting my first reactions to the readings in my daily posts (as my primary goal in this project is simply to read all of Plato). But as Nate mentioned, meeting up in the real world occasionally if there is something we would like to discuss strikes me as maybe more enjoyable than further blog posts.