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... for it is unimaginable that if you did not think you knew exactly what holiness is that you would ever have dared to prosecute your aged father on the charge of murder. You would have feared the anger of the gods too much if you chose wrongly and did what is unholy rather than holy. (15d)

Plato states a general definition of 'holy' in Gorgias 507b, namely that to do what is holy is to do one's duty towards God (cf. Euthyphro 12e, 14b). But if that is so, then one immediately asks, Well, but what exactly is one's duty towards God? A definition that general is not what Socrates is looking for.

Plato's Euthyphro - Selections - Comments

Translator Lane Cooper. This dialog was also known in classical times by the title "On Holiness" and was classified as a "tentative dialog" (Diog. L. iii, 58). In what follows I have used the words 'holiness' and 'piety' interchangeably although that is not normal English.

Plato's possibly misconceived logic of language

In this dialog Plato assumes that "the meaning of a common name is the common nature it names", a view Wittgenstein later criticized:

The idea that in order to get clear about the meaning of a general term one had to find the common element in all its applications has shackled philosophical investigation; for it has not only led to no result, but also made the philosopher dismiss as irrelevant the concrete cases, which alone could have helped him to understand the usage of the general term. (BB p. 19-20)

Plato assumes that the meaning of the word 'piety' is what all things called 'pious' have in common, or in other words, their common nature or essence. That essence is the standard of measurement Socrates asks Euthyphro for in 6d-7d.

If Euthyphro will only tell Socrates what the essence of piety is, then Socrates will be able to defend himself in court against the charge of impiety ("Socrates is guilty of refusing to recognize the gods recognized by the state, and of introducing other new divinities"). Socrates says he is sure Euthyphro must know what the essence of piety is, because if Euthyphro does not know, then Euthyphro cannot know if what Euthyphro is doing in prosecuting his own father is pious or not -- indeed, it may well be impious.

In Plato's Euthyphro, ethics is knowledge, and knowledge is definition. (Aristotle gives an account of Socratic definition.)

What Socrates was seeking

I cannot but wonder whether Wittgenstein appreciated why Socrates wanted general definitions in ethics of such words as 'courage' ['bravery'], 'self-control' ['temperance'], 'piety' ['holiness'], 'justice' ['justness'], and 'wisdom', which were the five "cardinal [moral] virtues recognized in Greece" (W.K.C. Guthrie, Plato: the man and his dialogues: earlier period (1975), p. 69). Because if he had, I do not think Wittgenstein could have written that in philosophy "All we are destroying are houses of cards" (PI § 118) -- i.e. conceptual confusions that appear to be profound but in reality are not (ibid. § 111).

[Aside. I may have used here an anachronistic form of expression: Socrates asks "What is holiness?" rather than "What is the meaning of the word 'holiness' in our language?" That is, Socrates does not seem to distinguish between factual and conceptual investigations (Z § 458) (although there is a reason for this), although the question: What is the essence of the phenomenon named 'holiness'? misconceives the relationship between concepts and phenomena.]

Outline of this page ...

The Sophistic Storm, the background to Plato's Euthyphro

On the one hand, there was the traditional way of answering the question of "we are discussing no small matter, but how to live" (Plato, Republic 344e), namely that the good for man is to live in accord with the specific excellence (areté) that is proper and unique to man (Xenophon, Memorabilia iii, 8, 7), which was thought to be the practice of the "cardinal virtues" recognized by the Greeks.

But on the other hand, there were Sophists ("professors of wisdom" or "professional philosophers" (Plato, Euthydemus 307a-c)) who were denying that courage, piety, justice and self-control are by nature (physis) the good for man. Instead, they claimed that the so-called cardinal virtues were no more than social conventions (nomos, "in name only" (nominal)), invented by the weak to keep the strong under control (This doctrine is put forth by Callicles in Plato's Gorgias 483b-c), and consequently are a false guide to human excellence -- i.e. to how man should live his life.

Furthermore, there were Sophists who were denying the very possibility of knowing anything but appearances: it is not only impossible to know the things it is most important for man to know (Euthydemus 293b, Apology 21d), but to know anything objectively at all. Protagoras: "man is the measure of all things": what is true and what is false depends on nothing else than how things appear to each individual (Plato, Theaetetus 160c, Cratylus 386a). Protagoras promised (this is a corollary) to "make the worse appear the better" argument (Aristotle, Rhetoric 1402a), a promise Aristophanes comically, but falsely attributes to Socrates in The Clouds.

That was the storm that was threatening to overturn the traditional Athenian way of life. It had been created by the Sophists, but Socrates -- whose only aim was to benefit the ethical aspect of man (Plato, Apology 30a-b, 36c) -- was popularly blamed for it (ibid. 19b-d). Because unlike the philosopher in Republic 496c-d who, "like a traveler sheltering from a storm behind a wall", keeps to himself, quietly minding his own affairs (tr. Guthrie), Socrates, in the midst of the storm, was confronting young and old, Athenian and foreigner alike (Apology 30a), with the Delphic precept "Know thyself". This meant to examine one's life in order to distinguish what one knows from what one only thinks one knows (but does not) and to find what the good is for oneself both as mankind and as an individual man.

Why question everything? (Socrates and the Sophists)

The difference between the questioning of Socrates and the claims of the Sophists is the difference between philosophy -- the rational (i.e. by the light of natural reason and experience alone) search for the truth and understanding in metaphysics, logic, and ethics -- and sophistry, which is indifference to all but winning the argument, even if with worse rather than better reasons.

All things may be questioned by Socrates because only the examined life is worthy of a being endowed with reason (Apology 37e-38a), or by the Sophists in order to undermine a community's way of thinking and life and authority in the eyes of the young (The second official charge against Socrates was "corrupting the youth" in just this way).

The Place of Religion in Classical Greece

To understand the seriousness behind the Euthyphro's question ("What is piety?"), it must be known that there was no "separation of church and state" in Athens (Piety was not, as it has become in the West, a matter for the individual conscience alone): the well-being of Athens was believed to depend on its gods and any impious act could bring the anger of the gods down on the whole population. Half the criminal charge against Socrates was "introducing novelties in religion" (Euthyphro 3b).

Questions of holiness are not of much concern to Western public life, and we do not often use the word 'piety' nowadays. Other translations for the Greek expression are 'holiness', 'righteousness', 'religious duty', and 'religion' (Guthrie, Plato ... earlier period (1975), p. 104n1). Lane Cooper uses the word 'holiness' in his translation; Benjamin Jowett mostly uses 'piety'. (Translation problems.) But those questions were a concern to Athenian public life, and as a consequence of Socrates' philosophizing in public he found himself visiting the law court, facing criminal prosecution, and that is where he comes upon Euthyphro in Plato's dialog.

[The Athenian constitution of Solon] empowered any citizen to bring action against any person whom he might consider guilty of a crime. (Durant, Life of Greece (1939), v, p. 117)

... to Socrates, who introduced ethics or moral philosophy [i, 14] ... ethics that [part of philosophy = "the pursuit of wisdom"] concerned with life and all that has to do with us ... (Diog. L. i, 14, 18)

What Socrates is Seeking and Why he is Seeking It

What I have done is to gather some passages [selections] of the Euthyphro that, I think, make clear one aspect of Socrates' method in philosophy: of what he is seeking [namely, a common-nature definition of a common name] and why he is seeking it [namely, to use as a guide (an absolute or universal standard of judgment, applicable in all circumstances) in ethics]. (Other aspects of Socrates' method, and the way of life that embodied it, are found in Xenophon's Memorabilia, and of course in Plato's Apology.) W.K.C. Guthrie wrote --

[Socrates] was not only teaching elementary logic but taking his stand on a much bigger question, the universality of value-judgments ... (Socrates (1971), p. 116)

But it wasn't a much bigger question, because logic was Socrates' tool for seeking wisdom -- or knowledge, if that is what wisdom is -- in ethics: if there are no Socratic common nature definitions [in this case logic = wisdom], then according to Plato there can be no knowledge of the moral virtues, and therefore no knowledge of how a human being should live his life.

Misleading Terms

The form of expression Guthrie used was, I think, unhappy because anachronistic: Socrates did not "think in those terms" -- i.e. he did not use our concept 'moral value' to investigate ethics, and in this dialog it is not whether there is a universal standard, but what that standard is that is discussed. Indeed in Xenophon, Socrates makes no distinction between types of good at all: 'good' = 'excellence', and everything that is good has the excellence that is proper to it, whether a man, a knife or a shield.

Further, Guthrie's form of expression may suggest Protagoras' view that the individual man is the measure of all things or that an irrational conscience makes this choice for the individual (cf. Kant's "categorical imperative"). But if ethics is knowledge, as Socrates says it is, then there is no choice to make: there are instead natural excellences ("moral virtues") of which man must seek knowledge and live in accord with.

Can you ask whether a value (e.g. the self-restraint of Socrates versus the intemperance of Callicles) is good or bad -- or is that question nonsense? Socrates can ask that question, but many philosophers, Kant and Wittgenstein included, cannot: their standard of judgment in ethics is not knowledge of human excellence (as it is for Socrates). For those philosophers, "values" say what is good and what is bad; values, according to them, are not dictated, as Socrates thought, by what is verifiably good, but instead by the individual conscience.

Socrates is seeking the grounds for ethical standards in general facts of nature, but many philosophers would claim with David Hume (Bertrand Russell and some of the Sophists) that there are no such grounds: "you cannot derive an ought from an is" (Who knows why). But it is Socrates' view that ought is derived from is: the good for a thing is the specific excellence that is proper and unique to that thing, and what that excellence is, is a matter of fact.

Socrates' aim and method in the Euthyphro

The "general term" discussed in the Euthyphro -- namely, "piety" [but it might as well have been another ethical term, e.g. "courage" or "self-discipline" or "justice"] -- is not of importance to me here, but instead what interests me is the discussion itself as an example of Socrates' purpose and method in philosophy.

Definition by Essence versus Enumeration

SOCRATES: Then tell me. How do you define the holy and the unholy? (5d)

EUTHYPHRO: Well then, I say that the holy is what I am now doing, prosecuting the wrongdoer who commits a murder or a sacrilegious robbery, or sins in any point like that .... And not to prosecute would be unholy. (5d-e)

SOCRATES: But, Euthyphro, there are many other things you will say are holy....

Well, bear in mind that what I asked of you was not to tell me one or two out of all the numerous actions that are holy; I wanted you to tell me what is the essential form of holiness which makes all holy actions holy. (6d)

State what you take piety and impiety to be with reference to murder and all other cases. (5c)

SOCRATES: Is not the holy always one and the same thing in every action ...? And as [to] unholiness, does it not always have its one essential form, which will be found in everything that is unholy?

EUTHYPHRO: Yes, surely, Socrates. (5d)

Maybe Euthyphro should not have conceded that point. Because, if that point [premise] is incorrect -- i.e. if Socrates is mistaken about all holy things having a common nature [a "one essential form"] named 'holiness' -- then Socrates is asking Euthyphro for what neither he nor anyone else can provide: an essential definition of a "something" that has no essence. Socrates does not justify this point to Euthyphro; and perhaps he would have been unable to: it is a foundation of his thinking (as Wittgenstein's distinction between sense and nonsense in language is).

I would like to say: "I must begin with the presumption that a common-name names a common nature." Nothing is possible prior to that; I can't give it a foundation. (Cf. PG i § 81, p. 126-127)

Essential definition by induction versus simple enumeration

Aristotle called the historical Socrates' method of arriving at essential definitions "induction": it ends in being able to say what the examples of a given thing, e.g. holiness, all have in common that makes that thing unique (i.e. different from all other things). [Contrast that with the "theory of abstraction", which imagines a mysterious act of intuition as the source of man's knowledge of inexpressible (i.e. that cannot be expressed = put into words) common natures -- which is very different from Socrates' method of induction where nothing is hidden: everything must explicitly pass the tests of natural reason and experience or, if it cannot pass, be rejected as refuted).]

In the Greater Hippias [287d-288a] Plato rejects the method of defining (or trying to define) a word by giving examples of things called by that word (i.e. definition by enumeration): "Tell me what must beauty by itself be in order to explain why we apply the word 'beautiful' to all your examples of beautiful things." But Plato does not use the historical Socrates' method of induction either (He tries to lasso a nebulosity by talking about "it", as if phenomena defined concepts rather than vice versa, reversing the relationship, and so it is never quite clear what the "it" he is talking about is. [As to what the exact relationship between phenomena and concepts (concept-formation) is [PI II, xii, p. 230], "I make no hypotheses".]

Limit to defining by giving examples

One clear problem with definition by enumeration is the possibility of conflicting lists, e.g. of pious deeds. Because there have been religions where animal sacrifice, sometimes even human sacrifice, has been a pious act, or where slaughtering one's enemy has been holy. And these conflicts may be irresolvable, because religion -- i.e. religious dogma -- no more consists of opinions subject to refutation in Socratic discussion than it does of falsifiable hypotheses. How would Abraham define 'piety' -- as obedience to the voice of God whatever that voice may say to him?

Socrates seeks a Standard in Ethics

SOCRATES: I believe you held there is one ideal form by which unholy things are all unholy and by which all holy things are holy [5d]. Do you remember that? .... Well then, show me what, precisely, this ideal is, so that, with my eye on it, and using it as a standard, I can say that any action done by you or anybody else is holy if it resembles [i.e. has the same common nature or essence as] this ideal, or, if it does not, can deny that it is holy. (6d-e)

I will set aside the question of whether Plato has his own Forms or Archetypes -- [by 'this ideal' he means 'this Absolute': if a word is 'absolute in meaning', then 'it never changes in meaning, but is everywhere the same in meaning'] -- in mind when he has Socrates speak these words [Guthrie does not think so (Plato ... earlier period, p. 118), but not all scholars agree with him]. I will take 'Form' or 'Ideal' in the Euthyphro to mean simply 'defining common nature' or 'essence', and regard 'ideal form' as a pleonasm: 'ideal' = 'form' or 'archetype' in this instance.

In Guthrie's translation the expression 'ideal form' does not appear but instead only the single word 'form' (ibid. p. 115). And rather than 'standard' he uses the word 'pattern' (the Greek is paradigm, ibid. p. 118), but I don't think that 'pattern' makes anything clearer, and what follows directly below shows why it doesn't: Socrates gives as examples of standards the rules for calculating, measuring, and weighing; it would be odd to call those "patterns" (although one might). Jowett uses the expression 'general idea' where Cooper uses 'ideal form', and Jowett continues: "Tell me what this [one idea] is, and then I shall have a standard to which I may look, and by which I may measure the nature of actions ..."

Socrates explains why he seeks a standard in ethics

SOCRATES: What sort of thing, then, is it about which we differ, till, unable to arrive at a decision [i.e. agreement], we might get angry and be enemies to one another? ... See if it is not the following -- right and wrong, the noble and the base, the good and bad. Are not these the things about which we differ, till, unable to arrive at a decision [i.e. agreement], we grow hostile, when we do grow hostile, to each other, you and I and everybody else? (7d)

Look at the matter thus. If you and I were to differ about numbers, on the question which of two was the greater, would a disagreement about that make us angry at each other, and make enemies of us? Should we not settle things by calculation, and so come to an agreement quickly on any point like that? (7b-c)

And similarly if we differed on a question of greater length or less, we would take a measurement, and quickly put an end to the dispute? (7c)

And so, I fancy, we should have recourse to scales, and settle any question about a heavier or lighter weight? (7c)

Note that doing a calculation, taking a measurement, and using scales -- all of these make appeal to a standard, and that is what Socrates is looking for in the case of ethics: a standard by which to judge: this is what he says in (6e): "using it as a standard" I can say of any action that it is holy or unholy. (Plato also uses the metaphor of a standard of measurement in Protagoras 355e-357b.)

Measurement (fact) versus "opinion"

Cf. Plato, measurement versus opinion in the Republic. It is in cases of opinion that we may become angry and fall out with one another (Euthyphro 7d). In Theaetetus 162e-163a Plato contrasts the standard of proof required by mathematicians in geometry (cf. "measurement") to the pseudo-standard of "likelihood" by which arguments are popularly accepted despite no proof being offered for them (cf. "opinion").

A Standard of Measurement is a Standard of Judgment

Socrates asks Euthyphro for a Socratic or essential definition of 'holy': he wants to know what the common nature [or, essence: "that without which a thing could not be what it is"] of all holy things is, so that he can use this knowledge as a standard of judgment. He cites calculating, measuring length, and weighing [or balancing masses] as examples of defined techniques for resolving differences. Socrates wants a similar technique for determining the truth about "right and wrong, the noble and the base, the good and bad", questions over which "we might get angry and become enemies to one another" because we have no such undisputed standard [technique] for resolving our differences in ethics by demonstrating the truth (as we do when we count, measure, and weigh).

Ethics is knowledge, not will (divine or human)

Could someone say that Socrates was looking for Archimedes' fulcrum (i.e. fixed [absolute] point in space), the magical standard to set the world to rights ethically? But on the other hand, that is precisely what Socrates does not want -- namely, magic: he believes that there is truth and falsity in ethics, that ethics is a branch of knowledge. Calculation, measurement, weighing are not magical; they involve the will of no individual [They are not subjective] or god.

Reimarus wrote: "no miracle would prove ... that a circle has four angles; and no miracles ... could remove a contradiction" [quoted by Schweitzer, Quest, tr. Montgomery, p. 22] -- because a miracle is not what we call a proof in mathematics [The example is not apposite: One cannot prove or disprove a definition by any means; an apposite example would be that no miracle would prove that the base angles of an isosceles triangle are not congruent, nor indeed that they are: a miracle [magic] is not mathematical proof]. Socrates is looking for a similar magic-free technique in ethics; ethics [knowledge of the good] must, to his mind, be independent of any will, either human or divine [the good is not good because it is "what God wills" (contra Wittgenstein)]; it must be impersonal, just as calculation, measurement, and weighing are.

"Is not the holy always one and the same thing?"

Wittgenstein's criticism of the method Socrates uses in ethics (as Aristotle and Plato define 'Socratic definition') may be just, but Wittgenstein offers no rational alternative.

It is all very well for Wittgenstein to see a fundamental mistake in seeking a fulcrum where there is none (When Socrates asks, "Is not the holy always one and the same thing in every action?", Wittgenstein will reply: why do you imagine that? You have generalized that because some words can be given common-nature definitions, all words can be given such definitions). -- But where does it leave ethics if Wittgenstein goes further and adds to "where there is none": "and where none is needed"? It leaves ethics where Wittgenstein found himself: "When two principles really do meet which cannot be reconciled with one another, then each man declares the other a fool and heretic" (OC § 611), or as Socrates has said, "we get angry and become enemies to one another" (Euthyphro 7d).

That is the consequence of taking the position that reason cannot find a universal ethical standard. So, while Wittgenstein may have been right in saying that Socrates' and Plato's demand for common natures ("general definitions"), "has shackled philosophical investigation", Socrates, I would say, was in that sense [i.e. in his concern for ethics] more right. (Wittgenstein's criticism in any case certainly hasn't unshackled philosophical investigations, for it has also gotten them nowhere.)

Ethics is Knowledge, and Knowledge is Definition

Whether in Plato or Xenophon, as Socrates sees it, ethics is rational: moral virtue is knowledge of the good (In Plato this is a presumption, a foundation of Socrates' thinking; in Xenophon a simple proof is offered, making it a Socratic thesis to be tested in discussion). By 'rational' is meant here: in accord with natural reason and experience as put to the test in discussion. Many other philosophers and Sophists (especially after Hume) hold that ethics is irrational (or some, as Aristotle, hold that ethics is "rational but not compelling": someone may know what is good yet choose to do what is not good).

Then tell me. How do you define the holy and the unholy? (5d) -- once more, how do you define the holy, and what is holiness? (14c)

Note that Socrates is not asking for Euthyphro's opinion, nor for Euthyphro's impressions (such as "I think of piety as being ..." as if words were defined by introspection). Instead, Euthyphro has claimed to have knowledge of what holiness is (4e-5a), and Socrates is asking him for an account of that knowledge (cf. 9e), because, if we know DEF.= we must be able to tell what we know. When Socrates asks Euthyphro what the "one ideal form" [or common nature] is (6d) that he can use as a "standard" [or yardstick] (6e) for identifying holy things, Euthyphro replies:

EUTHYPHRO: Well, Socrates, if that is what you want, I certainly can tell you.... Well then, what is pleasing to the gods is holy, and what is not pleasing to them is unholy.

SOCRATES: Perfect, Euthyphro! Now you give me just the answer that I asked for. Meanwhile, whether it is right I do not know, but obviously you will go on to prove your statement true. (6e-7a)

[Note that here the correct order of investigation is followed: first the meaning is questioned, and only then the truth or falsity (Republic 339a).] This, then, is an example of a Socratic definition (although not necessarily the correct one) of 'holiness': the defining common nature of all holy things is that they are pleasing to the gods; and in this case there is no need to say how the class of holy things differs from all other classes of things, because there is nothing that is not both pleasing to the gods and holy.

But Socrates then makes the point [points out] that, as according to Euthyphro (7e) and according to all the ancient tellers of tales about the gods [but not, however, according to Socrates (6a, 8e)], the gods themselves differ about what pleases them (They too become "angry and enemies of one another") in some cases. So Socrates suggests a modified definition: the holy is what is pleasing to all the gods. (9d)

The amended definition, however, it seems is also incorrect [or false], because Socrates asks Euthyphro:

SOCRATES: Now think of this. Is what is holy holy because the gods approve it, or do they approve it because it is holy? (10a)

[Is what is holy holy because the gods are pleased by it, or are the gods pleased by it because it is holy?]

[But it] is not because a thing is loved that they who love it love, but it is loved because they love it. (10c)

[It is not because a thing is pleasing that they who are pleased by it are pleased by it, but it is pleasing because it pleases them.]

And so it is because it is holy that it is loved; it is not holy because it is loved .... So what is pleasing to the gods is not the same as what is holy. (10d)

[It is not holy because it pleases the gods, but it pleases the gods because it is holy.]

... it looks as if ... when you were asked to tell the [common] nature of the holy, you did not wish to explain the essence of it. You merely tell me an attribute of it, namely, that it appertains to holiness to be loved by all the gods. (11a)

[What is pleasing to the gods is not the same as what is holy, but it is simply an attribute of holiness that it pleases the gods.]

Do I understand the later arguments in the Euthyphro? Nonetheless, I think that by this point we have learned much that it is important to learn from this dialog. [But fifty years later I have some comments about: Can 'the holy' = 'what the gods love'?]

As to what Plato himself held that piety is, that is, I think, found in Gorgias 507b: piety is correct conduct towards God or doing one's duty towards God ( just as justice is doing one's duty towards men). Euthyphro suggests something that may appear similar in 12e, that holiness is "service to the gods", but that thesis seems refuted.

[Cf. is a thing good because it is what[ever] God wills , or does God will it because it is good in itself? Do the gods say what is good, or are good things good by nature, in themselves, quite independently of the gods?]

The Irrelevance of the Particular Case

"... but also made the philosopher dismiss as irrelevant the concrete cases ..." (BB p. 19)

SOCRATES: But while you were talking, a notion came into my head, and I asked myself, Suppose that Euthyphro proved to me quite clearly that all the gods consider such a death unjust [i.e. the death of the man Euthyphro is prosecuting his father for (9a)], would I have come one whit the nearer for [Euthyphro's having proved this to me] to knowing what the holy is, and what is the unholy? (9c)

This particular case that Socrates rejects is of the type of "concrete cases" Wittgenstein alludes to, asserting that such "alone could have helped him understand the usage of the general term". I have already criticised this idea: Socrates was not looking for examples of 'piety'; he himself would have been far more able than Euthyphro to enumerate them ... if they really would answer his question "What is piety?" and provide him with the universal standard he sought.

As Socrates says, Euthyphro's particular case does not provide him with a standard by which to judge all other cases: Socrates does not want to know what is holy in this particular case only, but instead to know what is holy in any and all cases. If he had that standard [if he knew the essence or common nature of holiness], then he could judge Euthyphro's case as well. What he believes he cannot do is to judge even [the correctness of] Euthyphro's case [course of action] without that standard (and he does not think that Euthyphro can either (15d)). And so Socrates says to Euthyphro at the end of their inconclusive discussion:

SOCRATES: And so we must now go back again, and start from the beginning to find what the holy is. As for me, I will never give up until I know. (15c)

Why, in this case, a list cannot serve as a standard for Socrates

Why does Socrates need a common-nature definition in the Euthyphro? Wouldn't it be enough if Euthyphro were simply to list every case of piety or holiness (Giving examples is our normal way of defining words)? After all, there are rules of conduct (laws) and these needn't have a defining common nature; it is only necessary that the list be complete and public. The gods as legislators.

But if we talk about acts of piety or of what is holy, then do we not find ourselves in the same position as those who ask who the "Seven Wise Men of Greece" were? For, well, there were many lists, and indeed there were seventeen wise men if everyone on those lists is counted. And it is the same with piety or holiness, that each man could have his own list and could be in disagreement with others as to what should or should not be on the list. Further, we do not learn to use the words 'piety' and 'holiness' by being given a list to memorize, as a list of traffic laws must be memorized. The boundaries of the concepts 'piety' and 'holiness' are not limited that way.

And that is why Socrates seeks to know the defining common nature of piety or holiness, because that defining common nature will be a standard by which to judge what belongs or does not belong on such a list, if there were one. (Note that a court of law has a legislator to define the laws, but our common concepts have no such legislator. But see also Plato's Cratylus on the origin of language.)

Is Socrates' question nonsense?

From the point of view of Wittgenstein's logic of language, should we say that the question -- i.e. combination of words -- 'What is piety?' is nonsense [sound without meaning]? For in logic we define words [set limits to concepts or note their absence], not things (whatever the thing piety is when it's at home! an intangible mysterious "abstract object" or phenomenon). Or shouldn't we say that? Isn't it clear what Socrates is looking for, even if he does not find it: he has, after all, given his criterion for a correct answer -- namely, his method of "Socratic definition". We may say that his criterion cannot be met in the case of 'piety', but that does not make the criterion he sets nonsense.

Is there a way forward? For instance, is not 'piety' a concept of the kind that is only understood -- i.e. its meaning made clear -- when its relationship to other concepts -- e.g. 'reverence', 'awe', 'worship', 'sin', 'forgiveness' -- is shown? It is not identical with any of those, but its meaning is bound up with theirs (Cf. trying to define 'moral good'). But even if that makes the meaning of the word 'piety' or 'holiness' clearer, it does not solve Plato's problem any more than saying that there is no problem or that there is no solution would.

[Why shouldn't we define phenomena and in defining the phenomenon define the word that names it? Natural science does this when e.g. it "defines weather" as the condition of the atmosphere in terms of temperature, wind, pressure, and moisture. That definition -- i.e. setting of the limits of the concept 'weather' -- is useful for picturing [understanding] and forecasting the weather (whereas other variables might not be). Why can't we do that with piety or holiness as well? Is that what Plato tries to do? But then why doesn't he succeed?]

Is Euthyphro right to prosecute his own father?

It may be that Euthyphro was right to prosecute his father: the servant who did the murder was drunk and acted out of passion, whereas Euthyphro's father quite soberly subjected that man to a slow and painful death of thirst and hunger and exposure to the elements; the father's crime was indeed far worse than the servant's. But even if we agree with Euthyphro's judgment [Guthrie does not even regard the father as a murderer (Plato ... earlier period, p. 103)] our agreement (or disagreement) is irrelevant to the arguments of Plato's dialog [to its dialectical investigation of what holiness is].

There is even a slight (or maybe very slight [Euthyphro 4e and 15d]) possibility that Plato agrees with Euthyphro and may intend the reader to agree with him as well [cf. Plato, Gorgias 480a-b: "But if he or anyone of those for whom he cares has done wrong, he ought to go of his own accord where he will most speedily be punished" (tr. Woodhead)] -- precisely because whether Euthyphro is right or wrong is irrelevant to the formulation of a "definition of holiness". Socrates and Euthyphro don't even take up [examine] the question of whether this particular judgment is correct or not; and, indeed, in Plato's Socrates' view they cannot -- until they first determine what piety or holiness is: once they know that, they will know whether Euthyphro is right or not. In Plato, the particular is known via the universal; whereas for the historical Socrates (according to Aristotle on Socratic induction) the universal is known via the particular.

EUTHYPHRO: You amuse me, Socrates. You think it makes a difference whether the victim was a member of the family, or not related, when the only thing to watch is whether it was right or not for the man who did the deed to kill him. If he was justified, then let him go; if not, you have to prosecute him [no matter who he is]. The pollution is the same ... [and you must] cleanse yourself, and him as well, by bringing him to justice. (4b-c)

Is that not the position that Plato will later take in Gorgias 480c-d? Yes, with respect to its indifference to who did the deed [The worst that can happen to anyone is to do wrong and to escape punishment for one's wrong-doing (474b)]. [But in the Euthyphro "cleanliness" is spoken of, whereas in the Gorgias Plato speaks of "care of the soul"; is there a difference between making a soul "holy" and making it good? I don't know what Plato would say.]

Guthrie, I do not know why, refers to Euthyphro as a "religious fanatic" (Plato ... earlier period, p. 102n2); but Guthrie quotes Jowett's remark about Euthyphro: "he is not a bad man, and he is friendly to Socrates whose familiar sign [daemon or daimon (Euthyphro 3b)] he recognizes with interest" (ibid. p. 103).

Plato regards Euthyphro as one of those who "out of ignorance [makes] rash assertions" (16a). The possibility of his agreeing with Euthyphro from that point of view is even less than "very slight" -- i.e. it is not possible. But, according to Plato, Plato could have held that Euthyphro was right to prosecute his own father even if Euthyphro did not know why he was right to prosecute his own father (Meno 97b).

Language problems (Translation)

Query: what is the difference between piety and holiness?

It's a nice question. We don't use the words 'piety' and 'holiness' interchangeably, e.g. 'a holy place' but not 'a pious place'. Lighting a vigil candle is pious, but it is not holy. God is holy; man is pious.

The general rule is: things and places are holy, while human acts are pious. How then can one translator of Plato's Euthyphro use the word 'piety', another the word 'holiness'?

If translators can justify consistently using either word in their rendering of the Euthyphro, then it is clear that whatever Greek concept Plato is talking about in this dialog, it is neither 'piety' nor 'holiness'. Because those are different concepts, as e.g. not every pious man is a saint (holy man), but every holy man is pious. A place may be sacred (holy), e.g. Apollo's temple at Delphi, but a place is not pious. The two words, 'piety' and 'holiness', are simply not synonyms = equivalent-in-meaning terms, and so if either word will serve to consistently translate Plato's language, then -- there is no English language equivalent to Plato's language.

[This seems also true with respect to the Greek word that translators render as the English word 'justice' in Plato's Republic (Book One). And there is the confusion caused by the difference between the English word 'beautiful' and the Greek, to which can be compared the difference between the English word 'beautiful' and the Italian word bello, the Italian word meaning, like the Greek, 'of excellent quality', 'eminently serviceable', not only 'handsome (to the eyes, the ears, thing like this)', so that someone can say you've done a beautiful job mucking out the stable or washing the floor.]

Comments about W.K.C. Guthrie's Comments

We all agree that there is such a thing as justice or piety ... (Plato ... earlier period, p. 115)

Is there such agreement? Is there is such "thing" as piety? The words 'justice' and 'piety' are not names of things ("abstract objects" or "abstract phenomena"); to be names is not their role in our language. Compare the remarks elsewhere about 'mind', another word that is not a name: justice, piety, mind -- are neither "somethings" nor "nothings" -- i.e. grammatically (PI § 304), not metaphysically. [This is very important in the context of definitions: are there real definitions of concepts ("abstract terms" or "abstractions", i.e. of non-name-of-object words), or only verbal ones?]

According to Guthrie's view, Socrates "went no further [i.e. no further than to say that they exist] in delimiting the mode of existence of such entities" as justice and piety (p. 116). And Guthrie quotes R.E. Allen, with the comment that he does not think Allen's statement could be bettered:

"For Socratic dialectic, existence is, so to speak, a given: the aim is to penetrate its nature, and that penetration will be expressed in a definition." (Plato ... earlier period, p. 116n1)

As to Allen's statement before the colon ("existence is, so to speak, a given"), cf. Wittgenstein's "It is there -- like our life" (OC § 559). But Wittgenstein would not have called describing a language game a "penetration of nature", however; it is instead simply a description of nature. I don't know how to express the difference between Wittgenstein and Socrates more clearly than to say that while Wittgenstein stopped at ways of life (anthropology) [and therefore endless war: those of views contrary to our own are "fools and heretics" (OC § 611)], Socrates believed that there is ethical truth [and therefore the possibility of peace: we need no longer "fall out and become enemies to one another" (7d)].

Socrates believed that the meanings of moral terms must be "independent ... constant ... unaffected by our opinions of them" (Plato ... earlier period, p. 116):

If I think justice consists in obeying the laws, and you think it is letting the strong man take all he can, this means, not that [justice] is a purely subjective notion, but that we do not yet know what it is. (ibid.)

The question for logic: is there a point at which you must stop saying that "we don't yet know"? A point at which the word 'yet' ["further investigation"] becomes nonsense? A point at which you must say that what you have been looking for is not there to be found? What kind of "must" would this be? (Is it necessarily the case that philosophy can explain concept-formation?)

SOCRATES: I tell you that to let no day pass without discussing goodness and all the other subjects about which you hear me talking and examining both myself and others is really the very best thing that a man can do. And that life without this sort of this examination is not worth living ... (Apology 38a, tr. Tredennick)

Is there a point at which 'I will never give up until I know' becomes nonsense?

The only limit in choosing a frame of reference is sense and nonsense. "A philosopher says: Look at things this way!" (CV p. 61), and if Socrates is not talking nonsense, then Wittgenstein and Socrates had different "logics of language" (even if Socrates spoke of knowledge rather than of meaning, it is clear that the knowledge he was looking for was of the meaning of ethical words). "If not for that little word 'if ' ..."

If a noun is the name of something, then mustn't it be the name of something real?

"... the mode of existence of such entities" (Plato ... earlier period, p. 116).

Well, if 'piety' is a name, then mustn't it be the name of something? And mustn't that something -- namely, piety -- exist? That is word-magic, the grammatical myth Wittgenstein wrote against:

Where our language suggests a body and there is none: there, we would like to say, is a spirit. (PI § 36)

That is what the view that 'noun' = 'name' suggests to us in cases where there is no object. Of course, we may shy away from the word 'spirit' [Plato's Forms are surely spirits]; we may use words like "concept" or "idea" or "notion" instead, but still we think "But surely we are talking about something that exists". But concepts neither exist -- nor not exist. [Of course, in an obvious sense, piety does exist -- i.e. the word 'piety' has a use in our language; in this it is different from an arbitrary collection of letters, "yxtzm" for example. Take away the word 'piety', however, and what is left?]

But all nouns are not "names of things", -- and other than from the point of view of syntax -- our thinking about language would be clearer if we dropped the category 'noun', and instead looked at the rules for using words from the point of view of the meaning of words (i.e. in Wittgenstein's jargon, from the point of view of their "grammar"). There are many other parts of speech besides names of objects (whether tangible or "abstract"), e.g. there are color-words and number-words, and countless other categories of non-name-of-object words.

"... understand the usage of the general term"

... the concrete cases, which alone could have helped him to understand the usage of the general term. When Socrates asks the question, "What is knowledge?" he does not even regard it as a preliminary answer to enumerate cases of knowledge. (BB p. 19-20)

Guthrie does not believe these remarks, which allude to Theaetetus 146d-147c (according apparently to the editor Rhees' footnote), are applicable to the Theaetetus (Guthrie, The Later Plato and the Academy (1978), p. 70). I myself do not know (In any case, Guthrie's criticism refers to Theaetetus 147c-148b and concerns not 'knowledge' but 'definition' [for which no Socratic definition is given, but of which examples are given (Aristotle did credit Socrates with inventing "induction", but that is not the method of the Euthyphro)]; Guthrie seems to be responding to a work about Wittgenstein [i.e. criticism of hearsay] rather than to The Blue Book itself). What is clear, however, is that Wittgenstein's remarks do apply to the Euthyphro.

And how could concrete cases have helped Socrates understand "the usage of the general term" 'piety' or 'holiness'? What does Wittgenstein mean by 'understand'? Do you imagine that Socrates did not know how to use [where to apply] the word 'piety'? No. Socrates may have been asking for what it seems is not to be had, but he is clear about what he wants and about why he wants it. What would Wittgenstein have meant but that concrete cases would have made clear to Socrates that there is no common nature, no essence of piety; that the grammar of 'piety' is like the grammar of 'game'? And now I want to ask -- and then what? Does philosophy amount to this: that "the logic of our language" is examined in solitude behind the shelter of a wall in our search for conceptual clarity? What is the task of the strange few called "lovers of wisdom"? Socrates thought the philosopher had responsibility towards other people, young and old, Athenian and foreigner alike (Apology 30a-b, 36c) ("doing one's duty towards men" is justice (Gorgias 507b), and the good man is just), despite Plato's disillusionment with the community (Republic 496c-d).

Exemplification or giving examples

Euthyphro 6d -- "First comes the mistake of confusing exemplification with definition". (Plato ... earlier period, p. 112)

Of course that is precisely what Wittgenstein denied -- that a definition-by-examples ["exemplification"] is not a definition. But, Socrates might ask: of what use is such a definition-by-examples as a standard? "Family resemblance" is found after-the-fact; it does not say: if such-and-such features are present, then necessarily this is holy and that is not.

[Apropos of Aristotle's Politics 1260a25, Guthrie cites the remark that] "a set of examples may in a given case be more useful than a formal definition". (ibid. p. 112n2)

However, would such a set be useful at all in this particular case? No set of examples is exhaustive (If it were, it would not be a set of examples) -- i.e. none tells you what to do in every as yet to be imagined [i.e. described] case. And so one is left to decide without guidance (PI § 292; cf. § 211) -- but does not 'discretion' contrast with 'objective' [and with 'objective' we indicate knowledge]?

The expression 'formal definition' (cf. Euthyphro 6d-e "essential form of holiness" and 5c-d "one essential form") seems to mean definition by "common nature" or "essence" (or what is called a "general definition" in Aristotle and also in Wittgenstein [PI § 71]). The Greek words translated as 'form' are eidos and idea, which Plato uses interchangeably, but Guthrie believes the expression "theory of ideas" is a misleading title (Plato ... earlier period, p. 114). How, then, should 'form' be understood, because in English it suggests words such as 'shape' or 'pattern' or 'archetype'; in Meno 74d, 72c when Plato asks for the common nature of shapes [i.e. of such things as circles, squares, and triangles] does he mean the "the shape that all shapes have in common"? The word 'form' is too vague by far (to use Wittgenstein's expression); that is, as a tool, what can we do with it?

Quest of the Historical Socrates

The word 'quest' suggests both 'search for' and 'question of'. [The English translation of Schweitzer's book about research into the life of the historical Jesus used the word 'quest' in its title. One sense of 'quest' is search for, but another is the question of.]

In Guthrie's view (Plato ... earlier period 67n1), in asking for e.g. a "definition of piety" Socrates is simply -- naively, as it were (Z § 223) -- seeking to know "what piety is". He is not asking for (or offering to) Euthyphro a metaphysical doctrine. That is why I wrote that, if we accept Guthrie's view, then Socrates had a logic of language rather than a "theory of meaning" (which is what Plato's "theory of Forms" is, metaphysical conjecture about the reality that underlies what is only apparent reality, a conjecture that is "incomparable picture").

In that view Socrates had points of reference -- (e.g. areté as the answer to "Know thyself" and guide to how to live our life, and thoroughgoing reason as the tool to discover the specific excellence (i.e. areté) that is proper to man and to the individual man) -- rather than theories (explanations of what is in plain view, although the word 'theory' is too vague by far). Socrates did not try to justify his presumption (i.e. he did not invent theories) that ethical terms have essential definitions -- and, according to Plato's account, he himself could not state those definitions (Socrates could not "give an account" of what he knew to others): he simply believed that we must look for them.

Now, is that the historical Socrates? Is there an historical Socrates -- or are there only "images" (portraits) (selections) of him (taken from among the evidence, i.e. from the writings of Xenophon and Plato)?

In his Quest Schweitzer says that, because the authors of the synoptic Gospels were not literary men like Plato and Xenophon), it is easier to find the historical Jesus than to find the historical Socrates (p. 6) ... At first I thought: come now, are not the Gospels themselves the result of religious reflection, and at the very least with Socrates we have no miracles to deal with: Plato and Xenophon do not encase Socrates in a wonder-world but in our empirically-known world. But its true that Plato was not only a great philosopher but also a great writer, and Xenophon puts many of his own ideas in Socrates' mouth as well; so maybe there is some justification for Schweitzer's view. [Socrates in The Days of Alkibiades.]

The real "house of cards"

According to Plato, Socrates' formal accusers were against anything they imagined was a danger to Athens' traditional way of life. Socrates was accused in the criminal indictment of damaging the characters of young people by teaching them to destructively question everything. Aristophanes wrote in The Frogs that in Euripides' plays all the "speakers try to reason out the How and Why" with Socrates as a fool for drawing fine distinctions.

Part of the reason behind for the jury's judgment against Socrates may have been his method of refutation by discovering unclarity and contradictions: he had offended the vanity of persons of all classes, craftsmen and politicians, public speakers, and poets (Diog. L. ii, 39) by showing that they did not know what they thought they knew, and such persons wanted revenge for having been shown to be fools, which is what anyone who thinks himself wise when he is not, is.

What we are destroying is nothing but houses of cards ... (PI § 118)

The real house of cards is philosophical vanity, presumption that one understands what one does not.

Giving examples is our normal way of defining (explaining the meaning of) words

In the Euthyphro Socrates asks for a "definition" of the word 'piety' (or 'holiness'); he wants the criterion for correctly applying the word 'piety' in any and all circumstances. However, the only criterion that can be given are examples of that word's use in the language ["And do I know any more about it myself, or is it only other people that I cannot tell?" (cf. PI § 69)].

["... that can be given." What kind of possibility is this? At what point in the investigation are the facts in plain view (at what point do the words 'further search' become nonsense)? How do we determine whether there is or is not an essence?]

And that is what Euthyphro tries to give (as if he were providing a list: This, this and this, and similar things are 'pious' things) (5d-e), and indeed that is all that anyone can give in this case. The combination of words 'What is piety in itself [as if the word 'piety' were the name of an "unconceptualized phenomenon" to be investigated]?' is nonsense.

"The essence of x"

In the Theaetetus Plato asks, "What is clay?" And his answer to this question is an example of the common nature definition he is seeking in the case of piety or holiness:

Suppose we were asked about some obvious common thing, for instance, what clay is; it would be absurd to answer: potter's clay, and ovenmaker's clay, and brickmaker's clay.... To begin with, it is absurd to imagine that our answer conveys any meaning to the questioner, when we use the word 'clay', no matter whose clay we call it -- the dollmaker's or any other craftsman's. You do not suppose that a man can understand the name of a thing, when he does not know what the thing is?.... And besides, we are going an interminable way round, when our answer might be quite short and simple. In this question about clay, for instance, the simple and ordinary thing to say is that clay is earth mixed with moisture, never mind whose clay it may be. (Theaetetus 147a-c, tr. Cornford)

Socrates, regarding all nouns as names of things, follows a mistaken analogy: There is an essence of clay, and therefore there is also an essence of holiness. When questioned Euthyphro replies to Socrates the way a child does when asked for the meaning of a word: he gives examples. But Socrates tries to force him to state a principle (essential definition), or in other words, to give him a standard which Socrates or anyone else can appeal to: whatever meets that standard is 'pious' or 'holy'.

How to define a word?

When we give examples in order to define a word, we add "and similar things". What if to the question "Where is the border?" we answered "Here, there, and similar places"? A concept [i.e. rules for the use of a word] with uncertain borders is not a sure standard -- i.e. it does not make it absolutely clear whether the word 'holy' (or 'pious') applies whenever new cases arise. We may, like Socrates say, "Yes, I am acquainted with many acts that are called holy (6d), but I do not know why they are called holy (9c). Whereas if I knew what holiness is, then I would know why to call anything 'holy' or 'unholy' (6e) and therefore would always apply those words correctly." Plato's Socratic idea is quite sound.

But it is contrary to what is possible, and therefore in this dialogue it seems that Euthyphro is right and Socrates is wrong, that there is no "essential definition of piety" (that is not too general to serve as a standard). Except of course that even if Euthyphro is right, he does not know why he is right, and believes himself to be right for the wrong reason: i.e. he thinks he knows what he does not know (Apology 21d) -- namely, what "the essence of piety" is.

For logic of language, the important question raised by the Euthyphro is: What techniques do we use to define words? And therefore it is important to ask: What are the techniques Euthyphro employs or tries to employ to define the word 'holy' or to say "what holiness is"? Plato's Socrates introduces the ideal of a standard [essential definition]; that is not the technique we normally employ to define a word, but is it the technique we must employ if we are to know what we are talking about? (Is a concept with indefinite borders ignorance?)

'To know' DEF.= 'to be able to give an account of what you know to others' (Socrates)

If Euthyphro knew what piety is, he could say what piety is -- i.e. he could give an account of what he knew to others. By 'an account' (logos) Socrates, at least in Plato, means what is now called a 'Socratic definition', according to Guthrie.

I will try to show how he encouraged his companions to become skilled in discussion. Socrates held that those who know what any given thing is can also expound [set forth or explain] it to others; on the other hand, those who do not know are misled themselves and mislead others. For this reason he never gave up considering with his companions what any given thing is [i.e. seeking explanations of meaning DEF.= definitions]. (Xenophon, Memorabilia iv, 6, 1, tr. Marchant)

SOCRATES: Well, we say then, Laches, that we know the nature of virtue?

LACHES: Yes.

SOCRATES: And that which we know we must surely be able to tell?

LACHES: Certainly. (Laches 190c, tr. Jowett)

But "tell" is what Euthyphro seems unable to do; so that if being able to say what the essence of piety is = knowing what piety is, then Euthyphro does not know what piety is. But (1) need piety have an essence (i.e. must there be a common nature to all things called 'pious')? and (2) must we always be able to say ["tell"] -- i.e. put into words -- what we know (e.g. "how thunder sounds", "the scent of an orange")?

My comments here belong to "grammar" (in Wittgenstein's jargon) -- so am I using the word 'logic' in these "logic of language" pages the way Socrates did? Socrates wanted to know about the nature of the things words name, whereas I want to know about the use in the language of words. Socrates thinking is pre-Kantian: to his mind, things define concepts rather than concepts define things (objects and phenomena) (as if percepts without concepts were not blind or chaotic; Apollo is the lord of concepts; concepts set limits).

Wittgenstein and Socrates

Query: Wittgenstein and Socrates conversation

Wittgenstein cast in the role of Euthyphro: how would he respond -- if he did not simply reject the assumptions about language implicit in Socrates' question ("And that is not an answer but a rejection of the question" (PI § 47)). What would he say to Socrates? that "there is no standard of the kind you seek, that you are following a false grammatical analogy (If A can be measured, then B can be measured as well)"? Would Wittgenstein say that he himself "does not know what piety is" -- i.e. that the word 'piety' has no meaning in Socrates' sense of 'meaning'? that we don't use the word 'piety' the way Socrates imagines, i.e. as the name of a common nature?

In what way would Wittgenstein (who holds that metaphysics is mere conceptual confusion, and that ethics is not rational and therefore no part of philosophy) and Socrates (who holds, not only that ethics is rational but that "we are discussing no small matter, but how to live" is the most important part of philosophy) have anything to say to one another (as earlier I said they hadn't)? Wittgenstein's "A philosopher says: Look at things this way rather than that!" is not an argument [cf. Euthyphro 7b-c].

Query: Euthyphro's concept of piety. How does he define it?

How does he define what -- the word 'piety' ("concept of piety") or the phenomenon of piety? Is that a question of various ways of being interested in a phenomenon", so that Plato can say he is interested in knowing what the common nature of piety or holy things is (because he assumes that there is such a nature)? as if he were asking what the common nature of things called by the common name 'clay' is?

If piety is a phenomenon existing independently of man, it must be possible for all mankind to be mistaken about what piety is, as all of mankind might be mistaken about what thunder is, if we identify thunder with its cause, as Aristotle does. A phenomenon of piety there may well be -- but it is a human rather than a natural phenomenon: it has no existence independent of man. And so it is not a question of "what piety itself is" (or absolute piety, Plato's universal standard) but of a human way of life, or rather ways of life: different communities and individuals have different ideas about what is pious and what is not (cf. PI § 79).

We cannot investigate the gods as if we were investigating a natural phenomenon and conclude from our investigation that piety or holiness is such-and-such, as if we were verifying an hypothesis about what the natural phenomenon of thunder is.

Piety -- i.e. the concept 'piety' -- was made by man for man's use, as was the concept 'God' or 'gods', not vice versa as Plato imagines. Not all phenomena are natural (i.e. having existence independently of man). In other words, the grammar of the words 'thunder' and 'piety' are different: man, so to speak, was made for thunder, not thunder for man.

Query: which philosopher says that definitions are at the root of philosophy problems?

Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. But 'definition' in which sense -- in Socrates' or Wittgenstein's; : definitions of things versus definitions of word? But are there real definitions of the things that concern Socrates, namely piety, courage, justice? (Neither Socrates nor Plato is looking for an anthropologist's real definition of piety, which would be a mere description of human ways of life and thought, i.e. of the use of words in the language (as in a dictionary), rather than "the common nature of piety" they think they seek to find.)

There are many different kinds of nouns: not all are names of independently existing things (objects or phenomena), yet all nouns are suggestive of being so. Take away from us the words 'piety' and 'holiness', and we are left with nothing to cling to; but give us those words and we seem able to grab hold of ghosts.

"Just the sort of answer I want"

... when Socrates asks for the meaning of a word and people give him examples of how the word is used, he isn't satisfied, but wants [a common nature] definition. Now if someone shows me how a word is used and its different meanings, that is just the sort of answer I want. (Recollections p. 115)

Tell me, Euthyphro, what do you mean by 'piety'? -- "This, prosecuting my father for murder."

But we wouldn't say that thereby Euthyphro had defined the word 'piety' for us. He has given us an explanation of meaning, but it is not adequate to teach us how to use the word 'piety'. And you certainly couldn't say 'prosecuting Euthyphro's father for murder' DEF.= 'piety' (this is not a definition by synonyms).

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