The veneration of Zeus Meilichios, relief, Berlin
46:58 / 415 words
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This is the first of two parts of a lecture on the Platonic dialogue Euthyphro, which deals with the nature of piety. As with the Theages, I interpret the Euthyphro as in part a reply to Aristophanes’ Clouds.
There are a couple of “jumps” in the lecture where removed inaudible portions of the discussion but left in my answers. The questions can be inferred from the answers. Also, in a couple of places, my voice gets quieter as I stepped away from the microphone to write on the marker board.
The Source of the Lecture
In September and October of 1998, I gave a course of eight, two-hour lectures on “The Trial of Socrates.” We covered the following topics and texts:
- Myth, pre-philosphical concepts of order, and the presocratic philosophical background of Aristophanes’ Clouds
- Aristophanes’ comedy Clouds, which gives a very unflattering portrayal of Socrates
- Plato’s dialogue Theages, which can be read as a rebuttal to the Clouds
- Plato’s dialogue Euthyphro, which is set just before the trial of Socrates and deals with one of the accusations against him, namely impiety
- Plato’s Apology of Socrates, his speech to the jury at his trial
- Plato’s dialogue Crito, which is set in his prison cell as Socrates awaits execution
- Plato’s dialogue Phaedo, which describes the last conversations and death of Socrates
The whole class was taped, but the tapes of the first lecture, which was an introduction to the whole course, and the last lecture, on the Phaedo, have disappeared. Nevertheless, the six remaining lectures, which I will release in 12 separate parts, contain a lot of useful material.
The books for the class are:
- A Presocratics Reader, ed. Patricia Curd (we used the first edition; the pagination may be different for the second edition)
- Plato and Aristophanes, Four Texts on Socrates: Plato’s “Euthyphro,” “Apology of Socrates,” “Crito,” and Aristophanes’ “Clouds”, ed. and trans. Thomas West and Grace Starry West
- Plato, Theages, in The Roots of Political Philosophy: Ten Forgotten Socratic Dialogues, ed. Thomas L. Pangle
If anyone is interested in producing a transcript of this lecture, we will gladly publish it. Ideally, we would like one person to do a draft transcription and then place it online to allow other listeners to offer corrections. Please contact Greg Johnson at mailto://[email protected] before starting work, so we can prevent wasteful duplication of efforts.
Greg Johnson
Editor-in-Chief
One Comment
Thank you for this. So that is what the Socratic fallacy is. It amuses me to remember people who have no sense of humour trying to play Socrates with me, as if I should fall down on my knees in adoration. I had one professor tell me he wanted to raise us to his level. I asked him where that was? Not cool I know, but he asked for it and I had very little impulse control. If he was so ‘up there’, he would not have to say so. It would be obvious.