In Plato’s Euthyphro, Socrates attempts to elicit a definition for piety out of Euthyphro, whom he bumps into on the steps of the courthouse. This is not merely an exercise in intellect, for both men will be addressing charges of impiety in their respective cases. In characteristic form, the dialogue proceeds with Socrates posing as the student, who seeks to be educated by Euthyphro, a presumed expert on such matters. Of course, what really transpires through their exchange is that Euthyphro is schooled by Socrates. Socrates is teaching by asking questions that subtly lead Euthyphro through a path of reasoning that will eventually educate Euthyphro about the nature of piety, and not the other way around. The dialogue thus illustrates the “Socratic method" for the reader. Since Euthyphro abruptly ends the conversation and Socrates is left without a satisfactory answer, Plato is implicitly encouraging the reader to can pick up where Euthyphro leaves off and pursue the question in similar fashion. Plato's implication is that learning comes from a place of curiosity and questioning (or, philosophical wonder). Similarly, teaching is not about telling students the answers, but directing curiosity toward reasoned inquiry.
Every time Socrates asks Euthyphro a question, he is in fact teaching Euthyphro what was problematic about Euthyphro’s previous answer, and guiding Euthyphro’s reasoning toward his own idea of what piety must be. When Euthyphro offers a definition of piety, Socrates asks questions that expose contradictions in Euthyphro’s claims. For example, Euthyphro suggests that piety is what the gods love, But Socrates argues that the gods often disagree, so what is loved by one god might be hated by another. Socrates pushes Euthyphro for more answers that avoid such contradictions. For example, after admitting that the gods might disagree, Euthyphro modifies his claim to suggest that piety is only what all the gods love. Socrates leads Euthyphro through a path of reasoning that is constructed by Euthyphro's attempts to self-correct the errors in his previous answers. By answering Socrates’s questions, Euthyphro has argued himself away from his own intuitions about piety: that it has something to do with reverence towards the gods wishes, which can change, might not be consistent across cases, and might not even be knowable. Because of Socrates’s clever teaching method, Euthyphro inadvertently argues himself towards acknowledging that piety must be universal, unchanging, and knowable, which is what Socrates intentionally leads him to think.
The dialogue ultimately ends without an answer about the nature of piety that satisfies Socrates. But this conclusion does not imply that Socrates has failed. Rather, it illustrates what kind of teaching and learning Plato thinks will lead to the answer. Plato is not implying that the question “what is piety?” can’t be answered. In fact, Socrates’s reasoning has moved the conversation closer to an answer, without completing the inquiry. Socrates’s questions are intended to furnish the reader with two things. First, curiosity about the nature of piety. Second, a method for testing potential ideas the reader might come up with. By engaging the reader in Socrates’s unfinished debate with Euthyphro, Plato aims to leave the reader in a state of philosophical wonder about the nature of piety. Plato, as teacher, remains true to this method in the content of the dialogue. He does not offer the reader—or learner—an answer to the question "what is piety?” but a method for reasoned inquiry that will perhaps attain an answer. Plato thus illustrates that teaching isn't about telling students the answers, but prompting them to wonder, and guiding their wonder to fruition through Socratic inquiry.
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The Socratic Method Quotes in Euthyphro
EUTHYPHRO: […] The victim was a dependent of mine, and when we were farming in Naxos he was a servant of ours. He killed one of our household slaves in drunken anger, so my father bound him hand and foot and threw him in a ditch, then sent a man here to inquire from the priest what should be done. During that time he gave no thought or care to the bound man, as being a killer, and it was no matter if he died, which he did. Hunger and cold and his bonds caused his death before the messenger came back from the seer. Both my father and my other relatives are angry that I am prosecuting my father for murder on behalf of a murderer when he hadn’t even killed him, they say, and even if he had, the dead man does not deserve a thought, since he was a killer. For, they say, it is impious for a son to prosecute his father for murder. But their ideas of the divine attitude to piety and impiety are wrong, Socrates.
SOCRATES: […] So tell me now, by Zeus, what you just now maintained you clearly knew: what kind of thing do you say that godliness and ungodliness are, both as regards murder and other things; or is the pious not the same and alike in every action, and the impious the opposite of all that is pious and like itself, and everything that is to be impious presents us with one form or appearance insofar as it is impious?
EUTHYPHRO: Most certainly, Socrates.
SOCRATES: Tell me then, what is the pious, and what the impious, do you say?
EUTHYPHRO: I say that the pious is to do what I am doing now, to prosecute the wrongdoer, be it about murder or temple robbery or anything else, whether the wrongdoer is your father or your mother or anyone else; not to prosecute is impious. And observe, Socrates, that I can cite powerful evidence that the law is so. I have already said to others that such actions are right, not to favor the ungodly, whoever they are. These people themselves believe that Zeus is the best and he unjustly swallowed his sons, and that he in turn castrated his father for similar reasons.
SOCRATES: Bear in mind then that I did not bid you tell me one or two of the many pious actions but that form itself that makes all pious actions pious, for you agreed that all impious actions are impious and all pious actions pious through one form, or don’t you remember?
EUTHYPHRO: I do.
SOCRATES: Tell me then what this form itself is, so that I may look upon it and, using it as a model, say that any action of yours or another’s that is of that kind is pious, and if it is not that it is not.
EUTHYPHRO: If that is how you want it, Socrates, that is how I will tell you.
SOCRATES: That is what I want.
EUTHYPHRO: Well then, what is dear to the gods is pious, what is not is impious.
SOCRATES: But you say that the same things are considered just by
some gods and unjust by others, and as they dispute about these things they are at odds and at war with each other. Is that not so?
EUTHYPHRO: It is.
SOCRATES: The same things then are loved by the gods and hated by the gods, and would be both god-loved and god-hated.
EUTHYPHRO: It seems likely.
SOCRATES: And the same things would be both pious and impious, according to this argument?
EUTHYPHRO: I’m afraid so.
SOCRATES: So you did not answer my question, you surprising man.
I did not ask you what same thing is both pious and impious, and it appears that what is loved by the gods is also hated by them.
SOCRATES: […] Consider this: Is the pious being loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is being loved by the gods?
SOCRATES: It looks as if I was cleverer than Daedalus in using my skill, my friend, insofar as he could only cause to move the things he made himself, but I can make other people’s things move as well as my own.
EUTHYPHRO: I think, Socrates, that the godly and pious is the part of the just that is concerned with the care of the gods, while that concerned with the care of men is the remaining part of justice.
EUTHYPHRO: I told you a short while ago, Socrates, that it is a considerable task to acquire any precise knowledge of these things, but, to put it simply, I say that if a man knows how to say and do what is pleasing to the gods at prayer and sacrifice, those are pious actions such as preserve both private houses and public affairs of state. The opposite of these pleasing actions are impious and overturn and destroy everything.
SOCRATES: If you had no clear knowledge of piety and impiety you would never have ventured to prosecute your old father for murder on behalf of a servant. For fear of the gods you would have been afraid to take the risk lest you should not be acting rightly, and would have been ashamed before men, but now I know well that you believe you have clear knowledge of piety and impiety. So tell me, my good Euthyphro, and do not hide what you think it is.
EUTHYPHRO: Some other time, Socrates, for I am in a hurry now, and it is time for me to go.
SOCRATES: What a thing to do, my friend!
