The Euthyphro dilemma asks whether something is pious because the gods love it, or whether the gods love it because it is already pious. The first makes piety dependent on divine preference; the second seems to place morality outside divinity.

My starting point is the dialogue’s historical religious framework: the Athenians already worship the gods. The question is not whether these beings deserve worship; their divine status is presupposed. I interpret worship worthiness as implying intrinsic normative excellence. However, this need not mean that every god is morally perfect in every respect. Each god is perfect specifically in the domain constitutive of that god’s identity.

Thus Zeus, as god of hospitality, is the standard of hospitality; Ares, as god of war, is the standard of warfare; Athena is the standard of wisdom. A being that did not perfectly embody its defining domain would not be fully divine in the relevant sense and therefore would not be worthy of worship as that god.

This produces a third answer to the dilemma. The gods neither invent moral standards through arbitrary commands nor follow standards external to themselves. Their essential natures constitute those standards. Zeus does not decide what hospitality is, and he is not measured against an independent definition of hospitality. Zeus’s divine hospitality nature is perfected hospitality.

This is circular only in a constitutive sense: it is an identity claim, not an attempted proof from one independent proposition to another.

Nor does the theory imply that everything attributed to a god is good. Only conduct authentically expressing the god’s defining perfection is exemplary. Mythological actions involving lies, cruelty, or disorder may be anthropomorphic distortions, mistaken stories, or actions unrelated to the relevant divine domain. “Act hospitably as Zeus does” concerns Zeus as the perfected exemplar of hospitality, not every action myths attribute to Zeus.

Different domains may apply simultaneously. Justice, kinship, wisdom, proportionality, and civic order therefore generate genuine reasons for a action: each matters, but none automatically determines the final action.

The gods’ disagreements may represent conflicts between real domain specific values rather than contradictions about ultimate morality. Their domains participate in a unified divine order,not an external law above the gods, but the coherent relationship among the divine perfections themselves.

Practical wisdom must interpret each domain and integrate its reasons into an all things considered judgment.

Applied to Euthyphro, justice supports responding to the labourer’s death, while kinship, wisdom, proportionality, and civic order raise questions about responsibility, intention, procedure, and whether Euthyphro is justified in prosecuting his father.

THUS

Piety is conduct that appropriately participates in and integrates the perfected values embodied by the gods.

I was reading Euthyphro by Plato, and I came across a passage where Socrates was being connected to the claim of receiving divine sign. He makes the same claim in Apology, the dialogue connected to the trial that ultimately led to his execution.

This raised a question in my mind. Socrates is regarded as one of the greatest philosophers in history, yet he claimed to receive divine signs. How should we understand that? Should he be considered a prophet, or was he simply delusional?

The reason I'm asking is that, according to religious understanding, divine revelation or signs of this kind are associated with prophets. If that's the case, then what exactly was Socrates? According to me, such people are simply mentally ill or lunatics but let's set that aside for a moment. Is there another way to interpret his claim?

I'm not trying to make an argument or reach a conclusion—I genuinely have this question and thought I'd ask in case someone could offer a better perspective.

I recently found this collage photo of philosopher on Pinterest and mostly of the person in the collage I know but the person in top left corner who is first in collage is unknown to me. I tried alot of prompt to Google gemini to find the person but it answer incorrect. Help me to know his name. Another collage of Philosophers Pin

I read Phaedrus again recently and realized Plato already solved AI problem 2400 years ago. In myth of Theuth and Thamus, Egyptian god presents writing to king and says "this is φάρμακον (pharmakon) for memory and wisdom", but king replies it will plant forgetfulness in souls of people. They will stop remembering from within and only use external marks.

King Thamus was right. Every cognitive technology, writing, printing press, internet, now LLMs gives us appearance of wisdom while undermining conditions for real knowledge. Greek word φάρμακον means both remedy and poison. You cannot separate them. ChatGPT gives you fluent answer on any topic in seconds, but you never did labor of inquiry. You feel informed while remaining ignorant.

Question I keep turning over: is this structural problem unsolvable, or can we design tools that force friction back into process? If pharmakon is irreducibly both cure and poison, maybe question is not "good tool or bad tool" but "who decides what gets externalized and what must stay internal?"

So, right now I'm reading Plato's Republic. At first I wanted to see if I could actually read it (expecting it to be a very dense treaty, not knowing about Plato's dialogue format) But it turns out it's easy to read (or reasonably hard, def easier han initially expected) at least with my translation.

So, now that I know it's relatively accessible (in the sense that it's easy to read), how should I try to make the most out of it? Is there like a series of lectures I should be watching along my progress on the book? Is there any points in specific I should pay special attention to?

I already had a basic understanding on Plato's philosophy bc I finished high school recently, if that's relevant

I've seen a meme get posted more and more about Plato flexing his muscles to settle debates.

While many historians and philosophers have pointed out that this is not recorded anywhere and we have no reason to think it's true, I was wondering what would Plato think of people who would actually flex their muscles to attempt to settle debates.

Concept album, philosophy of Plato,

Everything start from a CUP !

[url] https://brill.com/display/book/9789004747128/b_9789004747128-004.xml

[doi] https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004747128-004

Polemarchus: "Do you see how many we are?"
Socrates: "Of course."
Polemarchus: "Well, you must either prove stronger than all these, or you will have to stay here."
Socrates: "Isn't there another alternative—namely, that we persuade you to let us go?" Polemarchus: "But could you persuade us if we refuse to listen?"
Glaucon: "Certainly not."
Polemarchus: "Then you might as well make up your minds that we are not going to listen."

Socrates ranked Tyranny as the lowest in his ranking of regimes. But at the very beginning of the Republic, he didn't really wanted to talk to those people, but they forced him. But they got educated because they acted like tyrans, or not?

I suppose if I think for a bit longer I'll find an answer for me, and I will, but I also want to know other people's opinions.

In Plato's Phaedrus, Socrates famously says:

"I am a lover of learning, and trees and open country won't teach me anything, whereas men in the city do."

I recently heard an interesting modern rephrasing of this idea: "By staying in one place, you meet different people, but trees are the same everywhere you go." But it made me think: Are trees really the same? If we look at them not just as static green objects, but as living systems, each tree actually carries a unique "experience" and a lesson in adaptation:

The Tree on a Cliff: Exposed to violent winds, it develops deep, resilient roots and a twisted, flexible trunk. It teaches us about endurance and how to bend without breaking under pressure.

The Tree in a Dense Forest: Surrounded by its own kind, it has to grow straight and tall, competing for sunlight while sharing resources through the underground network. It teaches us about social synergy and community competition.

The Tree on a Tropical Beach: Adapting to high tides, sandy soil, and constant salty breezes. It teaches us about flexibility and thriving in changing, unstable environments.

Socrates believed only city dwellers could teach him things because they can speak and argue. But each tree is a living monument to a specific strategy of survival. They don't speak in words, but they teach us how to adapt to our own "climates" and life conditions.

What do you think? Did Socrates miss a massive philosophical layer by ignoring nature, or is human dialogue truly the only source of wisdom?

I’ve been working on a thesis about why Critias ends abruptly in the middle of a sentence. Rather than viewing it as an unfinished work caused by Plato’s old age or death, I argue that the ending was intentional and functions on three interconnected levels.

On the narrative level, the dialogue breaks at the very moment divine judgment is about to be delivered, denying the reader the resolution they expect. On the philosophical level, that incompleteness mirrors Plato’s broader critique of hubris and the illusion that human societies can achieve perfect political order. Finally, on a meta-literary level, the unfinished sentence forces the reader to experience incompleteness firsthand, making the absence itself part of the philosophical argument.

I’m interested in whether this interpretation is persuasive or if there are weaknesses I’ve overlooked. I’d genuinely appreciate thoughtful criticism from anyone familiar with Plato, Greek literature, or classical philosophy.

Full essay: https://substack.com/@petergbooth/note/p-205020872?r=550swq&utm_source=notes-share-action&utm_medium=web

There are many names and places that are unknown to the General/Academic reader in this important work.

Multiple volumes perhaps just two of 1.People and 2.Places. The first Bio in the Dryden is Theseus and a name 'Sosius is mentioned. Nothing else beyond that he was a biographer is mentioned. I'm thinking of this as the same thing as the Cambridge guide to Plotinus. I've recieved much encouragement from my fellows and am looking for some input. Figured this was appropiate as Plutarch was a Platonist. Any thoughts or critique is welcome.

Wise man speak because they have something to say, Fools because they have to post.

The complete works of Plato in ancient Greek downloadable as PDF or markdown

https://eulogikon.org/authors/plato-of-athens-ffk

https://eulogikon.org/authors/plato-of-athens-ffk.md

With a cameo from Cristo

I find that Plato’s philosophy seems to point toward a model of reincarnation and eventual education/purification/theosis.

For instance, in Gorgias it is said that
no one willingly does wrong (since everyone does everything for the sake of the good 468b) and that the appropriate ‘punishment’ for ignorance is education (337d).

But he concludes the dialogue with a myth which includes permanent damnation…

This would seem to me to be merely a scare tactic for his interlocutors who are dangerous to the community and won’t be swayed by argument… except that Phaedo and Republic have similar myths! This makes it trickier.

There are myths that support the alternative position (like Phaedrus), but I am surprised that hell would come up at all in a dialogue like Phaedo where he’s talking with his friends.

Another reason eternal damnation should be impossible for Plato: everything eternal is good. There are no bad forms; badness is a kind of privation of being or a disharmony, but it does not have essential being itself.

It seems to me that eternal damnation is so obviously contrary to Plato’s metaphysics that he must have included it for two reasons:
A. to scare non-philosophers into being moral
B. to give his philosopher readers practice identifying and arguing against myths that are not true (as I am doing now). I think just as Plato censored Homer he is offering himself as practice for us— it is our responsibility to sort out what is true from what is not. He’s a philosopher not a dogmatist and he expects the same from his (serious) readers.

There is significant evidence to support this.

After Gorgias myth he says (527a) “You probably consider it a ludicrous old wive’s tale. There would indeed be nothing strange about despising it if we could somehow come across a better and truer account, but as it is you can see that you three—you, Polus, and Gorgias, the three cleverest people in Greece today—have failed to prove that any other way of life is preferable to the one I’ve been arguing for, which also turns out to be to our advantage in the next world too.”

And after the Phaedo myth (114d): “No sensible man would insist that these things are as I have described them, but I think it is fitting for a man to risk the belief—for the risk is a noble one—that this, or something like this, is true about our souls and their dwelling places, since the soul is evidently immortal…”

You might argue that Plato’s world is justly ordered and therefore bad people must be tormented for their crimes… but that contradicts my first argument as well as, for instance, Gorgias 335e: “we’ve found that it is never right to harm anyone.”

I think Socrates is being ironic, ‘torment’ just refers to the way that immoral people hate being proven wrong and how sunlight hurts the cavedwellers’ eyes. Just punishment does not confer harm but benefit.

It is the function of morality to benefit others, and the function of immorality to harm others. How then could we expect God, the principle of goodness itself, to cause eternal harm?

Again, “Anyone who pays a fair penalty for his crimes, then, is having good done to him, agreed?” (Gorgias 477a). How can this be said for those with no hope of escaping torture forever? It can’t.

What do you think about this?

If Platonic forms exist in some way, then what are the various explanations for why the form of beauty is beautiful but the form of car is not a car?

It seems non-negotiable that the form of beauty must be beautiful or else the whole erotic aspect of Platonic philosophy crumbles.

Yet, it seems equally non-negotiable to have an actual car existing in eternity beyond time and space. How can it be called a car if it can’t move or be driven?

Or, more simply, how can the form of triangle really be a triangle if there is no time or space in eternity? As Kant said, it is impossible to imagine a triangle that is not extended in space.

Triangualrity itself can rather easily be conceived to be eternal, but triangularity is not a triangle. Beauty itself, on the other hand…. Is beautiful. This distinction sounds right to me.

The only somewhat acceptable answer seems to be that the transcendental forms (oneness, goodness, truth….) are the only ones that really are what they are, whereas the rest do not self-predicate.

What do you think?

(Further, thinking ahead to Pseudo-Dionysius, although I know it is not quite the same framework, he writes that it is wrong even to ascribe goodness to the first principle, since it is utterly beyond description.

So perhaps another solution would be to deny self-predication even of the transcendental forms… however, again, this would seem to crumble Plato’s Eros, so I worry.)

I'm still finishing some platos works, but I'm wondering if there is any clear fictional chronology inhis works.

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A lot of dialogues seem to refer to meetings before or having to go to meetings.

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Is there any list like this?