Plato's Euthyphro and the Earlier Theory of Forms (RLE: Plato): A Re-Interpretation of the Republic

by Reginald E. Allen

Plato’s Euthyphro is important because it gives an excellent example of Socratic dialogue in operation and of the connection of that dialectic with Plato’s earlier theory of Forms. Professor Allen’s edition of the dialogue provides a translation with interspersed commentary, aimed both at helping the reader who does not have Greek and also elucidating the discussion of the earlier Theory of Forms which follows. The author argues that there is a theory of Forms in the Euthyphro and in other early Platonic dialogues and that this theory is the foundation of Socratic dialogue. However, he maintains that the theory in the early dialogues is a realist theory of universals and this theory is not to be identified with the theory of Forms found in the Phaedo, Republic, and other middle dialogues, since it differs on the issues of ontological status.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction

193 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 1, 1970

Reviews

[Qian Zhang · Rating 5 out of 5]

1. Whether leaders should step aside for younger and more intelligent people

Meletus’ intention to kill Socrates in order to purify the thought of youth is ridiculous. Socrates didn't act like a commissioner, let alone a wizard. All he wanted was to discover the truth without intention to hurt or harm anyone. However, when Socrates describe Meletus to Euthyphro, he just said what Meletus wanted was to take care of the youth first and then pay attention to the elderly citizens. How calm and objective when Socrates gave people comments even when he/she acted like a irrational executor to kill Socrates! As for me, Meletus reminded me of some bad official leaders in governments. In ancient China, some good leaders will "RangXian", which means they will step aside and give their position to someone else who are young and more intelligent. However, this tradition has lost since long ago. In Jin dynasty, a historian wrote: “there are thousands of officials in the imperial court, but none of them wants to step back and give their positions to younger and more intelligent people”. I think the corruption and dictation began when the country is immersed in the culture where everyone just wants to hold their position safely instead of thinking about the development of the country. And in the case of Meletus, if he as the leader couldn't provide the valid explanation to Socrates or any valid people why they are acting like what they did, it was the fault of government instead of the Socrates.

2. How transparency should we keep for public?

I also found a sentence which sounds interesting to me: “So he indicts you for making innovations in religious matters and hales you into court to slander you, knowing full well how easily such things are misrepresented to the multitude.” This is a sentence said by Euthyphro who talked about why Meletus tried to indict Socrates: Meletus wanted to control the free speech so that citizens would misunderstand some speech so that there would not damage caused by the misinterpreted words.
This interesting because it invoked my thought: If something is easily misinterpreted by multitude, should we stop transparency to the public?

For example, back in China, Chinese government thinks that since news are easily misinterpreted, so they should hide some information from Chinese folks. Chinese version twitter is called “Weibo”. Whenever someone posted on Weibo to reveal something against governments' will, there will be specialists at the backstage of the internet system to delete the posts. Whenever this happens, Chinese people will say the government "harmonized" their posts instead of “delete” it because Chinese government declare that China is a country full of harmony. I am not saying that Chinese government is all wrong but I do have this question in my mind: should we maintain our transparency to the public? How transparent should we reveal to the public? In order to cause less panic, maybe we should release the news to public less? I watched the episode “Battlestar Galactica”. In the TV series, when human being president discovered that cylon could mimic the image of human, she didn't announce it as soon as possible. Instead, in order to not cause panic, she decided to not publicize it until she could not cover it at all. When she said that the cylons were like human then, the announcement caused uproar in the crowd. They all criticized that why the president didn't tell them earlier. So my conclusion so far is that even if truth could cause panic, hiding could also lead to mistrust. To choose from a world full of falsified harmony is like to put ourselves in a green house, we could never endure the truth when we went to the real world.

3. The more a critic broadcast, the less tolerance a government has?

Socrates said: "The Athenians, it seems to me, do not much mind if they think a man is clever as long as they do not suspect him of teaching his cleverness to others.But if they think he makes others like himself they become angry, whether out of jealousy as you suggest, or for some other reason."

I think this situation is very obvious in some country. When a government tried to protect its stability and authority, it could suppress the citizen's free speech.

[Erik Graff · Rating 3 out of 5]

I took Reginald Allen's seminar on Plato's 'Parmenides' at Loyola University Chicago during the first semester of 1981/2 while he was teaching as visiting professor from Northwestern University. The class size was small. He held it because he was working on a book about this, the most obscure of the Platonic dialogues. We read his Plato's 'Euthyphro & the Earlier Theory of Forms' as it represented one approach to the dialog.

I left the course still not feeling that I understood the 'Parmenides'. Allen gave me an A. I didn't deserve it.