The Death of Socrates. Romano Guardini
SOCR. Then you really believe that there is war among the gods, and bitter hatreds, and battles, such as the poets tell of, and which the great painters have depicted in our temples, especially in the pictures which cover the robe that is carried up to the Acropolis at the great Panathenaic festival. Are we to say that these things are true, Euthyphro?
EUTH. Yes, Socrates, and more besides. As I was saying, I will relate to you many other stories about divine matters, if you like, which I am sure will astonish you when you hear them.
SOCR. I dare say.
THE QUESTION CONCERNING ESSENCE
The first round is over, without Euthyphro’s having noticed anything. Only the invisible listener has taken note, to wit, the youth of Athens, which loves Socrates, and has been listening while the whole scene is enacted. Then the master begins anew:
You shall relate them to me at your leisure another time. At present please try to give a more definite answer to the question which I asked you just now. What I asked you, my friend, was, What is holiness? and you have not explained it to me, to my satisfaction. You only tell me that what you are doing now, namely prosecuting your father for murder, is a holy act.
Euthyphro confirms this. Whereupon Socrates:
Very likely. But many other actions are holy, are they not, Euthyphro?
EUTH. Certainly.
SOCR. Remember, then, that I did not ask you to tell me one or two of all the many holy actions that there are; I want to know what is the essential form of holiness which makes all holy actions holy. You said, I think, that there is one form1 which makes all holy actions holy, and another form which makes all unholy actions unholy. Do you not remember?
EUTH. I do.
SOCR. Well, then, explain to me what is this form, that I may have it to turn to, and to use as a standard whereby to judge your actions, and those of other men, and be able to say that whatever action resembles it is holy, and whatever does not, is not holy.
Here then is the question concerning essence again.
Euthyphro tries to answer:
Well then, what is pleasing to the gods is holy; and what is not pleasing to them is unholy.
SOCR. Beautiful, Euthyphro. Now you have given me the answer that I wanted. Whether what you say is true, I do not know yet. But of course you will go on to prove the truth of it.
The answer is in fact better than the preceding one, for at least it ventures into the region of conceptual definition. But is the standard assigned, according to which the pious is what the gods love, really the right one? A standard must be unequivocal: that is, in this case, all the gods must love and hate the same things. But do they? Evidently not, for the myths are always describing their quarrels. And you cannot have a real quarrel about mere facts—for instance, whether a thing is bigger or smaller than another thing—for then one would simply measure them and the matter would be settled. It must be about matters of principle—what, for example, the just or the unjust, the beautiful or the ugly, is in itself. So if even gods quarrel, it is only about such things that they can quarrel:
SOCR. And each of them loves what he thinks honourable, and good, and right, and hates the opposite, does he not?
EUTH. Certainly.
SOCR. But you say that the same action is held by some of them to be right, and by others to be wrong; and that then they dispute about it, and so quarrel and fight among themselves. Is it not so?
EUTH. Yes.
SOCR. Then the same thing is hated by the gods and loved by them; and the same thing will be displeasing and pleasing to them.
EUTH. Apparently.
SOCR. Then, according to your account, the same thing will be holy and unholy.
EUTH. So it seems.
So this definition of piety will not do either, since it proceeds not from definable quantities, but from an uncriticized popular belief which is in fact decaying. The question of the real significance of the mythical strife is not raised. When in the fight for Troy Hera is ranged against Aphrodite, the former goddess pronounces Paris’s act to be reprehensible, the latter noble. This has a quite different significance from a discussion between two philosophers on ethical problems; for Aphrodite is the nature-force of love and Hera the social force of family order, both being understood not as logical principles, but as empirical and at the same time numinous life-forces. Formulated in theoretical assertions, their claims exclude one another; contradictory propositions cannot be simultaneously true. It is different in the mythical sphere. Myth says: Everything is divine. All is resolved in the unity of the world, which is itself the ultimate Divine and comprises all contradictories. So both are right, and the conflict between them is right too. Paris as well as Menelaus is under the protection of a divine power. The fact that they must fight constitutes the inevitable tragedy, in which however life does not disintegrate, but persists as a supra-intelligible whole. All this the mythically perceptive man, whose decadent phase is represented by Euthyphro, would not indeed state conceptually, but would see, feel and live. That Euthyphro’s place is not taken by the real representative of myth, who, at once bound and sustained by its power, embodied it convincingly by his whole being, of course constitutes the latent injustice of the dialogue and of the Socratic-Platonic campaign against antiquity. Nevertheless the attackers are in the right, for the object of their attack is no longer the living mythical mentality, but one which has gone fundamentally astray in itself and only continues to exist by virtue of the inertia of what has once been historical fact. Thus it is, from an historical point of view, ripe for dissolution—quite apart from the fact that it is erroneous in itself;—and it must be allowable to say this, in spite of romantic considerations. The mythical order has a great power, and there is a glory over it for which the modern man, tormented with criticism, feels full of longing. But it presupposes a confusion in nature which a man cannot acquiesce in without shirking his mission. As soon as his conscience becomes aware of the self’s personal value and is prepared to answer for it, he must throw off the mythical mentality. Socrates, then, is not only the advocate of what is historically ripe, but of what has a higher significance too. It is also true that in bringing forward this new and higher good he destroys much that is old and excellent, and this justifies the resistance to him. As always in historical matters, in which there is no absolute progress, he is at fault by reason of his very mission.
ESSENCE AND FACT
The attempt has miscarried again, and Socrates does not fail to bring this to his companion’s notice:
Then, my good friend, you have not answered my question. I did not ask you to tell me what action is both holy and unholy; but it seems that whatever is pleasing to the gods is also displeasing to them. And so, Euthyphro, I should not wonder if what you are doing now in chastising your father is a deed well-pleasing to Zeus, but hateful to Cronos and Ouranos, and acceptable to Hephaestus, but hateful to Hêrê; and if any of the other gods disagree about it, pleasing to some of them, and displeasing to others.
Euthyphro tries once more to save his thesis:
But on this point, Socrates, l think that there is no difference of opinion among the gods; they all hold that if one man kills another wrongfully, he must be punished.
So far, so good; he points to the evident principle that every injustice must be atoned for. Socrates too agrees with this; nay, he elucidates the statement further in these words:
Then they do not dispute the proposition, that the wrongdoer must be punished. They dispute about the question, who is a wrongdoer, and when, and what is a wrong deed, do they not?
The principle is clear, only the fact is in dispute. But what does this imply for the question under discussion? The proposition, “Injustice must be punished”,