Outline of Plato's Euthyphro (Jeffrey McBride 01/30/97)

I. Meeting of Socrates and Euthyphro near king-archon's court (2a-5d).
 A. Socrates' reason for being in court: indictment by Meletus (2a-3e).
 B. Euthyphro's reason for being in court: he is indicting his father for killing a slave (3e-5d).
  1. Principle of Priority of Definition (4e): Knowledge of F-ness precedes any attribution of F-ness or any identification of manifestations of F.
  2. Piety is the same and alike in every action, and impiety presents us with an opposite but singular form or appearance (5d).
III. What is Piety ( hosion ) (5d-15c)?
 A. Elenchos #1 (5d-6e).
  1. To prosecute the wrongdoer is piety (5d).
  2. There is war among the gods (6b).
  3. There are other pious actions besides prosecuting the wrongdoer (6d).
  4. Principle of Definitional Universality (6d-e): The definition of F should apply to all and only instances of F. “Tell me then what this form itself is.” If there are other parts of piety, prosecuting the wrongdoer isn't the whole, the form, of piety.
 B. Elenchos #2 (7a-9d).
  1. What is dear to the gods is pious (7a).
  2. The gods are in a state of discord (7b cf. 6b).
  3. The just and the unjust, the beautiful and the ugly, the good and the bad are the subjects of difference among the gods (7d).
  4. Different gods consider different things to be just, beautiful, ugly, good, and bad (7e).
  5. The same things are both loved and hated by the gods, are both dear and not dear to them (8a).
  6. So, the same actions are both pious and impious (8a).
 C. Elenchos #3 (9d-11e).
  1. What all the gods love is pious (9d).
  2. What is loved by the gods is loved because it is pious; it is not pious because it is loved by the gods (10d).
  3. So, the god-beloved is then not the same as the pious (10d).
  4. Principle of Definitional Essentiality (implied 9e-10c, 11a-b): The definition of F should not state merely an affect or quality of F; rather, it should detail the characteristic(s) which if possessed render x an instance of F. God-belovedness may be a quality of piety, but it doesn't tell us what it is to be pious.
 D. Elenchos #4 (11e-13d).
  1. Piety is the part of the just concerned with the care of the gods (12e).
  2. To care for is to benefit and make better (13c).
  3. Piety, then, is to benefit the gods and make them better (13c).
  4. If not, piety must be another kind of caring (13d).
 E. Elenchos #5 (13d-15c).
  1. Piety is knowledge of how to give to, and beg from, the gods (14d).
  2. To beg correctly is to ask from them the things that we need (14d).
  3. To give correctly is to give them what they need from us (14e).
  4. So, piety is a sort of trading skill between gods and men (14e).
  5. The things we give the gods do not benefit them (15a).
  6. The pious then is pleasing to the gods, not beneficial, but dear to them (15b).
  7. But, the pious and the god-beloved have already been shown not to be the same (15c).
IV. Parting shots: Socratic irony (15c-16a). “I'm in a hurry now, and it's time for me to go.”