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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Euthyphro by Plato: what is pleasing or dear to them; and this is the point which has been
already disproved.
Socrates, although weary of the subterfuges and evasions of Euthyphro,
remains unshaken in his conviction that he must know the nature of piety,
or he would never have prosecuted his old father. He is still hoping that
he will condescend to instruct him. But Euthyphro is in a hurry and cannot
stay. And Socrates' last hope of knowing the nature of piety before he is
prosecuted for impiety has disappeared. As in the Euthydemus the irony is
carried on to the end.
The Euthyphro is manifestly designed to contrast the real nature of piety
and impiety with the popular conceptions of them. But when the popular
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