Philosophical Essays
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1. Anaxagoras did not believe that there is something which is indivisible into parts, did believe that there more than one existing thing, did believe that at a fundamental level nothing comes to be or perishes, and did not believe that, loosely speaking, many things come to be and perish. The Atomists believed that there is something which is indivisible, did believe that there is nevertheless more than one existing thing, did not believe that nothing comes to be or perishes, and did believe that many things comes to be or perish. Despite many contradictions and vagueries which at times bring both Anaxagoras and the Atomists to the verge of mysticism and/or nonsense, these general beliefs, some with undeniable qualifications, are fair conclusions to draw from their statements and from McKirahan's analysis. Anaxagoras believed that "there is coming to be or perishing. . . . What appear to be cases of coming to be and perishing are really instances of mixture and separation of existing things. . . . Coming to be is simply mixture and perishing is simply separation" (203; 204). Democritus and Leucippus, the Atomists, on the other hand, "make alteration and coming to be out of [the changing shapes of existing things]: coming to be and destruction by means of separation and combination, alteration by means of arrangement and position" (305). Therefore, for the Atomists, many things---indeed, everything, since everything changes shape---come to be and perish.
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ates, who shows clearly that Euthyphro has no idea what piety is, but claims to know better than anybody else what it is. It is precisely his arrogant certainty that prevents him from discovering along with Socrates what piety really is.
Essentially, all that Euthyphro says is that piety is that what the gods hold dear, that he himself is pious in prosecuting his father, and that piety is prayer and sacrifice which pleases the gods (20). Again, Socrates shows that Euthyphro is basing his definition of piety on what somebody or some god or gods considers to be pious, which is a meaningless definition. Either some act is pious or it is not, no matter what anybody considers it to be.
Of course, this is the point of Socrates' dialogues---to show that no man or men or god or gods or leader or leaders or state should have the power to define piety once and for all and put to death those who are impious. He himself is going to go on trial and be sentenced to death as a result of questioning the state's definition of reality, including piety.
It is therefore a matter of the highest importance---higher even than life or death---for Socrates to discover what piety is. He is on the verge of what he expects to be a trial which will
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Approximate Word count = 1673
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)
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