Plato's "Euthyphro" - Page 2

On May 12 2014 07:38 Arrian wrote:
I don't find it particularly insightful.

On May 12 2014 20:41 Laertes wrote:
I think Plato's criticisms of the written word go back to beliefs his teacher Socrates held. Socrates never wrote anything down, it's likely true since we have nothing that survives of his while we have things that survive of Plato, just a generation removed from Socrates. Socrates never wrote anything down because he did not believe we as humans could know anything. Objective truth was the realm of the Gods. All of Plato's works do have echoes of Socrates, as Plato wrote to understand Socrates. This is likely why Phaedrus states not to trust what is written down, it is something that Socrates taught Plato, something that Plato wanted to understand. It is interesting, by the way since it also came up in this thread, to note that Socrates was forced to drink hemlock because one of his male students who was rich and powerful had a crush on him, Socrates had a wife and spurned his advances, telling him this. Now Socrates had made many enemies and when they saw an opening they took it and appealed before the courts of Athens. Because of who he was, Socrates was loathe to admit what they wanted to hear, and stood self-righteously before the court of Athens, refusing an apology. He was imprisoned on the Athenian "death row" and would be executed the following morning. Plato broke into his cell with friends and told him "leave here Socrates, you will die!" Socrates responded bluntly that he didn't want to live anywhere if not Athens. Socrates died the next morning from the paralyzing hemlock.

TL;DR/Conclusion
We can discuss all day what is directly apparant from Plato's dialogues, but unless we analyze the context we won't truly understand them. We can analyze them by taking them as inspired by real events and trusting that Plato is writing about shadows of things that really happened.