IDENTITY AND EXPLANATION IN THE EUTHYPHRO DAVID EBREY . Introduction I many of Plato's Socratic dialogues Socrates emphasizes the importance of knowing the answer to a 'what is it?' question. What, exactly, is he looking for when he asks these questions? The Euthyphro is widely acknowledged as important for determining this, but scholars have not agreed on what insight the dialogue offers. Richard Sharvy, in a classic paper, presents an appealing and influential account, and more recently Lindsay Judson has defended the same sort of account. According to their accounts, Socrates thinks that an answer to 'what is the holy?' should identify somemore fundamental feature of holy things that is prior to their being holy and explains why they are holy. (I use the word 'feature' for what is © David Ebrey  I have received valuable feedback on this paper from Hugh Benson, David Bronstein, Victor Caston, Andy Engen, Matt Evans, Emily Fletcher, Joe Karbowski, Sean Kelsey, Richard Kraut, Alison Mastny, Kirsten Pickering, John Wynne, the two anonymous referees, and the audiences at the  NEH Summer Seminar on Socrates at Lewis and Clark College, King's College London, the Chicago Area Consortium in Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophy, and the University of Arkansas.  I do notmean the phrase 'Socratic dialogue' to indicate any particular view about chronology. For this use see J. Cooper (ed.),Plato: CompleteWorks [CompleteWorks] (Indianapolis, ), pp. xii–xviii. For the main claims of this paper, it is not necessary that these dialogues form a coherent group.  R. Sharvy, 'Euthyphro  – : Analysis and Definition in Plato and Others' ['Analysis'], Nous,  (), –; L. Judson, 'Carried Away in the Euthyphro' ['Carried'], in D. Charles (ed.), Definition in Greek Philosophy (Oxford, ), – . T. Irwin, 'Socrates and Euthyphro: The Argument and its Revival', in L. Judson and V. Karasmanis (eds.), Remembering Socrates: Philosophical Essays (Oxford, ), – at , cites Sharvy with approval. For an overview of the literature before  see D. Wolfsdorf, 'Euthyphro   –  : A Study in Platonic Metaphysics and its Reception since ' ['Study'], Apeiron,  (), – at –. In the secondary literature the topic is typically put in terms of definition. I avoid using the term 'definition' because it typically picks out a linguistic entity, which is not what Socrates is interested in, and because it typically brings with it assumptions that I want to question. Created on 17 May 2017 at 11.15 hours page 77 Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, Volume 52. First edition. Victor Caston (ed.) This chapter © David Ebrey 2017. First published 2017 by Oxford University Press  David Ebrey indicated by adjectives such as 'holy' and 'god-loved'.) On this interpretation, in proposing that the god-loved is what the holy is, Euthyphro is committed to holy things being holy because they are god-loved. The 'because' here does not indicate our evidence that something is holy, but rather a more fundamental (metaphysical, if you like) feature of the world that explains why holy things are holy. On this account, answers to 'what is it?' questions are valuable precisely because they reveal more fundamental features, features that are objectively prior and explanatory. Saying that these are objectively prior and explanatorymeans that their status as prior and explanatory does not depend on someone's epistemic situation. If this is the correct way to understand the Euthyphro, we find here for the first time an extremely important way to think of 'what is it?' questions, one that would seem to have influenced Aristotle, who in turn influenced a wide variety of philosophers from Aquinas to Kit Fine. According to Aristotle, an answer to the 'what is it?' question should identify something that explains why, for example, something is a human. On this account, if we were to provide 'rational  I do not call these 'predicates' because predicates are typically thought of as linguistic entities. Note the difference between nouns such as 'the holy' and 'holiness' and adjectives such as 'holy' and 'god-loved'. When formalized, 'holy' and 'god-loved' are picked out by 'f ' and 'g' rather than 'f-ness' and 'g-ness'. Here is an example of why it is important to have a term that picks out f rather than f-ness. Socrates is committed to claims such as 'the holy thing is holy because of holiness'. It is important to distinguish the explanandum, the thing's being holy, from the explanans, holiness. That said, the connection between an answer to 'what is f-ness?' and its associated feature can sometimes be cumbersome. Thus, I shall sometimes say, for example, 'on the Aristotelian interpretation an answer to "what is holiness?" should pick out some more fundamental feature, g' as a shorthand for 'on the Aristotelian interpretation an answer to the "what is holiness?" question should pick out something, g-ness, where g is a more fundamental feature . . .'. On a separate note, I am following all previous interpreters in thinking that this use of 'the holy' picks out the same thing as holiness.  I discuss these objective explanatory relations further in the next two sections.  e.g. K. Fine, 'Essence and Modality', Philosophical Perspectives,  (), –.  Sharvy, 'Analysis',  ff., explicitly compares his account to Aristotle's. There are, of course, controversies about Aristotle's account, but what I say here is fairly uncontroversial. For Aristotle's account of definitions as explanatory see especially Post. An. . , . , and . . For example, he says, 'So, as we say, to know what something is is the same as to know why it is' (a–, trans. Barnes). The basic account I provide here is found, for example, in W. D. Ross, Aristotle's Prior and Posterior Analytics: A Revised Text with Introduction and Commentary (Oxford, ), –; J. Barnes, Aristotle: Posterior Analytics, nd edn. (Oxford, ), –; D. Charles, Aristotle on Meaning and Essence (Oxford, ), –; and D. Bronstein, Aristotle on Knowledge and Learning: The Posterior Analytics (Oxford, ). Of course, certain features of Aristotle's account are not found in the Euthyphro acCreated on 17 May 2017 at 11.15 hours page 78 Identity and Explanation in the Euthyphro  animal' as an answer to 'what is a human?' we would be saying that someone is a human because he or she is a rational animal. I will call this the 'Aristotelian interpretation' of theEuthyphro. I do notmean to suggest that it is an anachronistic reading of Aristotle back into Plato; if it is right, the Euthyphro is the likely source of Aristotle's own account. While it would be powerful if it were correct, in this paper I argue that Socrates does not have this Aristotelian account of 'what is it?' questions in the Euthyphro. Indeed, his account in the Euthyphro is incompatible with such an approach to 'what is it?' questions. According to the alternative I defend, an answer to a 'what is it?' question does not pick out an explanatorily prior feature; instead, it picks out the very same feature, which a fortiori is in all the same explanatory relations. So, in claiming that the god-loved is what the holy is, Euthyphro is not committing himself to every holy thing being holy because it is god-loved. That would make god-loved prior to holy. Instead, he is committing himself to 'god-loved' and 'holy' being interchangeable within objective explanations since they are the very same thing. I call this account the 'strict identity interpretation'. While the Aristotelian interpretation provides an appealing model of how to answer the 'what is it?' question, there is also something appealing about thinking that an answer to 'what is f-ness?' should identify precisely f-ness, not something different from it. While the Aristotelian interpretation and the strict identity interpretation each present powerful ways of thinking about the answer to a 'what is it?' question, they cannot both be correct. Consider how each would interpret the proposal that proportion is what beauty is. According to the Aristotelian interpretation, if this were correct, something would be beautiful because it is proportionate. Of course, a proportionate thing is not proportionate because it is proportionate-an explanation should be different from what it is explaining. Thus, on this account, we cannot simply move between claims about something's being beautiful and its being proportionate. Put generally and more formally: cording to any interpreters. For example, Aristotle thinks that a definition picks out the middle term in a certain sort of demonstration. Moreover, for Aristotle definitions are explanatory in an additional way: they are the basis for further features of the substance, those picked out by the second sense of καθ   αὑτά in Post. An. .  (a–b). There is nothing like this in Plato's account in the Euthyphro. Created on 17 May 2017 at 11.15 hours page 79  David Ebrey Aristotelian interpretation If g-ness is what f-ness is, then: Every f thing is f because it is g. According to the strict identity interpretation, by contrast, if proportion is what beauty is, then anything explained by being proportionate is explained by being beautiful, and vice versa. Being beautiful and proportionate would be the very same thing, and so involved in very same relations. Put generally: Strict identity interpretation If g-ness is what f-ness is, then: f and g are exactly the same and hence interchangeable within explanations. According to this way of thinking, if proportion is what beauty is, being proportionate could not be prior to being beautiful. On the strict identity account, Socrates' search for knowledge leads him to look for something that is not prior to being holy, but rather the same as it. While Socrates early in the dialogue suggests that an answer to 'what is the holy?' should have some sort of priority (  – ), I argue that he is not requiring the sort of priority that the Aristotelian interpretation suggests. Instead, he is saying that holiness is prior to the individual holy things. Wolfsdorf and Evans have noted textual evidence that strongly suggest an identity interpretation, and Evans has defended such an interpretation at length, as one step in a different project. My paper builds on their work by addressing more of the evidence that seems to favour the Aristotelian reading and by more fully developing an account of the explanatory work done by answers to the 'what is it?' question. Moreover, while our accounts are similar, Wolfsdorf and Evans each accept claims that bring their views closer to  According to this interpretation, 'f ' and 'g' are not only intersubstitutable in the because clause, but also in the clause that it explains. Putmore formally (for arbitrary x and y): If x is y because it is g, then x is y because it is f . If x is y because it is f , then x is y because it is g. If x is g because it is y, then x is f because it is y. If x is f because it is y, then x is g because it is y.  The text is cited from Platonis opera, vol. i, ed. E. A. Duke et al. (Oxford, ). I discuss this and related passages below, in sect. .  Wolfsdorf, 'Study', , and M. Evans, 'Lessons from Euthyphro  – ' ['Lessons'], Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy,  (), – at  and –. Created on 17 May 2017 at 11.15 hours page 80 Identity and Explanation in the Euthyphro  the Aristotelian interpretation. I maintain a stricter sort of identity interpretation here. My account begins with Socrates' famous argument against Euthyphro's proposal that the holy is the godloved. I start by showing how this argument is naturally read in line with the strict identity interpretation (Section ). Then I argue that the strict identity interpretation can avoid the concern that Socrates' argument illicitly substitutes terms (Section ). Next, I spell out the problems with understanding the argument in line with the Aristotelian interpretation (Section ). After this evaluation of the two interpretations, I show how the strict identity interpretation can address three textual considerations that seem to favour the Aristotelian interpretation (Section ): (i) Socrates' famous opening question in his refutation of Euthyphro's proposal; (ii) his distinction between ousia (being) and pathos (affection); and (iii) his early descriptions of what he wants from an answer to 'what is the holy?'. Having fleshed out the strict identity interpretation, I contrast it with other identity interpretations and explore some questions that arises for it (Section ). Finally, I show how the strict identity interpretation can provide informative answers to 'what is f-ness?' questions, despite not identifying anything other than f-ness (Section ). . The central argument The first step is to consider Socrates' argument against Euthyphro's proposal that the holy is the god-loved (  –  ). We are looking for an account that clarifies both the role of explanatory relations in the argument and the constraints the argument places on a correct answer to a 'what is f-ness?' question. Socrates argues that if Euthyphro's proposal were correct, he would be committed to two contradictions. His argument does not rely on an infinite regress, circularity, or a reductio ad absurdum, as is sometimes claimed. He  For Wolfsdorf, 'Study', this is connected to his account of ousia (being), which I discuss in sect. . For Evans, 'Lessons', this comes out in his defence of his 'foundation' requirement, which I discuss in sect. . In contrast to their views, on my account if we ask 'what is it?' about something that is metaphysically or explanatorily posterior, then our answer should pick out something metaphysically or explanatorily posterior.  While people frequently make these claims in conversation or teaching, I have seen such a claim in print only in P. Dimas, 'Euthyphro's Thesis Revisited' ['ReviCreated on 17 May 2017 at 11.15 hours page 81  David Ebrey reaches these contradictions from two pairs of claims. One pair is about why the gods love holy things. The other is about why things are god-loved. Let us being with these two initial pairs of claims: Why holy things are loved by the gods () The holy is loved [by the gods] because it is holy. (  ,   –) () It is not the case that the holy is holy because it is loved. (  –,   ) Why god-loved things are god-loved () The god-loved (θεοφιλές) is god-loved because it is loved [by the gods] (φιλεῖται ὑπὸ θεῶν). (  –,   –) () It is not the case that the god-loved is loved because it is godloved. (  –) Socrates draws two contradictions from these claims by transforming () into (a) and () into (a): (a) The god-loved is loved because it is god-loved. (  ) () It is not the case that the god-loved is loved because it is god-loved. (  –) (a) The holy is holy because it is loved. (  ) () It is not the case that the holy is holy because it is loved. (  –,   ) Each pair of contradictory claims affirms and denies that some explanatory relation holds. One of the main interpretative questions is why Socrates thinks he can transform () to (a) and () to (a). While there are questions about how to understand () and (), which I discuss in the next section, in general they are much easier to understand than () and (). At this stage we need a basic acsited'], Phronesis,  (), – at . He claims that the argument is a reductio ad absurdum.  In these claims 'the holy' and 'the god-loved' seem to refer to arbitrary godloved or holy things, not the forms. Thus, () is naturally read as a statement about why god-loved things are loved, not about the form of being god-loved. This is widely accepted in the literature (e.g. Evans, 'Lessons',  n. ; Wolfsdorf, 'Study', –). Wolfsdorf, 'Study', , notes earlier scholars who explicitly accept this.  For a broadly similar reconstruction of the argument, but one that implicitly assumes the asymmetric correlates () and () rather than making them explicit, see A. Kim, 'A Chiastic Contradiction at Euthyphro   –  ', Phronesis,  (), –. Created on 17 May 2017 at 11.15 hours page 82 Identity and Explanation in the Euthyphro  count of () and () in order to see how Socrates' argument works. Socrates uses the term 'god-loved' (θεοφιλές) interchangeably with 'being-loved-by-the-gods' (φιλούμενον ὑπὸ θεῶν, e.g.   –), so () can be put as the following: something being-loved-by-the-gods (τὸ φιλούμενον ὑπὸ θεῶν) is being-loved-by-the-gods (φιλούμενον ὑπὸ θεῶν) because it is loved by the gods (φιλεῖται ὑπὸ θεῶν). In order to understand this claim, it is crucial to distinguish 'is being-loved-bythe-gods' (ἐστι φιλούμενον ὑπὸ θεῶν), the verb 'to be' with a passive participle, from 'is loved by the gods' (φιλεῖται ὑπὸ θεῶν), a finite passive verb. Socrates argues for () from    to  , thereby making clear that is loved by the gods (φιλεῖται ὑπὸ θεῶν) is supposed to be different from being-loved-by-the-gods (φιλούμενον ὑπὸ θεῶν). This distinction is hard to capture in English, since both expressions (ἐστι φιλούμενον ὑπὸ θεῶν and φιλεῖται ὑπὸ θεῶν) can be translated 'is loved by the gods'. Both involve passive forms of the verb 'to love' (φιλεῖν). Intuitively, we can think of the distinction this way: being-loved-by-the-gods, the passive participle, picks out an affection, the same affection as is picked out by the term 'godloved'. This is an affection possessed by certain things. By contrast, the finite verb 'is loved by the gods' describes a relationship that something can have to the gods; it applies to something in so far as that thing is the recipient of the gods' action. (), then, says that something has the affection of being god-loved because it is loved by the gods-the fact that something is the recipient of the god's action explains its having this affection; () says that it does not work the other way round: something's having the affection does not explain its being the recipient of the action. Note that these two pairs of claims-()/() and ()/()- exemplify a principle of asymmetry that Socrates consistently assumes throughout the Euthyphro: if something is A because it is B, then it is not the case that it is B because it is A. For example, as Evans notes, at   – Socrates infers from one claim to its  P. T. Geach, 'Plato's Euthyphro: An Analysis and Commentary' ['Commentary'], The Monist,  (), – at , despairs of making sense of the distinction.Most other scholars offer some suggestion similar to my own, e.g. S.M. Cohen, 'Socrates on the Definition of Piety: Euthyphro  – ' ['Definition'], Journal of the History of Philosophy,  (), – at –. However, Evans, 'Lessons', –, thinks it should be understood in terms of the distinction between active and passive, instead of between two things that are passive: the patient of the action, in so far as it is a patient, and the resulting affection. This is a subtle distinction, and one that someone could deny, but it is certainly not incoherent. Created on 17 May 2017 at 11.15 hours page 83  David Ebrey asymmetric pair. Given () and asymmetry, () is true, and given () and asymmetry, () is true. Thus, given asymmetry, we can treat () and () as a single commitment and similarly treat () and () as a single commitment. Socrates does not provide us with an account of what he means by his use of the term 'because'. Asymmetry gives us some clue as to how Socrates is thinking of these explanatory relations. If you have two pieces of wood propped up against one another, you might say that each is standing up 'because the other is standing up'. But given that Socrates infers from one claim to its asymmetric pair, clearly he is not using 'because' to pick out such relations (just as Aristotle denies the possibility of circular explanation in Posterior Analytics . ). Instead, Socrates would supposedly say something like this: each piece of wood is standing up because there is an opposing force preventing it from falling. Note that asymmetry applies here: it is not the case that there is an opposing force because it is standing up. Asymmetry makes sense if you think of 'because' as indicating the underlying explanation of why something is the case: if A is the underlying explanation for B, then B cannot be the underlying explanation for A. I discuss these explanatory relations further in the next section. Socrates presents his argument by first asking questions from    to    that lead Euthyphro to agree to ()–() and then declaring at   – that Euthyphro's proposal cannot be correct. Euthyphro does not understand why, so Socrates succinctly collects claims ()–() from    to  . He says that they have agreed to them, even though they had not explicitly agreed to (), only its asymmetric pair (). He then explains why Euthyphro's proposal cannot be correct using something that appears to substitute 'godloved' for 'holy' and vice versa, transforming () to (a) and () to (a) from    to    (quoted below). Given these transformations, there is an incompatibility between Euthyphro's views about why gods love holy things, () and (), and the relation between being god-loved and loved-by-the-gods, () and (). Consider one of the contradictions. Euthyphro thinks that () holy things are loved by the gods because they are holy, but he thinks that () it is not the case that things are loved by the gods because they are god-loved. But when we transform () to (a), we learn that things are loved by the gods because they are god-loved, which is exactly what () denies.  Evans, 'Lessons', . Created on 17 May 2017 at 11.15 hours page 84 Identity and Explanation in the Euthyphro  The question, then, is what allows us to transform () to (a) and () to (a). These transformations appear to involve substituting 'god-loved' for 'holy' in () to produce (a) and 'holy' for 'godloved' in () to produce (a). The simplest account-and the one I think is correct-is that Socrates is directly substituting one term for the other, because he thinks that according to Euthyphro's proposal 'holy' and 'god-loved' pick out the very same thing. This is the strict identity view. There are a number of complexities that need to be considered before we can appreciate my full case for this reading. But before considering these, we should consider the most direct evidence for this view, which is how Socrates describes the transition from () to (a) and () to (a): ἀλλ   εἴ γε ταὐτὸν ἦν, ὦ φίλε Εὐθύφρων, τὸ θεοφιλὲς καὶ τὸ ὅσιον, εἰ [] μὲν διὰ τὸ ὅσιον εἶναι ἐφιλεῖτο τὸ ὅσιον, [a] καὶ διὰ τὸ θεοφιλὲς εἶναι ἐφιλεῖτο ἂν τὸ θεοφιλές, εἰ δὲ [] διὰ τὸ φιλεῖσθαι ὑπὸ θεῶν τὸ θεοφιλὲς θεοφιλὲς ἦν, [a] καὶ τὸ ὅσιον ἂν διὰ τὸ φιλεῖσθαι ὅσιον ἦν. (  –  ) But if the god-loved and the holy were the same, my dear Euthyphro, then if [] the holy was loved because it was holy, [a] the god-loved would also be loved because it was god-loved; and if [] the god-loved was god-loved because it was loved by the gods, then [a] the holy would also be holy because it was loved by the gods. In explaining the transformation of () to (a) and () to (a) Socrates starts by saying 'If they were the same . . .'. As others have noted, Socrates seems to think that in saying that the holy is the god-loved, Euthyphro is saying that they are the same. According to the Aristotelian interpretation, they are not strictly speaking the same; instead, on this view there is an important difference between the holy and the god-loved-the one is prior to the other. Both Sharvy and Judson claim that Socrates is simply misspeaking when he suggests that if Euthyphro were right, then the god-loved and the holy would be the same. One reason to think that he is not misspeaking is a closely related piece of textual evidence, which has not been emphasized in the secondary literature: on both occasions when Socrates states his conclusion (  – and    All translations of the Euthyphro are from Grube in Cooper, Complete Works, modified by me.  See n.  above.  See Sharvy, 'Analysis', – and –, and Judson, 'Carried',  n.  and  n. , where Judson says 'the argument's steadfast reliance on dependence makes it much more plausible that Plato here simply takes definition to introduce a dependence relation than that his use of "the same" is philosophically scrupulous or careful'. Created on 17 May 2017 at 11.15 hours page 85  David Ebrey –), he says that Euthyphro's proposal cannot be correct because the holy and the god-loved have turned out to be different (ἕτερον,   ; παντάπασιν ἑτέρω,   ) from one another. This gives us reason to think that the use of the term 'the same' was not a slip on Socrates' part. If this is right, then Socrates is saying in the above passage that we can move from () to (a) and from () to (a) because the holy is the same as the god-loved. The most natural way to understand this is that Socrates is directly substituting the one term for the other, because he thinks they are the same on Euthyphro's account. In Section  I discuss further the Aristotelian interpretation's difficulty accounting for this passage. On the strict identity interpretation we can understand Socrates' refutation of Euthyphro's proposal this way. According to (), the fact that something is holy is prior to the fact that it is loved by the gods. According to (), the fact that something is god-loved is posterior to the fact that it is loved by the gods. But if the holy is the god-loved, then the very same fact, that something is holy/godloved, would have to be prior and posterior to another fact, that it is loved by the gods. This leads to the two contradictions given the asymmetric pairs () and (), which ensure that the one fact cannot be both prior and posterior to the other. . Substitution concerns There is a well-known concern with Socrates' argument if it works as I have suggested. The concern has to do with how it substitutes 'holy' and 'god-loved' for one another. In general, you can substitute terms in a sentence for one another without changing its truthvalue as long as the terms refer to the same thing. But this is not always true within the sort of linguistic context created by the use of 'because'. Geach's  paper sparked the concern that Socrates' argument illicitly makes such a substitution; this concern consumed much of the debate in the s and s, as chronicled by Wolfsdorf. In this section I argue that the strict identity interpretation can allow for direct substitution within the argument  Aristotelian interpreters might try to defend their account by offering a looser notion of sameness. I argue against this idea, and more broadly argue that they cannot provide a satisfactory account of this passage, at the end of sect. .  J. Brown, 'The Logic of Euthyphro  – ', Philosophical Quarterly,  (), –, raises the pertinent issues, but was not influential in the way that Created on 17 May 2017 at 11.15 hours page 86 Identity and Explanation in the Euthyphro  without running into this sort of substitution problem. By contrast, the Aristotelian account cannot interpret these as direct substitutions, as its proponents acknowledge. In the next section I go through the details of why they cannot interpret these as direct substitutions, and how they interpret the argument to avoid doing so. Socrates, of course, does not think of himself as substituting within a special linguistic context. He is not focused on the linguistic phenomena, but rather on what his language refers to. The worry is that he makes a mistake, perhaps in part because he is not attentive to the linguistic phenomena. For simplicity's sake, consider just one of the transitions, from  to a: () The holy is loved because it is holy. (a) The god-loved is loved because it is god-loved. This seems to substitute 'god-loved' directly for 'holy' within the scope of a because clause. Such a substitution is often thought to be a problem on the assumption that this use of 'because' indicates the gods' reasons for loving and typically you cannot make such substitutions within a description of someone's reasons. If Oedipus is happy because he sees his wife, that does not mean he is happy because he sees his mother, even though his wife is his mother. However, we do not need to take the 'because' to pick out the gods' reasons in Socrates' argument, and there are good reasons for not doing so. Evans and Wolfsdorf have argued persuasively that Socrates is not substituting within a problematic context, arguing instead that the 'because' indicates the objective feature of the world that explains why the gods love, rather than the gods' reasons as such. This strategy allows us to sidestep the question of how Socrates, in the Euthyphro, would address the sort of problems that can arise from substituting in problematic contexts. Note that while Evans and Wolfsdorf accept an identity interpretation and they are the ones who argued for this at greatest length, the Aristotelian interpretation also accepts that 'because' in the argument indicates an objective explanatory relation. In fact, as we shall see, these relations play a crucial role in their reconstruction of the argument. Geach, 'Commentary', was. Wolfsdorf, 'Study', –, describes the secondary literature in the s and s.  See Geach, 'Commentary', and Cohen, 'Definition'. Created on 17 May 2017 at 11.15 hours page 87  David Ebrey Here, briefly, are the basic reasons for accepting this way of interpreting 'because' in the argument. Socrates treats the 'because' in () and () in the same way as the 'because' in () and (). If he used different types of 'because' in this argument, it would equivocate. This provides good reason to treat 'because' uniformly in the argument, if possible. The 'because' in () and () clearly has nothing to do with the gods' reasons; as mentioned earlier, it links the recipient of an action with the resulting affection. () and () involve an (objective) explanatory relation and so we should expect the 'because' in () and () to do so also. In short, we can take the 'because' to pick out an objective explanatory relation, and if we do so Socrates' argument does not equivocate and it does not run into problems with substitution, whereas if we interpret it as picking out the gods' reasons, the argument faces both problems. How shouldwe understand these objective explanatory relations? The 'because' in () indicates what, in fact, leads the gods to love these things: their being holy. What I am calling an 'explanatory relation' some (e.g. Judson and Evans) call a 'dependence relation' and others (e.g. Sharvy and Wolfsdorf) a 'causal' or 'aetiological' relation (in the Platonic sense of 'cause'). Using their language, we could say that the gods' love depends on its being holy or that the cause of the gods' love is that it is holy. While it is no doubt true that gods have reasons for loving, when Socrates says that the god loves them 'because they are holy', this 'because' is not looking for reasons, in particular. Plato, like Aristotle, tends simply to assume that we can understand the notion of one thing being be-  For more detailed arguments see Evans, 'Lessons', –, and Wolfsdorf, 'Study', – and –.  Cohen, 'Definition', presents an ingenious way to make the argument not equivocate, but which requires the applications of asymmetry to have different senses of 'because' (between () and () and between () and ()). This makes it impossible to see how Socrates can assume asymmetry, doing such things as inferring from one claim to its asymmetric pair.  I have reservations about explaining this use of 'because' in terms of Platonic causes. Plato in the Phaedo ( ) and the Cratylus ( ) says that a cause answers the 'because of what?' question.He explains what hemeans by a cause in terms of because relations, so it is not clear that we should try to understand because relations, in turn, in terms of causes. He does not use the language of causes in the Euthyphro. Of course, perhaps some of the substantive things Socrates says about causes could help us understand this use of 'because'. But that would require an argument to establish. Simply calling them Platonic causes does not help.  That said, sometimes reasons are the objective things in the world that explain something. Created on 17 May 2017 at 11.15 hours page 88 Identity and Explanation in the Euthyphro  cause of another without offering an account of what exactly this means. In the Euthyphro Socrates does not explicitly tell us how he is thinking about these relations. Instead, he provides a series of examples: something is carried (passive participle) because it is being carried (finite verb), something is led because it is being led, something is seen because it is being seen, and in general something is changed or affected because it is being changed or affected (  –  ). He uses these examples to motivate claims () and (). He then treats this as the same sort of 'because' relation that is found in () and (). While these explanatory relations play an important role across the Platonic and Aristotelian corpus, and in philosophers inspired by them, they are quite controversial. It is controversial whether we should accept that there are such relations at all, and if we accept that there are some, it is controversial where they occur. For example, Matt Evans accepts that there are explanatory relations, but doubts that there is such a relation between the active fact that one thing affects another and the passive fact that this thing is affected. Among contemporary philosophers, there has recently been significant interest in grounding, which seems to be a related sort of explanatory relation. But even Schaffer, a prominent proponent of grounding, has recently doubted the ability to define it, instead suggesting that we understand it through paradigm instances, glosses, and a formal structure. Arguably, Plato and Aristotle provide an account of how to understand explanatory relations when they provide their accounts of causes in places such as the Phaedo, the Physics, and the Posterior Analytics. But there is no reason to think that Socrates in the Euthyphro is relying on a more theoretically developed account, rather than an intuitive grasp. Let us suppose, then, that the 'because' is picking out an objective explanatory relation and return to our concern with substitution. There may still seem to be a problem when substituting terms  Dimas, 'Revisited',  n. , agrees that it is hard to determine exactly what Socrates means by these relations, noting that for purposes of the argument the most important point is that 'because' is asymmetric.  For an account of why it is reasonable to think that () and () are true see Evans, 'Lessons', –.  Ibid. –.  J. Schaffer, 'Grounding in the Image of Causation', Philosophical Studies,  (), –. This programme for the paper is laid out on page , and the use of 'because' in the Euthyphro is given as an example on page . Created on 17 May 2017 at 11.15 hours page 89  David Ebrey such as 'god-loved' and 'holy' within because contexts. Consider, for example: She healed my arm because she is a doctor. This need not indicate the reasons that motivated her to heal me. She may have done it for money or fame or out of obligation. But the relevant factor that allowed her to heal me is that she is a doctor and so it is because she is a doctor that she healed me. Nonetheless, problems can arise if we substitute something that, let us suppose, is coextensive with 'doctor': She healed my arm because she is a member of the best-paid profession. Even if we suppose that doctors are the best-paid professionals, this is not a valid inference. It is not in virtue of being well paid that doctors can heal. Given that we cannot make the above substitution, what justifies the move from () to (a)? There is an important disanalogy between Socrates' substitutions and this example. 'Doctor' and 'member of the best-paid profession' do not pick out the very same thing. This is why they cannot generally be substituted within objective uses of 'because'. By contrast, on the strict identity interpretationEuthyphro is claiming that god-loved and holy are not merely coextensive, but the very same feature, which is why if something holds because of one of them, it holds because of the other. The idea is that all such substitutions are fine as long as they are not within a problematic context, and explanatory relations do not generate such a context. Scholars frequently claim that Socrates allows 'god-loved' and 'holy' to be substituted for one another because, by hypothesis, one is a definition of the other. However, this does not help us understand why he thinks he can substitute these terms, since it is unclear how he thinks about what we call 'definitions'. He does not use a term that means definition in the dialogue. Part of what is at issue is how Socrates thinks of an answer to the 'what is it?' question. Socrates' stated reason for allowing the substitutions is that on this proposal the holy and the god-loved are the same. If f-ness and g-ness are the very same thing, f and g should be in all the same  e.g. Cohen, 'Definition', , and W. Mann, 'Piety: Lending a Hand to Euthyphro', Philosophy and Phenomenological Research,  (), – at . Created on 17 May 2017 at 11.15 hours page 90 Identity and Explanation in the Euthyphro  relations, including the objective dependence relation indicated by this use of 'because'. . The Aristotelian account of the argument The Aristotelian interpretation does not accept that 'the god-loved' and 'the holy' pick out the very same thing. Does it offer a convincing account of Socrates' apparent substitutions in the argument? It might seem that the Aristotelian interpretation could accept substituting 'holy' and 'god-loved' for each other in sentences with these sorts of 'because' claim, since on this interpretation the holy and the god-loved are quite similar to one another, even if they are not strictly the same. However, there are good reasons why this interpretation cannot allow these substitutions, as its defenders acknowledge. This is ultimately due to the interpretation's central claim that if g-ness is what f-ness is, then every f is f because it is g. This claim, when applied to Euthyphro's proposal, yields: () The holy is holy because it is god-loved. It is important to realize that this statement, (), is never made in the Euthyphro. Euthyphro does agree to (), that the holy is holy because it is loved by the gods. But, as we have seen, this is very different from the claim that the holy is holy because it is god-loved. Socrates' argument relies crucially on the difference between 'godloved' and 'is loved by the gods'; premisses () and () focus entirely on the relation between these. () is an interpretative posit of the Aristotelian interpretation, not accepted by the strict identity interpretation. Judson thinks we can assume () plays a role in Socrates' elenchus from the fact that other dependence claims are made in the argument: There are many items in this matrix [of things that involve dependence relations], all but one invoked by the term 'because': Socrates and Euthyphro use ὅτι, διότι, and διά interchangeably for this purpose, over  times in our passage (a–b). Only one item is not so invoked-Euthyphro's definition itself, which enters the matrix at e–. I think we should infer that Socrates, as Plato presents him here, construes definition as itself involving dependence. . . .  Judson, 'Carried', . Created on 17 May 2017 at 11.15 hours page 91  David Ebrey Judson treats Socrates' frequent use of 'because' language in the passage as evidence that Socrates thinks that Euthyphro's definition itself is supposed to involve dependence (between the definiens, the god-loved, and the definiendum, the holy). Judson relies on this dependence relation in his reconstruction of Socrates' refutation. But if the evidence Judson cites warrants anything, it is the opposite inference. As Judson notes, Socrates is more than willing to use 'because' language in this argument. If he had wanted to say that Euthyphro's account itself requires dependence, it would have been quite natural for him to do so. The fact that he mentions other dependence relations certainly does not give us any reason to infer that he thinks that there is a dependence relation between holy and god-loved. The Aristotelian interpretation's commitment to () is why they cannot accept that Socrates is simply substituting 'holy' and 'godloved' for one another in sentences such as () and (). Suppose that Socrates did allow for substitutions within sentences with these sorts of because clause. Then the Aristotelian interpretation would be committed to these claims: () The holy is holy because it is god-loved. (a) The holy is god-loved because it is holy (substituting 'holy' for 'god-loved' and vice versa in ()). But, given asymmetry, this leads to a contradiction. The asymmetric correlate of () is: () It is not the case that the holy is god-loved because it is holy. () is the denial of (a). Intuitively, we can think of the problem this way: if being god-loved is the underlying explanation for being holy, then being holy cannot be the underlying explanation for being god-loved; but if you allowed intersubstitution of 'god-loved' and 'holy' within because contexts, then we could move from one explanation to the other. Note that contradictions of the sort found between (a) and () could be generated for any proposed answer to a 'what is it?' question-even a correct one. Thus, the Aristotelian interpretation cannot suggest that this is a result of Euthyphro's proposal  The simple substitution strategy also results in claims like this: (b) The holy is holy because it is holy. This runs into direct problems with asymmetry. Created on 17 May 2017 at 11.15 hours page 92 Identity and Explanation in the Euthyphro  being flawed. The problem arises from accepting asymmetry, the Aristotelian interpretation, and the ability to substitute such terms directly. Formally, the contradiction comes about as follows. Suppose g-ness is what f-ness is. Then (A) The f is f because it is g. (Aristotelian interpretation) (B) The f is g because it is f . (Direct substitution on A) (C) It is not the case that the f is g because it is f . (Asymmetric correlate of A) Contradiction (between B and C). This is why proponents of the Aristotelian interpretation acknowledge that they cannot allow direct substitution, denying B. The strict identity interpretation, by contrast, avoids this contradiction by denying A. Since Sharvy and Judson realize that their interpretation is incompatible with direct substitution, they suggest instead that Socrates is committed to a form of transitivity that, along with (), allows one to justify the transition from () to (a) and () to (a). The relevant form of transitivity is the claim that if something is b because it is c and it is c because it is d, then it is b because it is d. The idea is that if () the holy is holy because it is god-loved and () it is god-loved because it is loved by the gods, then (a) the holy is holy because it is loved by the gods. We can reach (a) using a similar application of transitivity. The Aristotelian interpretation sees the answer to the 'what is f-ness?' question as prior to f-ness, and so appeals to transitivity, while the strict identity interpretation sees the answer as identical, and so appeals to substitution. This use of transitivity is clever but highly speculative. Socrates never mention (), and he never mentions or presupposes transitivity elsewhere in the Euthyphro. This requires Socrates to rely on two different claims he never makes in the dialogue to justify a somewhat sophisticated move from () to (a) and () to (a). Instead, what Socrates says to justify the move from () to (a) and  Sharvy, 'Analysis',  ff., and Judson, 'Carried', .  We reach (a) as follows: () The holy is loved because it is holy. () The holy is holy because it is god-loved. The first instance of 'holy' in () is not part of a because context, so we can substitute it on Sharvy's and Judson's accounts. Therefore, by transitivity: (a) The god-loved is loved because it is god-loved. Created on 17 May 2017 at 11.15 hours page 93  David Ebrey () to (a) is that the holy and the god-loved are the same, as we saw in the passage at   –  . The interpretation with better textual evidence, then, is that Socrates is simply substituting one term for the other because he accepts strict identity. It might seem open for Socrates to have a looser notion of sameness, such as Aristotle's sameness in number. If he did, then perhaps in saying that the god-loved and the holy are the same, he would be leaving open that something could be holy because it is god-loved. But there is no evidence for this sort of loose notion of sameness in the Euthyphro, and elsewhere in the dialogue 'same' seems to refer to strict identity. At   – Socrates says, 'or is the holy itself not the same as itself in every action?'. He then says that forms such as this are each one thing (  –). The word 'same' here is naturally read asmeaning strict identity: the form of holiness is exactly the same thing in the different actions. More importantly, a looser notion of sameness makes it impossible to understand the inference drawn from   –  , where Socrates cites their being the same to license the move from () to (a) and from () to (a). If he were operating with a looser notion of sameness, he would not be entitled to these inferences, since in general you cannot preserve truth while substituting two things that are only loosely the same. This is seen in the example of substituting 'member of the best-paid profession' for 'doctor': this substitution does not preserve truth, even though these two are loosely the same (since they are coextensive). Thus, the Aristotelian interpretation faces three successive problems making sense of   –  . First, it has trouble explaining why Socrates would say in any context that the holy and the godloved are the same. Second, it has trouble explaining why Socrates says that they are the same where he does: in justifying the transformations from () to (a) and () to (a), which on the Aristotelian interpretation have nothing to do with sameness. And third, if they attribute to Socrates a looser sense of sameness, such a sense would be too weak to justify the transformations. . Apparent advantages of the Aristotelian interpretation We have seen that there are textual difficulties with the Aristotelian interpretation and direct evidence for the strict identity interpretation. However, several considerations seem to favour the AristoCreated on 17 May 2017 at 11.15 hours page 94 Identity and Explanation in the Euthyphro  telian account. Seeing how the strict identity account can address these will help fill out this interpretation. In this section I address three textual considerations that seem to favour the Aristotelian account: (i) Socrates' opening question in the argument discussed above; (ii) his distinction between an ousia (being) and a pathos (affection); and (iii) the way forms are described near the beginning of the dialogue. Clarifying the strict identity account in the light of these considerations will allow us, in the next section, to distinguish the strict identity interpretation from other similar interpretations and to explore some questions that naturally arise on the strict identity view. In Section  I address a fourth, broader consideration that seems to favour the Aristotelian interpretation: (iv) the expectation that answers to the 'what is it?' question should be informative. It is common to take Socrates' famous opening question as spelling out the consequences if Euthyphro's answer were right: ἆρα τὸ ὅσιον ὅτι ὅσιόν ἐστιν φιλεῖται ὑπὸ τῶν θεῶν, ἢ ὅτι φιλεῖται ὅσιόν ἐστιν; (  –) Is the holy loved by the gods because it is holy, or is it holy because it is loved? On this reading of the question, Socrates is suggesting that if Euthyphro's answerwere correct, then the holywould be holy because it is loved. This would seem to support the Aristotelian interpretation. But notice that in the question Socrates here assumes asymmetry and asks Euthyphro whether he accepts () or denies (), treating these as incompatible alternatives. He is asking Euthyphro why the gods love holy things. As we have seen, there is an important difference between god-loved and loved by the gods. The Aristotelian interpretation understands Euthyphro's proposal as (): the holy is holy because it is god-loved. The opening question is about whether the holy is loved, not about whether it is god-loved; thus, even according to the Aristotelian interpretation the opening question does not spell out the consequences if Euthyphro is right. On either interpretation, Socrates' opening question asks a substantive theological question. Euthyphro does not understand the question at first, which leads Socrates to approach the issue in a different way. But when he returns to the question at   – Euthyphro finds it  See e.g. Cohen, 'Definition', . Evans, 'Lessons', , claims that this question 'poses an important challenge to Euthyphro's Answer'. Created on 17 May 2017 at 11.15 hours page 95  David Ebrey easy to answer it: the gods love holy things because they are holy, and so he agrees to (). The next consideration that seems to favour the Aristotelian interpretation is Socrates' distinction between ousia (being) and pathos (affection) at the end of the argument. On some readings, for example Wolfsdorf's, Socrates is telling us the ontological status of the thing he is looking for: he wants something ontologically fundamental, an ousia, not a pathos. This sort of reading fits naturally with the Aristotelian interpretation's idea that an answer to the 'what is it?' question should be explanatorily prior. But this is a misreading of Socrates' distinction between ousia and pathos. Socrates' complaint is this: καὶ κινδυνεύεις, ὦ Εὐθύφρων, ἐρωτώμενος τὸ ὅσιον ὅτι ποτ   ἐστίν, τὴν μὲν οὐσίαν μοι αὐτοῦ οὐ βούλεσθαι δηλῶσαι, πάθος δέ τι περὶ αὐτοῦ λέγειν, ὅτι πέπονθε τοῦτο τὸ ὅσιον, φιλεῖσθαι ὑπὸ πάντων θεῶν· ὅτι δὲ ὄν, οὔπω εἶπες. (  – ) And I'm afraid, Euthyphro, that when you were asked what the holy is, you did not wish to make its ousia clear to me, but you mentioned a pathos of it [περὶ αὐτοῦ], that the holy possesses this pathos [πέπονθε], being loved by all the gods, but you have not yet told me what the holy is. Note that Socrates' contrast is not between providing a pathos and an ousia; it is between providing a pathos of the holy and an ousia of the holy. For all this says, the holy might be a pathos. But then Socrates would want the ousia of this pathos, not some pathos of this pathos. This is the first extant philosophical use of the word ousia in Greek literature, which adds to the difficulty in knowing what Plato means by it. Grammatically, it is an abstract noun formed from the participle of the verb 'to be'. At the end of the passage Socrates treats not providing the ousia of the holy as equivalent to not saying what it is. In saying what the holy is, you are providing the being of the holy. A pathos of the holy, by contrast, is something that is true of the holy, but is not what the holy is; instead, it is something else that holds of it. This distinction between what something is and the affections it has is independent of whether the thing in question is ontologically fundamental. For example, suppose that purple is not fundamental, but rather dependent on blue and red (which may de-  Wolfsdorf, 'Study', –. For example, on page  Wolfsdorf suggests that for Hippias gold might be something's ousia, whereas other affections would be pathē.  For a discussion of this see F.-G. Herrmann, Words and Ideas: The Roots of Plato's Philosophy (Oxford, ), ch. . Created on 17 May 2017 at 11.15 hours page 96 Identity and Explanation in the Euthyphro  pend on other things in turn). In asking what purple is, we are not supposing that the being of purple is fundamental; it depends on blue and red. Nonetheless, we want the being of purple, not some affection of it, such as its being the colour of royalty. Thus, when Socrates says that he is looking for an ousia, he is not restricting the ontological status of the thing in question. The third consideration that seems to favour the Aristotelian interpretation is Socrates' initial descriptions of what he is looking for in an answer to 'what is the holy?' (  –  and   – , quoted below). In these descriptions Socrates suggests that an answer must have a sort of priority. This seems to support the Aristotelian interpretation. I shall argue that Socrates is requiring a different sort of explanatory priority from that proposed by the Aristotelian interpretation. Socrates requires an answer to the 'what is f-ness?' question to be prior to the f-things. This is compatible with both theAristotelian and the strict identity interpretations. Socrates calls the thing picked out by a correct answer to 'what is f-ness?' a 'form' in the Euthyphro (εἶδος   , ἰδέα    and   ). As we shall see, Socrates says that it is by the form of f-ness that every f-thing is f . Note how this is distinct from the claim made by the Aristotelian interpretation, according to which an answer must pick out some distinct feature, g (let us suppose proportion), which explains why f things are f . Instead, Socrates is requiring that f things (e.g. beautiful things) are f (beautiful) because of f-ness (beauty). Socrates' first description of what he wants from an answer to 'what is the holy?' raises a number of interpretative difficulties. Many of these difficulties are settled by his next description, so it is easiest to consider these two passages together. Our primary interest is in the sense in which an answer to 'what is the holy?' should be explanatory. νῦν οὖν πρὸς Διὸς λέγε μοι ὃ νυνδὴ σαφῶς εἰδέναι διισχυρίζου, ποῖόν τι τὸ εὐσεβὲς φῂς εἶναι καὶ τὸ ἀσεβὲς καὶ περὶ φόνου καὶ περὶ τῶν ἄλλων; ἢ οὐ ταὐτόν ἐστιν ἐν πάσῃ πράξει τὸ ὅσιον αὐτὸ αὑτῷ, καὶ τὸ ἀνόσιον αὖ τοῦ μὲν ὁσίου παντὸς ἐναντίον, αὐτὸ δὲ αὑτῷ ὅμοιον καὶ ἔχον μίαν τινὰ ἰδέαν κατὰ τὴν ἀνοσιότητα πᾶν ὅτιπερ ἂν μέλλῃ ἀνόσιον εἶναι; (  – ) So tell me now, by Zeus, what you just now maintained you clearly knew,  See the end of sect.  for a discussion of whether there are forms for things such as purple. For my purposes it does not matter whether Socrates would accept that there is such a form-it is merely an illustrative example. Created on 17 May 2017 at 11.15 hours page 97  David Ebrey what sort of thing do you say the pious and the impious are, as regards both murder and other things? Or is the holy itself not the same as itself in every action, and the unholy in turn the opposite of all of the holy, and itself similar to itself, and whatever is going to be unholy has some one form [ἰδέαν] according to its unholiness? μέμνησαι οὖν ὅτι οὐ τοῦτό σοι διεκελευόμην, ἕν τι ἢ δύο με διδάξαι τῶν πολλῶν ὁσίων, ἀλλ   ἐκεῖνο αὐτὸ τὸ εἶδος ᾧ πάντα τὰ ὅσια ὅσιά ἐστιν; ἔφησθα γάρ που μιᾷ ἰδέᾳ τά τε ἀνόσια ἀνόσια εἶναι καὶ τὰ ὅσια ὅσια· ἢ οὐ μνημονεύεις; (  – ) Recall that I did not bid you to do this, to teach me one or two of the holy things, but to teach me that form [εἶδος] itself by which all the holy things are holy. For you said, I suppose, that by one form [ἰδέᾳ] both the unholy things are unholy and the holy things are holy. Or don't you remember? The first passage makes a number of claims about the holy and the unholy, including the claims that the holy itself is the same as itself in every action, the unholy is opposite of all of the holy, and the unholy itself is like itself. For our purposes the most important claim is at the end of the passage: everything that is going to be unholy has some one form. Socrates clarifies this claim and seemingly expands upon it in the second passage, which can only be referring back to the first when Socrates says, 'Recall that . . .'. According to this second passage, when Socrates asks 'What is the holy?' he is asking for the form, and this form will tell us by what (causal dative) all the holy things are holy. Wolfsdorf, citing the first passage, says that the form is 'a holy thing insofar as it is holy'. According to his account, f-ness just is an f-thing in so far as it is f . It is illuminating to see why this cannot be correct. Socrates says in the above passages that a form is something that holy things have. It is in the holy actions. It is by the form that holy things are holy. The form of the holy in the Euthyphro is not a way of picking out a holy thing, as it is on Wolfsdorf's proposal. The form is more distinct from the individual holy things than Wolfsdorf allows. Calling someone a 'builder' picks her out in so far as she builds. A builder does not also have a builder in her that is the same in every builder. By contrast, every holy action has the same form in it. f-things are not the same as f-ness; they have f-ness in them. Moreover, Socrates says that it is by the form that the holy things are holy. But there is not this sort of explanatory dis-  Note that Socrates here treats 'the pious' and 'the impious' (τὸ εὐσεβὲς καὶ τὸ ἀσεβές) as synonyms for 'the holy' and 'the unholy' (τὸ ὅσιον καὶ τὸ ἀνόσιον).  Wolfsdorf, 'Study', –, emphasis original. Created on 17 May 2017 at 11.15 hours page 98 Identity and Explanation in the Euthyphro  tance between a thing and that-thing-in-so-far-as-it-is-that-thing: it is not the case that a builder is a builder because of the builder-inso-far-as-she-is-a-builder. A better candidate to explain why every builder is a builder is that each has the same thing in her: the craft of building. The form is more like the craft than the craftsman. The Aristotelian interpretation seems to have a straightforward account of how the form explains why all holy things are holy: it provides a distinct feature that is prior to and explanatory of holiness. By contrast, on the strict identity interpretation the form is not something prior to holiness. How, then, can it explain why holy things are holy? Instead of picking out some distinct feature, Socrates is identifying the relation between the form of holiness and the various holy things. The holy things are holy because of something they all have in common. There is something that is the same in every holy thing and it is because of this that each of them is holy. This thing is the holiness that they each have. In saying that holy things are holy 'by' this holiness, Socrates is not picking out some further feature they have, some feature prior to being holy. Instead, he is pointing to something akin to the relation between a universal and a particular or between a type and a token. He is prioritizing the thing that is the same in all cases; this thing explains why the particular cases are the way they are. More specifically, he is saying that each holy thing is holy because of some same thing they each have in them. This is the being (ousia) of holiness, what the holy is. Socrates does not know what this is. That is what he is trying to determine when he asks 'what is the holy?'.  See Sharvy, 'Analysis', . While not a proponent of the Aristotelian interpretation, Cohen, 'Definition', , thinks that the distinction drawn here is the same as the one drawn in the argument from    to   . See the footnote at the end of this paragraph for a discussion of how straightforward, in fact, the Aristotelian account is.  I say 'akin to' because universals or types are not quite like forms as described in the Euthyphro. A token is an instance, and Socrates is not saying that the form explains an instance of the form. If Socrates thinks there are instances of forms, these would be in particular holy things. However, the form is not said to explain something in a holy thing, but rather why the holy thing is holy. Again, we can use the analogy with the builder. The universal builder is not the same as the craft of building, although it is akin to the craft. The craft of building relates to the various builders not as type to token, but in a way akin to this. To put it in a linguistic mode, the form of holiness explains the predicate 'holy', not some specific holiness found in holy things.  How straightforward is the Aristotelian interpretation's account here? According to it, the form indicates a prior feature, g, that explains why things are f . But note that simply identifying this prior feature does not explain how the form of f-ness Created on 17 May 2017 at 11.15 hours page 99  David Ebrey Why does Socrates think the form of holiness is explanatorily prior to the various holy things? Unfortunately, he does not defend this claim here. Since the Euthyphro, the existence and nature of so-called abstract entities has been one of the most enduring philosophical topics. The best we can do, for purposes of understanding the Euthyphro, is bring out the idea's intuitive appeal. We ask 'what is holiness?' because we think that we can identify something that explains why each holy thing is holy. There is something all holy things have in common and it is because of this that each of them is holy. The existence of such a thing seems presupposed by our using the same predicate for several things. While most people find such a view intuitive, many philosophers have denied that there are universals, and so a fortiori denied this sort of priority. So it is worth noting that in the Euthyphro Socrates does not simply assume that there are such things. As we saw in Socrates' first mention of forms (  – ), Socrates asks Euthyphro whether he agrees that there is such a thing. . Prior features and strict identity I have argued that three textual considerations that seem to support the Aristotelian interpretation are, in fact, neutral between it and the strict identity interpretation. In this section I first argue that some scholars who accept an identity interpretation do not adhere to it when they consider the possibility that there is a feature prior to being holy. After arguing for this, I discuss whether Socrates allows for such prior features in the Euthyphro, and if so, how to think of them. While several scholars have accepted some sort of identity interpretation, they often do not adhere to it consistently. For example, Cohen in his classic article accepts that an answer to 'what is holirelates to individual f-things. It is open to the Aristotelian interpreter to say that the form of f-ness both (i) identifies a prior feature, g, that explains why f-things are f , and (ii) is prior to f-things in a way akin to the priority of universal to particular. But it is worth seeing that these are two different sorts of explanatory task, which can be separated and are separated on the strict identity interpretation. Once we see these as distinct, it is no longer clear that the Aristotelian interpretation has a particularly straightforward account. The strict identity interpretation has a cleaner division of labour: the form only explains the relation between f-ness and f-things. I would like to thank David Bronstein for suggesting that I bring this out. Created on 17 May 2017 at 11.15 hours page 100 Identity and Explanation in the Euthyphro  ness?' should pick out the same thing as holiness. Then, at the end of his article, he says: [Socrates' argument] only proves that 'pious' cannot be defined as 'godloved' if the gods' reason for loving what is pious is that it is pious. Does this amount to proving that 'pious' cannot be defined as 'god-loved' if the gods have a reason for loving what is pious? No; the gods might have other reasons for loving what is pious. But this implication is clear at any rate: if the gods do have reasons for loving what is pious, it is to these reasons that we should look in trying to define 'pious'. If the gods have a reason for loving pious acts, it will be that these acts have, or are thought by the gods to have, certain features. It is these features, then, that should serve to define piety. Cohen imagines that the gods love the pious because it possesses some features other than its being pious-let us suppose because it is pure and harmonious. At the end of the passage he says that these features should serve to define piety. By hypothesis, these are features distinct from being pious. Supposedly they should serve to define piety because the gods recognize them as the ultimate basis for things being pious. This commits Cohen to the Aristotelian interpretation, and in any event it is incompatible with his commitment to an identity interpretation. In a similar but more complicated discussion, Evans also suggests answering 'what is piety?' in terms of a feature strictly prior to being pious, despite being a strong proponent of an identity interpretation earlier in his article. It takes a bit of unpacking to see that Evans is committed to this. In a hypothetical argument against Euthyphro's position he says: For if there is some property of pious things that makes the gods love them, and thereby also makes them pious then presumably it is this property that Socrates has been looking for all along. In order to justify the 'thereby' in the italicized part of the passage Evans says that the relevant dependence relations are transitive. While the simple use of a transitive relation need not lead to an  Cohen, 'Definition', e.g. .  Ibid. , emphasis original.  This arises in Evans's defence of what he calls 'foundation': Evans, 'Lessons', –.  Ibid. , emphasis original.  Ibid.  n. . Created on 17 May 2017 at 11.15 hours page 101  David Ebrey Aristotelian interpretation, in this case it does. Evans is using a transitive relation to draw this sort of connection: Property P makes the gods love (l) pious things. (Hypothesis) The gods loving (l) pious things makes them pious. (True on Euthyphro's proposal) Therefore: Property P makes the pious things pious. Note that P is prior to feature l, which is prior to their being pious. P counts as an answer to 'what is piety?' only on the Aristotelian interpretation, not the strict identity interpretation, since it answers 'what is the pious?' using some feature prior to being pious. The above passage is part of Evans's argument that Euthyphro's proposal is problematic because it does not make the form the foundational basis for things being pious. But why should a form provide such a basis? According to Euthyphro's proposal, being pious is something explanatorily posterior: it is explained by the fact that the gods love it. Thus, according to the strict identity interpretation, Euthyphro's account should identify something that is explanatorily posterior. Below I explore an idea raised by Cohen and Evans: that there is some feature prior to being holy. But before I do so, we should consider a question. I have argued that there is one explanatory relation between the form of f-ness and f-things, and another between f-things and g-things, when g is prior to f . The question is whether Socrates thinks that there is the same type of explanatory relation  It is unclear whether property P is prior to loving in the way that the form of f-ness is prior to f-things, or in the way that one feature can be prior to another. But for our purposes it does not matter, since Evans claims that loving is prior to being pious, and that property P explains loving. This commits him to the Aristotelian interpretation, because the form explains one feature (loving) which is prior to the feature in question (being pious).  Evans provides the above argument, which relies on the Aristotelian interpretation, in explaining and defending Socrates' claim that the pious is loved because it is pious (which he calls 'object priority'). I think Evans provides a different, much stronger defence of this claim (on pages –) and so the above argument (for what he calls 'foundation') is unnecessary. In this other defence he points out that earlier in the dialogue Socrates has suggested that the gods, in loving, are responding to the perceived goodness of things, which is manifest in their holiness. This (along with the gods' accurate beliefs about what is good) explains why the gods love pious things because they are pious. Note that this does not require the argument (for foundation) discussed above; as Evans himself notes, it requires only a commitment to a type of Socratic intellectualism and the cognitive accuracy of the gods.  I would like to thank Matt Evans for pressing me on the questions in this paragraph and the next. Created on 17 May 2017 at 11.15 hours page 102 Identity and Explanation in the Euthyphro  in these two cases. He does not explicitly distinguish different types of explanation in the Euthyphro. At first, it might seem that he uses different explanatory vocabulary in the two cases. In the earlier passage (  – ) he uses the causal dative for the relation between the form of f-ness and f-things. By contrast, in the argument at   –   he typically uses 'because' (ὅτι or διότι) and 'because of this' (διὰ τοῦτο), where 'this' (τοῦτο) refers to a clause introduced with 'because' (ὅτι or διότι). However, Socrates does use a causal dative once in the argument. He says that something is god-loved 'because it is loved by the gods' and then paraphrases this as 'by this being loved itself ' (αὐτῷ τούτῳ τῷ φιλεῖσθαι,   –). While there is this overlap in Socrates' explanatory vocabulary, we can distinguish these two uses of 'because' in a different way: one of them picks out a single thing, a form, expressed with a noun (typically formed with an article and adjective-'the holy'); the other picks out a state of affairs expressed with a subject, verb, and sometimes a predicate or prepositional phrase (e.g. 'it is loved by the gods'). Thus, while it is not clear whether Socrates thought there were two different types of explanatory relation, he does express them differently. Whether or not these are the same sorts of explanatory relation, Socrates' account in the Euthyphro seems, at least on the face of it, to allow for two explanations for the same fact. Consider the fact that every holy thing is holy. As we saw, Socrates does not object to Euthyphro's proposal on the grounds that it allows something to be prior to being holy. Moreover, as we saw, Cohen and Evans are open to the possibility of there being something prior in their arguments. Suppose that holy things are holy because they are harmonious. If so, then on the strict identity interpretation there would be two explanations for the same fact: the holy things would be holy both because of the form of holiness and because they are harmonious. We could avoid having these two explanations by denying that there is a form of holiness if it turns out that there is some prior feature that explains why things are holy. But Socrates never suggests that this is a requirement on there being a form of holiness. As we have seen, when Socrates asks Euthyphro whether he thinks that there is an answer to 'what is holiness?', he spells out what this  Note that in the Meno Socrates uses διά with the accusative in place of a causal dative, in a passage (  – ) that otherwise is very similar to Socrates' description of forms in the Euthyphro. Created on 17 May 2017 at 11.15 hours page 103  David Ebrey would entail: that there be a form that is the same in every holy action, that the unholy is opposite to all that is holy, etc. He suggests that meeting these conditions is sufficient for there being an answer to 'what is holiness?'. He never mentions a requirement that there be no feature prior to being holy. Moreover, it is strange to think that the 'what is f-ness?' question simply assumes that f has nothing prior to it other than the form of f-ness. And if Socrates thought this, he could have argued against Euthyphro's proposal in a much simpler way, pointing out that Euthyphro had not proposed something foundational, and so must not have identified a form. It seems to me that the most plausible conclusion is that Socrates, as described in the Euthyphro, thinks there is a form of holiness regardless of whether there is some feature that is prior to being holy. There is another way we could avoid the possibility that there are two explanations for why every holy thing is holy. We could simply deny that being holy is the sort of thing that could be explained by some prior feature. Unlike the previous option, this would not be because of some requirement on forms, but because being holy is a bedrock feature, not explained by any other. However, it is not clear why Socrates would think that being holy is such a feature. This proposal also seems to run into questions about Socrates' profession of ignorance. If he does not know what holiness is, should he be confident that there are no features prior to being holy? Again, this seems to me unlikely. Instead, it seems that Socrates, as described in the Euthyphro, should be open to double explanations in these cases. I have argued that Socrates seems to allow for double explanations in the Euthyphro, although this position is not required by the strict identity interpretation. If there are such double explanations, one would like to knowwhether each explanation is, on its own, sufficient. Unfortunately, Socrates simply does not explore this in the Euthyphro. Rather than try to find answers to such questions in this dialogue, I think it is better to view it as naturally raising questions of this sort. We can then see the Euthyphro as setting the agenda for later discussions of explanatory priority, especially the priority of the forms. Of course, we do not need to think that Plato in-  I am not aware of any place in the dialogues where Socrates (or anyone else) denies that there are forms for features that are explanatorily posterior. At Parm.  – Socrates seems to deny that certain things have forms on the grounds that these things are undignified andworthless ( ), not because they are explanatorily posterior. Created on 17 May 2017 at 11.15 hours page 104 Identity and Explanation in the Euthyphro  tended to set this agenda when he wrote it. I have argued elsewhere that when Socrates in the Phaedo says things such as 'everything larger than something else is larger because of nothing other than largeness' (  –) he is claiming that only the form of f-ness explains why things are f . If this is correct, in that dialogue Socrates denies that there are double explanations by denying that features explained by forms are ever explained by anything other than forms. By contrast, Aristotle in Physics .  (and elsewhere) suggests a different position. He says that there are different types of cause, which are each answers to the 'because of what?' question. Only one of these is the form. After laying out the four types of cause, he denies asymmetry on the grounds that A can be one type of cause of B, while B is another type of cause of A (a–). The Euthyphro has started a discussion of explanatory priority and the explanatory role of forms, while leaving a number of questions unanswered, questions which are taken up in other dialogues and by later philosophers. While it is beyond the scope of this paper to examine whether the strict identity interpretation has textual support in other dialogues, let me point out how it could help resolve a well-known puzzle about the form of the beautiful. Socrates elsewhere seems committed both to there being a form of the beautiful and to beautiful things being beautiful at least in part because they are good. It is sometimes thought that this makes the form of the beautiful collapse into the form of the good. But that is only a threat on the Aristotelian interpretation. On the strict identity interpretation, the form of the beautiful picks out precisely the feature in question, being beautiful, not the feature prior to it, being good. As long as we allow for double explanations, there is no problem with all beautiful things being beautiful because of the form of the beautiful and also because they are good. While it is true that the form of the good would indirectly explain things being beautiful, the two forms would be doing different work. Things would be  D. Ebrey, 'Making Room for Matter: Material Causes in the Phaedo and the Physics', Apeiron,  (), –. Cf.   –,   –,   –. In this article I provide an account of why Plato and Aristotle have different ways of thinking about causation in the Phaedo and the Physics, and how Aristotle's denial of asymmetry fits into this.  For the question whether the beautiful and the good end up being strictly identical see e.g. R. Barney, 'Notes on Plato on the Kalon and the Good', Classical Philology,  (), – at . Created on 17 May 2017 at 11.15 hours page 105  David Ebrey beautiful because they are good, but they would not be beautiful because they are beautiful-we could not simply substitute 'good' and 'beautiful' for each other. The form of the beautiful would directly explain why things are beautiful; the form of the good would do so only indirectly, through explaining why they are good. . Why is an answer informative? The last step in defending and fleshing out the strict identity interpretation is to show how it can address a broader consideration that seems to favour the Aristotelian interpretation. This interpretation provides a very natural account of why Socrates, or anyone else, would want an answer to the 'what is f-ness?' question. On the Aristotelian interpretation an answer to this question reveals something fundamental about the nature of the f-ness and, in doing so, explains why things are f . By contrast, the strict identity interpretation does not offer something more fundamental than f-ness. Since it insists on providing exactly the same thing, it is hard to see why it is illuminating at all. One way that an answer could be illuminating is by revealing the structure of the thing in question, which is not revealed when it is simply called, for example, 'the holy'. The idea is that an answer to 'what is the holy?' should pick out the very same thing as 'the holy', but do so in a way that makes evident its structure. There is some indication in the Euthyphro that Socrates allows that holiness may have some such internal complexity since he suggests that it might be a type of justice (  –;   – ). If holiness turned out to be a type of justice, wewould learn something important aboutwhat holiness is, without needing to think that the answer we identify is prior to holiness. While Socrates does not provide a developed account of the sort of internal structure forms might have, he seems to allow for some such possibility by allowing that holiness might be a type of justice.  In some dialogues, especially those typically identified as middle, Socrates seems to suggest that forms have a very strict sort of unity (e.g. his claim that they are uniform, μονοειδές, in the Phaedo at    and Symposium at   ). Aside from the claim that the form of the unholy is 'one' (  ), we have no such claim in the Euthyphro. But it is unclear what exactly these strict sorts of unity amount to, and it is unclear whether Socrates is defending the same position in the Euthyphro as in these other dialogues. Given this, we should not allow these claims to restrict Created on 17 May 2017 at 11.15 hours page 106 Identity and Explanation in the Euthyphro  Consider the answer to 'what is swiftness?' in the Laches: the power to accomplish a lot in a short period of time (  – ). One way to interpret this, in line with the Aristotelian interpretation, is as saying that this power is a more fundamental or basic feature than being swift. However, we do not need to interpret it this way. Instead, another option, equally compatible with the text of the Laches, is that we learn what sort of thing swiftness is when we learn that it is a power. And we learn how to distinguish it from other powers when we learn that it is a power to accomplish a lot in a short period of time. This is illuminating even if it is not picking out something explanatorily prior. On this account, swiftness is identical to the power to accomplish a lot in a short period of time. Of course, an account of swiftness as this power might have a sort of epistemic priority: we might be able to tell that something is swift because it is this sort of power. But this 'because' tracks our evidence-it explains how we can tell it is swift-rather than indicating an explanatory dependence between being swift and being this sort of power. While Socrates does not directly address how an answer can be informative in the Euthyphro, he does make a relevant remark in the Meno: εἰ δὲ ὥσπερ ἐγώ τε καὶ σὺ νυνὶ φίλοι ὄντες βούλοιντο ἀλλήλοις διαλέγεσθαι, δεῖ δὴ πρᾳότερόν πως καὶ διαλεκτικώτερον ἀποκρίνεσθαι. ἔστι δὲ ἴσως τὸ διαλεκτικώτερον μὴ μόνον τἀληθῆ ἀποκρίνεσθαι, ἀλλὰ καὶ δι   ἐκείνων ὧν ἂν προσομολογῇ εἰδέναι ὁ ἐρωτώμενος. (  –) But if people were willing to converse with one another as friends like you and I now, then the answer must be gentler, as it were, and more suited to conversation. And perhaps what is more suited to conversation is not only to give the true answer, but also to do so in terms which the questioner has in addition agreed he knows. Socrates is clear here that an answer could be true but not useful for the questioner, because it does not reveal the answer to him in a way that he understands. Saying 'the holy is the holy', while true, is not speaking in terms that the questioner has agreed he knows. The idea on the strict identity account is that an answer to 'what is our interpretation of the Euthyphro. It is clear that in this dialogue he is open to holiness being a type of justice.  Translation from R. W. Sharples, Plato: Meno (Warminster, ), lightly modified. Created on 17 May 2017 at 11.15 hours page 107  David Ebrey the holy?' should present the very same feature, but do so in terms the questioner understands. This passage from theMenomakes it clear that Socrates is looking for an answer that is not only correct, but informative. Of course, that does not mean that it is easy to provide a correct account if we avoid tautologous claims such as 'the holy is the holy'. As we have seen, Socrates has a very strict constraint on a correct answer: it cannot pick out a merely coextensive feature; it must pick out the very feature in question. In order to be informative we need to be careful about how we pick out this feature. We should do so using terms the interlocutor understands. Whether an account is correct will not depend on who the interlocutor is, but whether it is informative will. In fact, the same issue arises for the Aristotelian interpretation in determining how to identify a more fundamental feature. How should someone pick out this feature? Specifying it as 'the feature that explains why holy things are holy' would necessarily be correct according to this interpretation, but it is not informative. We could easily formulate such an answer for any 'what is it?' question. Thus, while at one level the Aristotelian interpretation seems to provide a more informative account, both interpretations need additional constraints to provide genuinely informative answers. In the last section and this one I have described (i) the sort of priority the form of f-ness has and (ii) how answers to the 'what is it?' question can be informative. Note how this fits with one of Socrates' most famous remarks in the Euthyphro: ταύτην τοίνυν με αὐτὴν δίδαξον τὴν ἰδέαν τίς ποτέ ἐστιν, ἵνα εἰς ἐκείνην ἀποβλέπων καὶ χρώμενος αὐτῇ παραδείγματι, ὃ μὲν ἂν τοιοῦτον ᾖ ὧν ἂν ἢ σὺ ἢ ἄλλος τις πράττῃ φῶ ὅσιον εἶναι, ὃ δ   ἂν μὴ τοιοῦτον, μὴ φῶ. (  –) Teach me then what this form itself is, so that I may look upon it [ἀποβλέπων] and, using it as a model [παραδείγματι], say that any action of yours or another's that is of that sort is holy, and if it is not that it is not.  Note that this is compatible with my claim in sect.  that one can substitute answers to 'what is it?' questions for each other within objective explanations. Suppose that the holy is the fitting, but that we do not understand what it means to be fitting. Then if it is true that 'the holy is loved by the gods because it is holy', then it would also be true that 'the fitting is loved by the gods because it is fitting'. But Socrates would not be satisfied with this merely true account, since he would not understand being fitting any better than he understands being holy. Evans, 'Lessons', , makes a similar point. The way he puts it is that a substitution could succeed at its semantic aim of being true while failing at its cognitive aim of being informative. Created on 17 May 2017 at 11.15 hours page 108 Identity and Explanation in the Euthyphro  Socrates wants Euthyphro to identify holiness in such a way that he will be genuinely taught what it is, so that he sees it accurately and uses this to say which actions are holy and which are not. Socrates is relying on the idea that it is by the form that every holy thing is holy, and so this form can be used to determine which actions are holy. Euthyphro would not teach him the form by saying something tautologous such as 'the holy is the holy'-that would not help Socrates look upon it. Socrates does not suggest that Euthyphro teach this by identifying some more fundamental feature that makes holy things holy. He is looking for something that can be used as a model. A model typically does not have more fundamental features than what it is a model of; it simply has the features we would expect in a perfect specimen. In short, it fits perfectly with the strict identity view to think that Socrates wants a model and that if he is taught this model he will be able to look upon it to determine which things are holy. . Conclusion I have argued that Socrates in the Euthyphro thinks that an answer to 'what is f-ness?' should pick out exactly f-ness, not something prior to it. I find this is an appealing account of how to understand the 'what is it?' question, a serious rival to the Aristotelian account. We can bring out its appeal with an analogy. Imagine that I care about something because it is warm. And suppose that it is warm because it is fire. While fire may be the ultimate feature that explains why it is warm, I do not care about it because it is fire, nor is it clear that we should answer 'what is warmth?' as 'being fiery'. Being fiery explains warmth, and it is warm because it is fiery, but that does not mean that fieriness is what warmth is. It is quite reasonable to think that in asking 'what is warmth?' we want precisely warmth, not something prior to it. I have focused on how Socrates thinks of answers to the 'what is it?' question in the Euthyphro. 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