HUM II

Interesting discussion today! Went over the beginnings of monotheism with Akhenaten including the suggestion that mathematics has something to do with this progress. Even the idea that it is progressive has something to do with math. Then we moved on to Moses the Egyptian - and I mentioned various theories on who he was, but that he led the monotheists north and they established a kingdom - Israel. Moving further north discussed the beginnings of the Greeks - played Conan the Barbarian the Musical to the general amusement of the class. How did the Greeks move from this conception of virtue to Justice and Temperance? Socrates dialogs with Euthyphro. In this dialog Socrates asks Euthyphro to define piety. We get a first try: Doing what the gods love. But this is difficult when you want your principles to be coherent and consistent. For by now the Greeks have a conception of the true as statements that describe facts and some statements can't be true if others are true. This is mapped out in the Traditional Square of Opposition. So if being pious is doing what the gods love, but the gods do not love the same things, then we can't be pious to all of them at once. So we get a further revision of the definition with the question: is the pious pious because the gods love it or do the gods love the pious because it is pious? To examine this question I asked this as the quiz question for the day: Jesus comes to your door, you know it is Jesus and you know He is God. He tells you to sell all you have and give the money to the poor and then come follow him. Do you do it? Or do you argue with Him or question Him first? Do you see how it could be viewed as the same question Socrates asks Euthyphro?