Our first reading is a Western rather than a Chinese philosophical text.  The purpose of discussing it will be to a establish a "baseline" that will allow us to compare our Chinese philosophers with a very simplistic model of some foundational features of Western philosophy. 

 Plato (c. 428‑347 B.C.) was probably the single most influential figure in the history of Western philosophy.  More than any other person, Plato set the agenda of issues which have come to define what philosophy means to us.  Plato lived in Greece and was a student of Socrates, who first demonstrated the importance of philosophy by using it to such irritating effect that the assembled city of Athens decided to have him put to death in 399 B.C.  Plato was also the teacher of Aristotle.  We are reading a selection from Plato's writings to get a picture of the nature of early Western critical thinking.  This will allow us to sharpen the view we get of Chinese philosophy by contrast.

 Plato's philosophy is expressed through a series of dramatic dia­logues, in which the leading figure is Socrates.  The Euthyphro is one of the earliest and simplest of these dialogues, but it includes a number of the issues which became central to Plato's thought and to philosophy in the West.

 In the Euthyphro, the action begins as Socrates arrives at the Porch of King Archon, where lawsuits of certain types were prosecuted.  Socrates has come to answer the indictment for impiety which will lead to his death.  There he meets Euthyphro, who is known as a prophetic seer.  Euthyphro is a man without doubts.  He has arrived, full of self‑righteousness, to file an accusation of murder against his own father.  Socrates could never leave people like Euthyphro alone.

 The most characteristic feature of Socrates, as we know him through Plato, is that he proclaims himself in perpetual doubt, seeking for someone who can show him certain truth.  The Euthyphro shows how Socrates' claim of doubt is a powerful intellectual tool, able to undermine every attempt which Euthyphro makes to claim certain knowledge. 

 In class, we will use the Euthyphro to derive a set of general axioms and corollaries that are common to much of mainstream philosophy in the Western tradition.  Throughout the course, we will use these features as touchstones for contrastive analysis of the foundations of the philosophical enterprise in China.  Therefore, it will be valuable for all your work in this course if you take the time to read the Euthyphro with careful attention, questioning what features of the basic undertaking of "philosophy" this dialogue reveals.