Abstract
The chapter focuses on the importance of the "Socratic question" for a proper understanding of piety in dialog Euthyphro and on its connection with Plato's theory of Forms. The author claims that the Socratic question is, on the one hand, a manifestation of the knowledge that a real knowledge of the reality is not available and, on the other hand, a touchstone showing the ignorance of those who claim to be wise.
In a similar Socratic sense, the word "form" is used in the Euthyphro meaning not a general entity independent of individual cases, but rather a general concept or an immanent essence of the things. Plato consciously works with this difference in his literary stylization: on the one hand he wants to portray Socrates's position historically faithfully, i.e. not to attribute his own conception of the forms as an independent entity to him; on the other hand, he intends to indicate the genealogy of his own conception of ideas which arises out of the "Socratic question".