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Humanities 110
Paper Topic #4
Due Date: Saturday, December 1, 2001, 5 p.m. in the Faculty mailboxes in Eliot.
Length: 1500 words.
1. "And what passes for wisdom is not; unwise are those who aspire, who
outrange the limits of man" (Bacchae ll. 395-7).
Discuss the relations between the "limits of man" and
wisdom in the Bacchae.
2. Characterize the relationship between sexual desire and community in
either the Bacchae or the Lysistrata.
3. "It is obvious that the same thing will not be willing to do or undergo
opposites in the same part of itself, in relation to the same thing, at the
same time" (Republic 436bff).
Plato uses this "Principle of Opposites" to defend his tripartite division
of the soul. Analyze in detail his argument for this division. Is his
argument a good one? Why or why not?
4. The argument in Republic 352d-354a concludes, "And so, Thrasymachus, injustice is never more profitable than justice." Analyze the argument of this passage in detail. Is the argument sound? Why or why not?
5. To what extent would Socrates in the Republic agree with the account
given of the value of justice in the Apology (25c-26d; see also 28a)?
6. "We won't admit stories into our city–whether allegorical or not–about
Hera being chained by her son, nor about Hephaestus being hurled from Heaven
by his father when he tried to help his mother, who was being beaten, nor
about the battle of the gods in Homer. The young can't distinguish what is
allegorical from what isn't, and the opinions they absorb at that age are
hard to erase and apt to become unalterable."
In ending the Republic with the Myth of Er (614b-621d) is Plato violating the strictures articulated above? Why or Why not?
**More on the back**
6. "Education is not what some people declare it to be, namely, the putting
of knowledge into souls that lack it, like putting sight into blind
eyes...our present discussion shows that the instrument with which each learns is
like an eye that cannot be turned around from darkness to light without
turning the whole body. The instrument cannot be turned around from that
which is coming into being without turning around the whole soul until it is
able to study that which is the brightest thing there is, namely, the one we
call good" 518b-d).
What does Socrates mean in describing education as a "turning around of the
whole body"? How does his view of education differ from that with which the
quotation begins? (An answer to this question should look at the account of education in Bk. VII. You might also want to consider 376d-412a.)
7. With the permission of your conference leader, write on a question of
your own devising. You may also, with the permission of your instructor,
use the form of a Platonic dialogue for questions 3-6.