Reed College
Reed College

Humanities 110

Introduction to the Humanities

Paper Topics | Spring 2014 | Paper 1

Due Saturday, February 14th, 5 p.m., in your conference leader's Eliot Hall mailbox.
Maximum length: 1,500 words

Choose one of the following questions:

  1. Examine the role of the chorus of Clouds in Aristophanes' Clouds. How do their words and actions fit into the overall themes of the play, and to what extent is understanding their role essential to understanding the meaning of the play?

  2. Compare Socrates's teaching methods in the Euthyphro and the Clouds. To what extent do you think that the Clouds constitutes a justifiable critique of Socrates's elenchus?

  3. At Apology 28b-d, Socrates seems to compare his actions and attitudes to those of Achilles during the Trojan War. In what sense does Socrates say he is like Achilles, and how important is the comparison in Socrates' defense of his life and actions?

  4. To what extent does Socrates live up to the standards of good citizenship he describes in the Apology? How does your answer help to understand the outcome of his trial?

  5. At Crito 50a-54d, Socrates presents two arguments to show that it would be wrong for him to escape. The arguments are based on two models of the citizen's relationship to the laws. On one model the citizen is to the laws as a child is to a parent. On the other model, the citizen is to the laws as a party of a contract is to another party of a contract.

    1. Carefully explain one of these arguments. Identify the argument's premises and show how the conclusion is supposed to follow from the premises.

    2. Develop in rigorous detail ONE objection to the argument. (For example, one could argue that the conclusion does not follow from the premises of the argument. Or one could argue that one of the premises is false.)

    3. Develop in rigorous detail the strongest response you think Socrates could give to your objection.

    4. Explain why you think the response is satisfactory or unsatisfactory.

  6. In the Apology, Socrates asks the jury "to pay no attention to my manner of speech--be it better or worse--but to concentrate your attention on whether what I say is just or not, for the excellence of a judge lies in this, as that of a speaker lies in telling the truth" (18a). The premise of this statement is that what he says can be separated from how he says it. How do Plato's strategies of representation in the Republic complicate this binary between truth and expression?

  7. In Book 2 of the Republic (369a-373a), Socrates begins his search for the ideal city by constructing what his interlocutor Glaucon calls a "city of pigs." Why does Socrates propose this city as the ideal city, and why is it ultimately rejected and replaced by a new city? Is there any sense in which it is an ideal city, or is it just a false start that leads nowhere?

  8. According to French feminist Julia Kristeva, the feminist struggle "must be seen historically and politically as a three-tiered one, which can be schematically summarized as follows:

    1. Women demand equal access to the symbolic order. Liberal feminism. Equality.

    2. Women reject the male symbolic order in the name of difference. Radical feminism. Femininity extolled....

    3. Women reject the dichotomy between masculine and feminine as metaphysical. The third position is one that has deconstructed the opposition between masculinity and femininity.” (Tori Moi, Sexual/Textual Politics: Feminist Literary Theory. London: Routledge, 1985: 12)

    Focusing on book five, make a case for which of the three stages of feminism (if any) could find support in Plato's Republic.

  9. In the Republic, Socrates argues that a just man should rule even though it is against his will to do so: "in a city of good men...the citizens would fight in order not to rule, just as they do now in order to rule" (347d; for an elaboration of this argument, see also 519b-e). He also seems to suggest that the just man lives a more pleasurable life than the unjust man (587e-588a). But being compelled to rule against your will doesn't sound very pleasurable. Can these two arguments be reconciled?

  10. Write your own essay topic. If you choose this option, it is necessary to have your conference leader approve your topic before you start working on it.