Reed College
Reed College

Humanities 110

Introduction to the Humanities

Paper Topics | Spring 2011 | Paper 1

Due Saturday, February 26th, 5 p.m., in your conference leader's Eliot Hall mailbox.
Suggested Length 1500-1800 words

Write an essay in response to one of the following prompts. Structure your essay around a strong, analytical claim, and provide specific, detailed evidence from the texts to support that claim.

  1. In Book IX of The Republic, Socrates finally defends the claim he raised with the Ring of Gyges story in Book II (§359-§360), that the wholly just man is always happier than the wholly unjust man. What are his arguments in favor of this position? What assumptions or claims does he make about the nature of pleasure and knowledge in the course of these arguments? Are you convinced? Why or why not?

  2. In Book I of the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle argues that happiness is activity in accordance with virtue. As clearly as you can, lay out his argument for this conclusion. What do you think is the best objection to this argument?

  3. In Book II, chapters 1-5, of his Politics, Aristotle mounts an analysis and critique of Plato's Republic. Explicate and assess his criticism. You may agree or disagree with Aristotle's interpretation of Plato and/or with his views of human nature, politics and philosophy. In your answer, be sure to specify on which count you are agreeing or disagreeing.

  4. In The Republic, Socrates seems to have a low opinion of democracy. The portrait he paints of the democratic man is particularly discouraging:

    [the democratic man] puts his pleasures on an equal footing. And so he lives, always surrendering rule over himself to whichever desire comes along, as if it were chosen by lot … And he doesn't admit any word of truth into the guardhouse, for if someone tells him that some pleasures belong to fine and good desires and others to evil ones and that he must pursue and value the former and restrain and enslave the latter, he denies all this and declares that all pleasures are equal and must be valued equally (561b-c).

    In your view, do the Apology and the Crito argue for a similarly pessimistic view of the democratic citizen or not? How would you describe the ideal democratic citizen as understood by those earlier works?

  5. If Aristophanes were to stage a contest of wits in the Underworld between Plato and Aristotle -- with Dionysus as the judge -- whom would he allow to win and why? What might be the political, ethical, or philosophic implications of winning or losing such a contest? Be sure to back up your claims with specific evidence from the works of Plato and Aristotle.

  6. In what ways does Aristotle think that acquiring virtue and acquiring a skill (like playing the harp) are similar (see especially Book II, chapter 1, of the Nicomachean Ethics)? In what ways are they different? Do you think that, in the end, Aristotle gives a consistent and plausible account of how we learn to be virtuous? Why or why not?

  7. In Book III of the Republic, Socrates discusses the necessary cost of inaugurating the Kallipolis, the fiction of the myth of the metals that will embed the city's social distinctions deep in the fabric of nature (§414c-§ 417b). What is the reader to make of this depiction of a city that functions on the basis of collective mendacity? How might this instance of a philosopher suggesting deceit complicate notions of governance and political reform in the Republic?

  8. In consultation with your conference leader, devise your own paper topic.