Reed College
Reed College

Humanities 110

Introduction to the Humanities

Paper Topics | Spring 2013 | Paper 1

Due Saturday, February 23, 5 p.m., in your conference leader's Eliot Hall mailbox.
Length: 6-8 pages (1500-2000 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 primary texts to support that claim. You will want to focus on specific characters, episodes, relations, themes, or claims in the texts, rather than provide general summaries.

  1. Why does Plato end the Republic with the Myth of Er (10. 614b2 621c9)?

  2. At the beginning of Book 2 of the Republic, Glaucon tells Socrates the story of the ring of Gyges (357c-360d). How much of a threat is the story to Socrates's view that justice is always more profitable than injustice? By the end of the Republic, how does Socrates answer the problem posed by the ring of Gyges? Is his answer a good one?

  3. At 581c-583b of the Republic Plato argues that although the lives of the money-lover, honor-lover, and wisdom lover each have their own pleasures, the life of the wisdom lover is the most pleasant of all. Carefully lay out the argument. Is this argument convincing? Why or why not?

  4. The argument in Republic 352d-354a concludes, "And so, Thrasymachus, injustice is never more profitable than justice." Trace the string of arguments/assumptions that lead to this conclusion and offer a possible objection to it.

  5. Crito argues that because Socrates was unjustly convicted, he should escape. In his response to Crito, does Socrates contradict any of the positions he takes in Euthyphro or the Apology?

  6. Compare the figure of Socrates as a teacher in Aristophanes's Clouds and Plato's Euthyphro. How would you account for the difference between them? What do the differences in the two accounts tell us about Socrates?

  7. In your view, is Platos ideal city-state a place where a female member of the guardian class could pursue happiness in the truest of senses, or a place where it would be extremely difficult for her to pursue true happiness?

  8. In the Apology, Socrates famously argues that an unexamined life is not worth living. If Plato truly agreed with Socrates on this point, why did he invent a fictional city-state in which only the members of the ruling class are allowed to pursue the examined life? Does this imply that most of the citizens of Platos ideal-polis have a life that is not worth living? Does Platos Republic inadvertently vindicate Thrasymachuss claim that justice is nothing other than what is advantageous for the stronger (338d8-c1)?

  9. In consultation with your conference leader, write an essay on a topic of your own devising.