Reed College
Reed College

Humanities 110

Introduction to the Humanities

Paper Topics | Spring 2012| Paper 1

Due Saturday, February 18th, 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 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. In Book One of the Politics, Aristotle argues that the city comes into being out of necessity but persists for the sake of living well. What does he mean? Be sure to consider alternative interpretations.  How might one relate his arguments here with his discussion of virtue and/or happiness in The Nicomachean Ethics?

  2. Analyze the transformation of Pheidippides in the Thinkery at the end of Aristophanes' The Clouds. What might his "education" tell us about the values or ideas Aristophanes hopes to promote in his comedy? How might it reflect upon the ideas about education that Socrates models in The Euthyphro or The Apology?

  3. Is Socrates a friend or foe, a celebrant or critic of democracy? Focus on two of Plato's dialogues in making your case. Be sure to consider possible counterarguments.

  4. Socrates puts a dilemma to Euthyphro at line 10a: either (1) the pious is pious because it is loved by the gods, or (2) the pious is loved by the gods because it is pious. Why can't both (1) and (2) be true? What is the supposed problem with each outcome? Be sure to explain the analogy with carrying, or being led at 10b. If the dilemma cannot be resolved, then how does one live piously? For instance, should Euthyphro prosecute or not prosecute his father?

  5. Explicate the argument that Plato puts forward in Book Nine, 587a11-e3, of The Republic, where Socrates concludes that the just man is 729 times happier than the tyrant.  How does he build and defend this claim? To what extent is it convincing?  What bearing does it have on subsequent arguments in The Republic?

  6. According to Aristotle, which path leads to greater human flourishing, the life of philosophy or the life of politics?  Defend your answer through a close analysis of Book Ten of The Nicomachean Ethics.

  7. Plato in The Republic, and Aristotle in The Nicomachean Ethics each set out a hierarchy of different kinds of goods. But those hierarchies differ. In particular, both agree that some things are (a) desirable for their own sake and for their effects as well, while other things (b) are desirable only for their own sake. Plato thinks the former sort of thing is most desirable (see the opening of Book Two of the Republic), while Aristotle thinks the second sort is most desirable (see 1096b10-26; 1096b25-35). What, if any, are their reasons for choosing their respective hierarchies, and what are the consequences of their choice?

  8. In Book Two of the Republic (358d9-362c6), Glaucon challenges Socrates' view of justice using the tale of the Ring of Gyges. What is the problem posed for Socrates' conception of justice by the Ring of Gyges? How successful is Socrates in the rest of the Plato's Republic in answering the problem it raises?

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