Teaching Plato in Translation
by Susan Gorman, Boston University
Original text © 2004 Susan Gorman
Writing Assignment (or More Discussion Questions)
This writing assignment is for a 4-page argumentative paper about Plato. I always ask students not to use secondary sources in this paper so that they can examine fully their own reactions to the philosophical discussions. However, if you do not want to have your students write about the texts, the paper topics can be a good launching point for joining all the texts together.
Below, I have included some of the instructions I include on a writing assignment hand-out. At the bottom of this page, I give the paper topics or discussion questions.
"Make sure that you have a main thesis statement and that your reader can be certain to pick out what it is. Have an argument that you pursue in this paper that is encapsulated in your thesis. If writing a paper on the status of women in Plato, this is not a good thesis: "Although Plato claims that women are equal to men in the Apology, they have access only to the lowest rung of the ladder to learning in the Symposium." This is a statement and has no argument to it. This would be a better thesis statement: "Although women can be educated in the Apology and the Symposium as is demonstrated by the existence of women guardians and the character of Diotima, in both texts they are presented so thinly as to deny any reality to gender equality." This statement takes the evidence further and forms an argument around it. If you do not understand the difference between the two statements, let me know as thesis formation is a key to this assignment.
Make sure that you have enough evidence to back up your thesis. Imagine what the argument against your thesis would be as well, and see if you can speak against that argument. I want well thought out essays. Your main objective in this essay is to PERSUADE a reader of your thesis. Therefore make sure that your writing is clear and that your logic is laid out fully.
Draw your evidence from the text itself. Use SHORT passages that can be used to succinctly illustrate your point. Multiple block quotes in a paper this length are distracting and do not allow you to adequately develop your own point."
Possible Paper Topics:
1. The Symposium, Phaedo and the Republic are all texts about one thing in the guise of another. (the Symposium is about education in the guise of being about love; the Phaedo is about the importance of the philosopher in the guise of being about the immortality of the soul, the Republic is about the soul in a thin guise of being about a just city) What work does Plato accomplish by discussing these ideas in this manner? Is this strategy more or less persuasive? You may use only two texts.
2. Women have an ambivalent, changing role in these texts. Develop an argument that examines their position in one text in depth or across multiple texts.
3. Plato mentions or has Socrates mention the usefulness of lies several times in these texts. Analyze lies in these works and discuss how the employment of lies renders his arguments more or less persuasive. What difficulties arise for his characters and for his readers because of this insistence upon lies?
4. Discuss the development of the character of Socrates in any two texts. Is he sympathetic? Does his depiction make one want to become a philosopher? Is his character consistent from text to text? What does Plato hope to gain by means of his portrayal of Socrates? Does he succeed?
5. Relate the imagery and ideas of the allegory of the cave (Republic 514a-517b) to the Phaedo and/or the Symposium. Does the cave allegory function properly in these texts or does it need to change?
6. Discuss the setting of the dialogues. How does setting affect the content and means of argumentation? Why is the setting important?
