Midterm Paper

Format
This paper is due on March 25, 2009 in class. Late papers will be severely downgraded. No email submission is accepted. It will comprise 20% of your grade for the course. You should select one of the questions from below and write a paper, 3-5 pages double-spaced, 1 inch margins, 12 point font. Answers should draw on the readings and class lectures; you may use outside sources, but it is not required. Citations should be made according to appropriate academic format.

Grading
This paper aims to test the students’ capability of making sound philosophical arguments. Therefore the following aspects will be considered during grading: overall structure, depth of text understanding, plausibility of argumentation, clarity of expression.


Questions
1. Socrates claimed that he became the wisest man by knowing that he knows nothing. How do you think about his view of wisdom?

2. What’s justice? Is it a skill of ruling? Is it an agreement among people? Or anything else? What have you learned from the related discussions in Republic?

3. Aristotle says that contemplation is the happiest life of human beings, but he also points out that the happiness of a community is higher than the happiness of an individual, is he contradicting himself? How to understand the relationship between contemplation and political good?

Aristotle: Nicomachean Ethics II

Read Book X
text available at: http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.html

Guidance question: Why contemplation is the best life? (Relate it to Book I)
journals due on March 4.

Aristotle: Nicomachean Ethics I

Read Book I
text available at: http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.html
journals due on Mar. 2.
Guidance questions:
1. what are people pursuing in the end?
2. what are the criteria of happiness?
3. What is the function of man?

Plato: Republic Book II

read the whole Book II and the allegory of cave in Book VII
text available at http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/republic.html
Journals due on Feb. 23

guidance questions:
1. Glaukon mentioned three kinds of good, to which does justice belong?
2. Which problem did Adeimantos find in poems and religion? What does he want Socrates to prove?
3. What's the requirement of guardians in the proposed city?

Plato: Republic I

Read book I,
text available at http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/republic.html
Journals due on Feb. 9

Guidance questions:
1. Can justice do good to friends and do harm to enemies?
2. Does justice mean the advantage of stronger?
3. Is injustice more useful than justice?

Euthyphro

Read the whole text
Text available at http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/euthyfro.html
Journals due on Feb. 4
Instructions for posting your journals:
click the link "comments" below, paste your journal into the blank field. You must register an blogger ID at the first time. Please use your real name as the display name.
If you want to change anything, simply post the new entry and notify me. I will delete the old one.
If there is any question, please do not hesitate to ask me (tangxyang@gmail.com)

guidance questions:
1. What does Socrates seek to know from Euthyphro? Be precise.
2. What's the relationship between gods and piety?
3. Though there is no conclusion, what have you learned from this discussion?

Socrates' Apology

Read the whole text
Text available at http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/apology.html
Journals due on Feb. 2
Instructions for posting your journals:
click the link "comments" below, paste your journal into the blank field. You must register an blogger ID at the first time. Please use your real name as the display name.
If you want to change anything, simply post the new entry and notify me. I will delete the old one.
If there is any question, please do not hesitate to ask me (tangxyang@gmail.com)

Guidance questions (but your journals do not have to be limited to answering them)
1. What is in common among politicians, poets and craftsmen according to Socrates?
2. Why Socrates thinks he is wiser than them?
3. What does Socrates consider as his contribution to Athens?