Instructions:
- The essay topic below is designed to encourage maximum freedom while also providing helpful suggestions.
- Suggested length is +/– eight pages of double-spaced text in a standard font (e.g., 12-point Times), one-inch margins on all sides.
- Print simplex (one-side of paper only) and number each page.
- No cover sheets or slip covers, please.
- A bibliography/works cited page is required only if sources other than CCR are used (but see below). Either MLA or CMS is acceptable.
- Claims should be tied to the text: provide Stephanus page numbers (or quotations) wherever appropriate.
- The grading rubric indicates how essays will be evaluated. Examine it carefully and compose your essay with those criteria in mind.
- Your essay is to be the product of your individual effort. Collaboration between students in the writing process is prohibited.
- Essays are due at the beginning of class on Tuesday, November 5. Essays submitted between 12:15 p.m. and 5:00 p.m. on the 5th will be considered late by one business day. Late essays will be penalized one grade-degree per business day. For example, an essay that would have earned a grade of ‘B+’ if it had been submitted on time would receive a grade of ‘B-’ if it were submitted on Wednesday, November 6th before 5:00 p.m., since it is then two business days late. (Note that business days end at 5:00 p.m. local time.)
Essay Topic:
The unifying theme in our discussion of Plato has been his doctrine of forms. Your task is to explicate the doctrine and to explain its importance and development within Plato’s writings. You are free to draw upon any of Plato’s dialogues, but particular attention ought to be paid to the ones that we’ve examined. Use of secondary literature is not prohibited, but it is not encouraged, either. Any such use must be documented by appropriate citation, as failure to do so constitutes plagiarism.
Below you’ll see a list of items (which is not intended to be exhaustive) from which you may wish to draw in composing your essay. It should be obvious that it’s practically impossible to include all of the items; nor is that the goal. Rather, I’m interested in seeing which of these you regard as especially illuminating or important, and how you put them to use. A well-crafted essay will display an appreciation of the doctrine itself – its content, its strengths, and its weaknesses – as well as its philosophical motivations and consequences. You cannot possibly expect to say everything that could be said on the subject; however, it is both possible and desirable that you should produce a tight, well-developed, and cohesive treatment of whichever aspects of the topic on which you choose to focus.
Any essay that fails to provide thoughtful, dialectical criticism in addition to careful analysis of the doctrine will be fundamentally inadequate. This is a philosophical essay, not a book report.
You are encouraged to draw upon any (but certainly not very many!) of the following items in composing your essay.
- Analogies of the sun, line, and cave (Rep. VI, VII)
- Aporia (Euthy., Protag., Parm.)
- Argument against the possibility of akrasia (Protag.)
- Argument from imperfection (Phaed.)
- Argument from knowledge (Rep. V)
- Becoming godlike (Phileb., Theaet., Rep. VI)
- Being vs. becoming/“Two worlds” view (Phaed., Rep. V-VII, Tim.)
- “By word and by deed” (Apol.)
- Corpuscular conception of matter (Tim.)
- Demiurge (Tim., Rep. X)
- Dilemma of participation (Parm.)
- Elenchus (Euthy., Protag., Parm.)
- Euthyphro argument
- Maieutic conception of education (Rep. VII, Theaet.)
- Oracular pronouncement at Delphi (Apol.)
- Paradigms vs. exemplars (Tim.)
- Participation (Rep. V, Parm., Tim.)
- Receptacle (Tim.)
- Recollection (Phaed., Rep.)
- Separation argument (Parm.)
- Socratic ignorance (Euthy., Apol.)
- Socratic irony (Euthy., Apol., Protag.)
- Socratic piety (Euthy., Apol.)
- Third Man argument (Parm.)
- Unity of virtues (Protag.)