QUESTION
English
Short Essay, 750-1000 words
Compose a brief, grammatical and well-organised essay of approximately 750-1000 words responding to one of the following questions. Your essay should focus first on displaying familiarity with and understanding of the assigned reading or readings under consideration, and then on developing your own interpretation or evaluation of that reading or those readings. That means you should use direct evidence from the text or texts (quotations and references to specific passages) to support your main claims. For this assessment, you are not allowed to consult any external sources. You do not require a referencing system, bibliography or works cited, as the only texts you will be referring to are the ones assigned in this unit (you are welcome to use the Supplementary Readings). A page number in parentheses following direct quotations will be sufficient
Questions you can pick from:
The Socrates that we find in Book 10 of Plato’s Republic differs significantly from the one we find in Aristophanes’s play The Clouds. How would you characterise the differences and why do you think they are significant?
Plato’s Socrates and the narrator of Descartes’s Meditations present and employ distinctive philosophical methods. Explain, compare, and evaluate those methods. What do you think are the chief differences between the two?
In Book 10 of Plato’s Republic, Socrates presents a number of reasons for excluding poets and practitioners of the mimetic arts from the ideal city. But he also displays some ambivalence in this regard. Evaluate both these reasons and this ambivalence.
What is the significance of the ‘Myth of Ur’ that Socrates recounts at the end of Book 10 of Plato’s Republic? What happens in the myth and how might it be related to the larger argument Socrates presents in the book?
you only needs to reference the page numbers and if he can use the The Plato's Republic
2nd edition penguin classics (if necessary) and the documents I"ve attached for resources
[/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version="4.9.3" _module_preset="default" width_tablet="" width_phone="100%" width_last_edited="on|phone" max_width="100%"]
9
| Subject | Essay Writing | Pages | 5 | Style | APA |
|---|
Answer
Virtue Understands no Master
The narrative of the myth of Ur is told by Socrates at the end of his book. The story is about Er who is murdered in a warfare but he never died. His spirit is taken to heaven to see life from heaven perspective and become the witness to the world when he returns back to earth and report what he experienced while in heaven. Er realizes an eschatological structure that honors moral excellence, mainly wisdom. The heavens tell Er that for a thousand years, a person will receive their reward in heaven or be thrown to hell due to the sinful life they lived while on earth or their walk-in righteousness. People will meet in one place and will be allowed to choose their afterlife, both animals and human beings. The life that they will choose will decide if they will be rewarded or punished in the next circle. Only the people who lived a righteous life on earth, including Orphus who was born again, understand the manner of choosing the next life. This essay explains what transpires in the myth, implication of the story and how it is associated with the overall disagreement Socrates demonstrates earlier in the book.
The myth mainly demonstrates life after death. It explains that after death, people will be treated according how they lived their lives while on earth and this is decided by specific judges. The judges will make their decisions according to how people lived their lives; hence peoples’ souls will be ranked as bad or good. The souls which are found to be good will fly into heavens whereas the bad souls will be left on earth. Both the earth and the sky have entrances and exits. The good souls will fly into the sky, encounter heaven and fly back to earth to show people the great things they saw looking very clean. The people who enter earth and are brought back show an immoral life and tell sorrowful tales of how horribly they were penalized. The evil souls are locked up for the rest of their lives while the good souls who are freely roaming but still are present on earth are for murderers and offenders.
The myth signifies Socrates intentions to prepare humanity that the life they choose to live presently will determine their living in the next life cycle after death. The narrative emphasizes that people who are evil but pretend to be righteous with their deeds will harshly be punished the afterlife. The story corresponds to this experienced understanding of death, as it authenticates mankind as facing a heaven prevailed by the authorities of the requirement and a teaching that is not focused to their consequence at death. It is obligatory that the individuals who will enter next cycle of life will live according to the dynamics and structured limitations set in it and they must follow the commands of the particular judges who give commands. Besides Er, everyone needs to assume the next life and dismiss their previous lives.
“A demon will not select you, but you will choose a demon...Virtue is without a master; as he honors or dishonors her, each will have more or less of her. The blame belongs to him who chooses; god is blameless” (617e).
There is a relation of the myth with what Socrates is trying to demonstrate in the larger part of the book as it emphasizes that people are answerable for the chosen life of righteousness and injustice, not the gods. Although gods will only be answerable for leading the righteous souls to heavens or unjust ones on earth for a thousand years. After that, the following years, people will be responsible for their own souls. Socrates tries alienate from the Greek traditions of disaster, which emphasizes fate as the main cause of human catastrophe. Even though the larger cosmological structure in which human activities happen is determined by the destinies, Socrates highlights that humanity bear a fixed responsibility for themselves and for the decisions they make. Certainly virtue is the source freedom. From the above excerpt, Socrates brands virtue with the destiny. Nevertheless, virtue is not focused to the same types of limitations in the remaining course of deciding the life they want. “Virtue knows no master” (617e).
One technique that Socrates proposes is that the souls which are still alive can understand and learn past life restrictions. He confirms that this can be achieved by learning how other people are living:
“All those who were acquaintances greeted one another; and the souls that came out of the earth inquired of others about the things in the other place, and those from heaven about the things that had happened to those from the earth” (R. 615a-b).
From the story, Er teaches that the individuals who have not experienced death should learn from the unrighteous ones who are currently being penalized and those who are unconvertable are constantly so, unqualified to be captured forever. Telling people their perception about just or unfair lives is important to the course by which these evil souls are restored established to determine their next cycle of lives. Sharing the experiences enhance the decision of choosing ethical conditions for the good.
In conclusion, despite the fact that the book largely focuses on the growth of a faultless city, the metropolis is basically an ideology presented for Socrates and his aristocrats so that they can realize political and moral excellence. The emphasis on the necessity for altered responsibility amid self-determination which can be unstated as a political right concerning the particular option in a conception which is subdued by political and large obligation.
References