Write a 1000-word essay on one of the following two topics. If you refer to and cite passages from Plato’s Republic, you can put the standard pagination in parenthesis after the quote (e.g., 359e).
- The Socratic method is one of the most important and long-lasting legacies of Plato’s Dialogues. Drawing from the discussions and the arguments of Plato’s Republic, define and elaborate the nature of the Socratic method. What are its goals, its assumptions, and how, for instance, does it relate to modern science, and thus to the importance of Socrates to western philosophy? Given what the Socratic method sets out to do, where does it leave us at the end of Book X? Elaborate, and be specific in your discussion.
- In the analogies of the sun, line, and cave, Socrates shifts the discussion from the goals of educating those who are to found and rule the republic to showing that life of knowledge is the most rewarding and profitable life, and thus ultimately show that ‘injustice is never more profitable than justice’ (354a). Discuss two of the three analogies and explain both why Plato thinks the philosopher ought to find and rule the city and why the life of knowledge (and justice) is the most profitable life.