Plato

Citation: Use MLA format. Requirements: Thesis. Your essay must be governed by a thesis that (a) responds directly to the essay topic, (b) is arguable, and (c) is stated at the end of the first paragraph having clearly defined all the central terms. Textual Support. Your thesis must be supported by major interpretive claims (topic sentences) that are supported by at least one appropriate quote or allusion per body paragraph. Your ability to select, interpret, and apply the appropriate textual evidence is key to doing well with the essay. Additionally, you should illustrate your argument with at least one example drawn from your own life, observations, or engagement with other texts, movies, plays, etc. Reasoning. You must consistently use and apply logical reasoning in developing your thesis. Writing.Your essay must be written well. There should be no awkward sentences, rough transitions between paragraphs, incoherent paragraphs, extraneous information/unnecessary sentences, typos, or stylistic errors. Objectives: For this assignment, you will need to demonstrate your ability to read, analyze, and, to some extent, evaluate a key idea from Plato's Symposium. The successful paper will: Demonstrate a clear, sophisticated understanding of Plato's text and ideas. Will accurately represent the positions/ideas presented in The Symposium. Will choose appropriate quotes from The Symposium and effectively integrate them into the student's own argument regarding the topic. Will state and develop a thesis in response to one of the assigned topics. Will rely on the students own reading of the texts and understanding of lectures and NOT on other sources. This is NOT a research paper. If your paper relies on other readings and sources (and not on the assigned texts), YOU WILL RECEIVE A NON-PASSING GRADE. That said, if your ideas are not your own, but come from other sources, you must cite them, even though that will lead to a decline in your grade (you will receive a "D" for using other sources; you will receive an "F" for plagiarizing). Topics: Choose one of the topics below. 1. Eros and Knowledge. Compare, analyze and evaluate Diotima's view of the relationship between desire and knowledge with that proposed by Lacan (as expressed in the following quote: "Psychoanalysis reveals that knowledge is never simply knowledge but that desire always accompanies it, that desire always trumps knowledge when it comes to how we act. The unconscious is this desire from which knowledge can never extricate itself.” [McGowan, 17].) 2. Lack. Aristophanes, Socrates, and Lacan all argue for "lack" having a major role in the formulation of desire. Write an essay in which you explain, analyze, and compare these views, ultimately arriving at thesis regarding the role of lack in desire. (Of course, you can favor one position over another, see them all as saying something important, or reject them all.) 3. Aristophanes and Diotima. At the end of Socrates' speech only Aristophanes wants to object. What do you think he wanted to say? I argued in class that Aristophanes' view most closely resembles Diotima's; why is that? Write an essay in which you compare, analyze, and evaluate the arguments given by Aristophanes and Diotima in The Symposium. 4. Fulfillment? According to The Symposium, is love about being fulfilled or merely seeking it? Does love "complete us" or "disturb us" or does it somehow do both? (Optional: How might Lacan's concept of jouissance/enjoyment help us understand this issue?) 5. Alcibiades. What role does the intrusion of Alcibiades play in The Symposium? Does it support any of the claims offered earlier in the discussion? Does it offer its own view of love? Develop an argument in which you explain why so much of The Symposium is devoted to Alcibiades. (Tip: if you are going to argue that it supports Diotima's argument and shows us that Socrates is her ideal lover--a view I have argued is wrong--make sure you acknowledge and refute that view.) 6. Beauty. What role does beauty play in The Symposium in relation to its theorization of Love/Eros? At the core of this essay should be your attempt to analyze Diotima's understand of what beauty is and how it relates to Love/Eros. 7. Eros and Philosophy. According to the Symposium, what is the relationship between philosophy and Eros?