Dear Class,
Below, you will find your first writing assignment of the semester. You are to pick one of the following 10 prompt questions and compose an essay of no less than 600 words—or, roughly, two full pages, double spaced, size 12 Times New Roman font, standard margins—due no later than midnight (via ecampus) on Thursday, October 22nd. Late assignments will not be accepted without previous arrangements having been made prior to the deadline, and, as the syllabus clearly states, you must turn in all assignments in order to be eligible to pass the class. Your response must be thorough and well-written, with references to the text. I highly recommend visiting the Writing Lab (remember that providing proof that you visited the Writing Lab, Online Writing Lab, or a Grammar Review session will automatically raise your grade half a letter). Lastly, I encourage you to use secondary sources, but be sure to cite them to a fault; if I catch a whiff of plagiarism, then you automatically fail the assignment and are subject to further disciplinary actions by the Dean of Liberal Arts.
Be bold in your undertaking; I wish you the best of luck!
Q.1) Aristotle refers to Thales as the first philosopher of the western world; what was the first philosopher’s philosophy, so to speak? In response, one would do well to identify his two claims; to deepen each claim by rearticulating each claim in your own words and elaborating on each claim, perhaps by providing examples that illustrate his claim; discuss the way(s) in which his two claims are related; to offer a brief but cogent counterargument to either one or even both of his claims.
Q.2) Anaximander concludes that “the boundless steers all things”; what does he mean by such a statement? One would do well to consider the following elements of his thought: his notion of the infinite as the origin of all things; his line of reasoning when logically concluding the existence of the boundless; the way in which the boundless “works”; his analogy, including the role of vortex motion therein; the way in which, as he writes, all existing things “make reparation to one another for their injustice according to the ordinance of time.”
Q.3) Xenophobes is the first philosopher to explicitly criticize the religious bedrock of the western tradition when outright stating that the gods of Homer and Hesiod are sheer fiction; what are the grounds of his criticism, and what does he offer as real in lieu of the previously-established polytheism of his time? One would do well to consider the following: the shameful aspects of the Greek gods; the shared characteristics between the Gods and the people who worship them; natural explanations previously understood as divine; the nature of his proposed divine principle.
Q.4) Heraclitus ‘the obscure’ famously writes that “All things come into being through opposition, and all are in flux, like a river.” Perhaps les famously—albeit, of equal importance—he writes, “It is necessary to understand that war is universal and justice is strife, and that all things take place in accordance with strife and necessity.” In what way(s) do these two propositions complement one another? In response, one would do well to unpack the meaning behind his famous quote; to unpack the message behind his less famous quote; to consider some, if not all, of the following elements of his thought: the role of opposing forces as required to strike a balance; the balance, or world order, inherent in all of existence; the way that humans are to achieve happiness; that “War is father and king of all…”
Q.5) In articulating his notion of the One, Parmenides reveals the foundational apothegm of his philosophy when he writes, “For thought and being are the same.” Such a proposition will come to revolutionize philosophy down to the present day; what, exactly, does Parmenides mean by this rather cryptic, yet deeply illuminating statement? One would do well to consider the following: the inherent unity of the act of thinking and the object of thought; the impossibility of change; the illusion of time; the inconceivability of nothingness; the dissolution of the many in lieu of complete unity, or oneness.
Q.6) Scholars generally consider Heraclitus and Parmenides to be the most profoundly influential of all the nature philosophers; accordingly, this makes them the most significant thinkers that we have encountered thus far. Of supreme significance, then, are the ways in which their respective theories relate to one another. Please provide a comparison of each thinker, both in terms of their points of divergence (recall, in particular, Parmenides’ rather polemical language when alluding to the inadequacy of Heraclitus’ position!) and in terms of what, if any—and, if none, then why are their none—complementary aspects of their thought.
Q.7) Who are the sophists? One would do well to consider some, if not all, of the following: the historical context surrounding the emergence of sophistry; the nature of the material that the sophists claimed to teach; the definitions of, and the relationship between, rhetoric and relativism, respectively, (including the roles of skepticism, agnosticism, and the logos, as well as Protagoras’ claim that “of all things, man is the measure”); the definitions of, and the relationship between, physis and nomos (including the tie to relativism, the collapse of the distinction between knowledge and opinion, and, consequently, what becomes of the logos).
Q.8) Two predominate themes of our course material thus far have been 1.) the one and the many and 2) the way things are and the way things appear to be; please select one of these two themes and trace its development over the course of the thinkers that we have covered in class thus far.
Q.9) The history of western philosophy is, as the title of Norman Melchert’s book indicates, a great conversation; in many ways, this great conversation begins with the natural philosophers, in particularly, the conversation that takes place among them. Please trace the trajectory of this conversation as it begins in Thales and moves through Anaximander, Xenophanes, Heraclitus, and Parmenides. One would do well to consider the precise ways in which each thinker’s claim(s) is somehow shaped the by thinker(s) that came before him (including, perhaps, the influence of geographic location) and, more broadly, the cohesiveness of the overall conversation.
Q.10) In what way is Philosophy reactionary? Select 3 of the 5 nature philosophers that we covered in class and discuss how each thinker’s particular philosophy is a reaction to the culture of his time, as well as to the tradition. One would do well to consider the following: the polytheism of the ancient world according to Hesiod and Homer in contrast to each thinker’s particular, innovate understanding of the divine; the thinker or thinkers that came before whichever respective thinkers one happens to select.
