REFLECTION PAPER #1
What is your view of the world? More specifically, among your beliefs and convictions, what are some of the most important, the ones that shape your understanding of the world, of your fellow human beings, and of yourself -- the ones that most fundamentally guide your life? Since this is a philosophy class, you should give some of your reasoning about why these claims are important (think about how you would respond to someone intelligent and reasonable who disagreed with your view), and have some discussion of how they influence the way you live your life. However, at this point don’t worry too much about being rigorous or precise. Just try to put down on paper the gist of your worldview and your basic reasons for thinking it reasonable and valuable. You’ll want a description sufficiently good that you can refer back to it at the end of the course to see how your participation in this course has influenced you.
REFLECTION PAPER #2
Do ONE of the following:
(1) For your first page, draw a mind map, concept map, visual diagram, symbolic picture, or some other visual representation of the philosophical ideas found in the Gorgias or one of its major arguments. Then write a page to a page and a half explaining your representation, using evidence from the dialogue itself to support your claims about its reasoning. If you take this route make sure to put a serious effort into your visual representation.
OR
(2) Olympiodorus, the Neoplatonist commentator, summarizes the argument between Socrates and Polus at 466a4-467c4 in the following way:
Then Polus argues this through other premises as follows: 'The orator has great power, someone who has great power is not thought worthless, therefore the orator is not thought worthless'. But in this case too [Socrates] seizes on the minor premise, as we shall show, and says that orators do not have great power. But Polus constructs an argument through other premises like this: 'Orators do what they want, those who do what they want have great power, therefore orators have great power'. Again [Socrates] seizes upon the minor premise, saying [orators] do not do what they want. But then Polus constructs an argument as follows: 'Orators do what seems good to them, those who do what seems good to them do what they want, so orators do what they want.' In this case [Socrates] seizes on the major premise, saying that what seems good to them is not also what they want. To this Polus no longer says anything.
Read this passage very carefully and do all of the following:
(a) Analyze the arguments attributed to Polus to determine if they are valid.
(b) Evaluate Olympiodorus's interpretation of the argument. Is this a reasonable reconstruction of the reasoning of the actual passage? Why or why not?
(c) Evaluate the argument of the passage. Who gets the better of the argument, Socrates or Polus? (If you think Olympiodorus interprets the passage correctly, use his interpretation. If you think his interpretation needs revision, use your revised version.) Don't forget to give the reasoning that supports your claims.
REFLECTION PAPER #3
In Consolation V.3 and V.4, Lady Philosophy and Boethius discuss the problem of free will. Select one or two of Lady Philosophy's arguments to analyze and evaluate. End with your own philosophical poem on the theme, one that encapsulates the views for which you argue in the main body of the paper.
REFLECTION PAPER #4
For your first reflection paper, you gave a brief description of some aspect of your worldview; take the time to re-read it a moment. Has taking this course influenced your views in any way? Do you think your thinking has improved in any way due to this course? If so, how? If not, what should have been done differently? Do you think you'll take anything valuable away from the course when it ends? If so, what? If not, what opportunities were missed?
And then smile, because you're done with the reflection papers.