Newest Literature Essays

The main prompt or assertion provided in the lecture notes, being "Whatever might be its philosophical value, the idea of the Good has no political relevance," goes completely against Plato's philosophical tenets and contrasts sharply with his two...

Plato's most precise ethical argument in his Socratic dialogues is that of justice's dual effect; he holds that while a "good" may be pleasant in effect, it must also be good in itself in order to qualify as justice. Justice fills the whole of...

In his text, The Republic, Plato takes on the monumental task of elucidating the topic of justice through the discourse of Socrates with his auditors. Adding to the challenge of this task is Socrates' faithfulness to arguments made with reason,...

Very early in Plato's Republic, Thrasymachus argues that "In any and every situation, a moral person is worse off than an immoral one". (343d) Furthermore, that a moral person is a simpleton, while an immoral person exercises sound judgement....

Plato's Republic is rife with evidence of, and commentary on, the nature of the Greek religion. Some of the treatment is overt, as in the censorship of canonical works of poets and dramatists or in the references to the powers and functions of the...

Many of Aristotle's views have stemmed from those of Plato. However, in Nicomachean Ethics and Politics, Aristotle criticizes four main arguments in Plato's Republic. They are: the way in which women and children should be held in common, the...

Plato thinks that in the Republic Justice is to be found because all persons are treated equally in that each is given a social position and vocational place suited to his/her talents. Do you agree that Plato's arrangement satisfies what may be...

Plato introduces his famous allegory of the cave with the phrase, "like this:" thus establishing that the passage is structured as a metaphor, and therefore must be read both as a figurative description and a symbolic representation of a concrete...

Since the birth of society thousands of years ago, thinkers have pondered one of the most basic, important questions with which mankind must grapple: How should society be organized? Plato was one of the first to write his response to that...

Plato employs a meritocratic logic in his proposal for gender equality in Book V of The Republic. In his ideal community, the kallipolis, comprised of producers, guardians, and rulers, Plato advocates a specialization of employment and status...

Plato presents a complicated theory of human psychology spread out amongst his various works. In Republic, Phaedo, Phaedrus, and others, Plato develops a view of human psychology centered on the nature of the soul. He presents the bulk of his...

The philosophical debate that is the focus of Plato's Symposium culminates in the speech of Diotima. She is a mysterious figure, a brilliant woman with the powers even to put off a plague. What she does here is miraculous too: she manages to tie...

Amid the feverish horror of rampant sickness and death, The Plague is a parable of human remoteness and the struggle to share existence. In studying the relationships which Camus sets forth, the relationship between man and lover, mother and son,...

Looking back on the mountain-view that was described as the main character's of Fenimore Cooper's The Pioneers caught sight of Templeton, their hometown, in the distance, Elizabeth, the primary female character, "felt as if all the loveliness of...

John Bunyan, as he tells us in his prefatory remarks, didn't mean to write Pilgrim's Progress; it all happened while he was otherwise engaged. His Apology, at least at first, takes on the word's modern connotations. He regrets having inflicted the...

The measure of a manâs character is what he would do if he knew he never would be found out.

Thomas Babington

Morality is the very foundation of goodness and the pillar of righteousness. Immorality, however, is the threshold towards conspicuous...

Jane Austen uses her novels to express her disdain for nineteenth century English marital practice. She herself defied convention by remaining single and earning a living through her writing. Austenâs novels, including Emma, Pride and Prejudice,...

In her towering box at the fashionable opera house, Mme de Beausant "was scanning the theatre with her opera-glasses, and though apparently taking no notice of Madame de Nucingen, did not miss her slightest move" (112). The vicomtesse, as though...

In the first paragraph of his novel Pere Goriot, Balzac describes his primary setting, the Maison Vauquer, as a "respectable establishment" that has never been sullied by any "breath of scandal" (1). This statement significantly defines the house...

Paradise Lost explores the natural aspiration to stand alone and to be distinguished from the multitudes. Adam, Eve, Satan, even God himself strain to assert their superiority and godliness by attempting to wield the most visible proof of godly...

In Metaphysics, Aristotle creates a series of dualities which are intrinsically "male" or "female." Included in this original set of oppositions are light and darkness and good and evil - the former of each duo being inherently associated with the...

Satan's account

I

169: But see the angry victor hath recalled

170: His ministers of vengeance and pursuit

171: Back to the gates of heaven: the sulphurous hail

172: Shot after us in storm, o'erblown hath laid

173: The fiery surge, that from the...

Part of Milton's genius lies in his ability to stack motif on top of motif, theme on top of theme and image on top of image with high density, without losing any of the effectiveness of his words; in fact, that density increases the effectiveness....

John Milton's Paradise Lost is an epic that has influenced the Christian perception of God, Satan, sin, and the origin of mankind for centuries. His poetic account of the creation story, though, clearly expands on several aspects within the most...