econd Essay Assignment: First Option
[W]ho can deny that that future life is most blessed, or that, in comparison
with it, this life which now we live is most wretched… ?
Augustine, The City of God
The Elector of Brandenburg called the dead man’s sons to him
and, instructing the Archchancellor to enroll them in his school
for pages, dubbed them knights on the spot.
Heinrich von Kleist, Michael Kohlhaas
For the second essay assignment of the semester I am again giving you a choice of due dates and things to write about. 哲学Assignment代写
This first option will be due before Thanksgiving, the other immediately after. In this half of the semester we will be studying some fictional narratives in relation to specific philosophers. Including Kleist’s Michael Kohlhaas in relation to Hobbes and a film version of Melville’s Billy Budd in relation to Hobbes, Rousseau, and Kant. The Melville assignment will be handed out later and will be due on the Monday after Thanksgiving Break (November 29)—that is. After we have studied the relevant philosophers and examined the film. So, you can avoid having to write a Humanities paper over Thanksgiving by writing on one of the following topics concerning Augustine’s theology or Hobbes’ philosophy and Kleist’s story.
Due Date:
It would be nice to have your paper on Monday, November 1. In other words, to have you write the paper over the coming weekend, striking while the iron is hot and before other post-midterm assignments clutter your schedule and distract your mind. And this might be a good idea but it depends on your schedule and your obligations to other courses. So, I will accept papers without penalty any time up to midnight on Monday, November 8. After that, there will be one grade penalty for each day late. As with the first essay. This one is not specifically designed as a research paper. However, outside sources may certainly be used. So long as they are properly cited in one of the accepted styles.
Format & Length: Double-spaced Microsoft Word document, with a title, numbered pages, and your name. Email it to me at wex@bu.edu with your name in the subject line. Length, about 4 - 6 pages or so. Don’t forget to post your paper on your E-Portfolio under the HU201 tab.
Purpose: The object is to produce a paper relating Augustine to other philosophers or to relate Hobbes’ philosophy to Kleist’s story. If you choose to write on Augustine. Then you might refer to his deductive (vs. inductive) form of reasoning, the role of revelation, faith versus reason. Happiness here vs. elsewhere, his arguments about free will and the problem of evil (theodicy). If you write about Hobbes and Kleist, you might refer to such ideas as the state of nature, war. The social contract, civil society, natural, renounced, and retained rights, crime vs. sin, sovereignty, as well as Kleist’s presentation of history, particularly the transition from the medieval to the early modern period through the use he makes of Martin Luther as a character and the Reformation in Germany as a setting.
A Roman Philosophical Discussion in the form of a Socratic dialogue.
Between 350 and 500 AD the Roman Empire was invaded successively and repeatedly by Huns, Slavs, and a slew of Germanic tribes. Suppose it is the late period of the Roman Empire. Imagine a discussion between either a Stoic or an Epicurean and an adherent of Augustine’s Christianity. Have the two compare and contrast their views on God, freedom, reason, pleasure, wealth, truth, how to live, and the purpose of living.
Both would be seeking a decent, stable life in the crumbling Empire. Where would they agree and disagree? How would each describe “a good life”? Where might their religious views coincide and differ? How would each criticize the other? You might present the debate as the effort of one to convince and the other to convert the other.
Note: The New Testament book of Acts (Chapter 17, 16-32), describes St. Paul in Athens, where he is confronted by both Stoic and Epicurean philosophers in the agora and proceeds to preach. Succeeding in converting some people, scoffed at by others.
2.Lo maggior don che Dio per sua larghezza fesse creando… fu de la volontà la libertate…[Of all the gifts God, in his extreme bounty, made precious was freedom of the will…] Dante, The Divine Comedy, early 1300s. 哲学Assignment代写
All ethical thinkers maintain that we have a free will. Write an essay explaining not just the reasons for this insistence on choice but also in what ways and for what reasons philosophers limit the scope of human freedom and thus responsibility. Again, compare and contrast Augustine’s Christianity to either Epicurus’ Atomism or Epictetus’ Pantheism.
3.Augustine, Sainted Student of Greek Philosophy
Ever since our first reading, Plato’s “Euthyphro,” we observed an evolution in Greek thinking about the gods, God, or divinity, and you’ve often heard me remark that, when Greece went Christian, Christianity went Greek. Augustine. Christianity’s first great theologian, was a student of Greek philosophy who converted in his thirties after a youth spent exploring philosophical and theological alternatives. Using him as your chief guide, write an essay on elements of Platonism, Aristotelianism, Epicureanism, and Stoicism that you believe were absorbed into the triumphant new religion. What are they, and especially how were they were transformed and adjusted to suit Christianity by Augustine?
4.A topic for history lovers: With Hobbes and Kleist’s Michael Kohlhaas we have looked into the transition in the West between the medieval and modern periods. Write an essay using Augustine’s ideas and the nature of the Church of which he was the first great theologian to work out the philosophical foundations of the institutions and frame of mind of the Middle Ages. Then examine how Hobbes represents a systematic break with this older way of thinking—but also in what ways he retains some of it. You will need a good working thesis about which fundamental ideas underlie the medieval and modern worlds. Bear in mind that the transition was by no means either sudden or complete.
5.Toward the end of Kleist’s story, Kohlhaas is arrested and put on trial before a panel of Saxon judges for treason, murder, and arson. 哲学Assignment代写
Pretend you are Kohlhaas’s lawyer and write a speech or legal brief defending your client. Use Hobbes’ ideas to make the case for Kohlhaas, bearing in mind that Hobbes himself would not be born for another half a century and that these ideas would be new to 16th century jurists. Imagine a panel of Saxon judges hearing the case (there would have been no juries then). What issues are at stake in the trial; for example, what kind of state will Saxony be. With what kind of authority, and what kind of economy if one side or the other wins? If your client Michael Kohlhaas is not responsible for the crimes in question, then be sure to tell the Court who is.
6.More history: Pretend you are a historian writing about the case of Michael Kohlhaas as a tool for examining the Reformation period.
Explain the economic and class conflict symbolized in Kleist’s story and how it depicts the new ways of thinking that were replacing those of the Middle Ages. Ideas that led, among other things, to the philosophy of Thomas Hobbes. The story can certainly be read symbolically. Kohlhaas himself makes a good symbol of a rising, entrepreneurial middle class but is also an example of the revolutionary spirit of the times in both politics and religion and the turn toward egoism. Even the two black horses are symbols: they can represent society’s resources (should they be used for trade or farming?).
Seen either as a bourgeois businessman or a revolutionary radical. Kohlhaas is a character who calls into question the privileges and prerogatives of the medieval aristocracy and the basis of legitimate state power. On top of all this. The story can also be used to trace the rise of the doctrine of personal, civil. And human rights and the political theory that came to ground the newly centralized nation-states of Europe—Hobbes’ doctrines, in effect. Feel free to use what you studied about this transitional era last year in Social Science.
7.A two-part essay.
Part One: How Hobbes’ philosophy can be applied to understand Kleist’s story.
Part Two: How Kleist’s story, set during the Reformation, can be helpful in understanding the historical origins of Hobbes’ philosophy in that tumultuous period of European history.
8.Focus specifically on the political, economic, and social conflicts in Kleist’s story in relation to Hobbes’ political and ethical philosophy. In particular: the class warfare involving the old medieval aristocracy (Tronka), the new middle class (K.). And the central government (Elector of Saxony); the clash between modern rights (K) and medieval prerogatives (T); the duties of a citizen to the state and what the state owes its citizens in return; the origins, nature, and legitimacy of sovereign power. Again, feel free to make use of historical material you may have learned in Social Science last year.
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