ENG101 PAPER 2 Assignment due by May 14

ENG101 Paper 2a — 750 words, MLA format, emailed to me at gklock@bmcc.cuny.edu by May 14. PICK ONE THING OF THE THREE TO WRITE ABOUT

1.     Socrates says “An art of speaking by which he makes the same things appear to his hearers like and unlike, one and many, at rest and in motion” (15). Briefly explain what he means by this and tell me — what are the advantages and disadvantages of being able to argue something from both sides? 

2.     In Plato’s Phaedrus this exchange occurs

SOC: “Should not the mind of the speaker know the truth of the matter about which he is going to speak?

PHA: “And yet, Socrates, I have heard he who would be an orator has nothing to do with true justice, but only that which is likely to be approved by the many who sit in judgement; not with the truly good or honorable, but only with opinion about them, and that from opinion comes persuasion, and not from the truth.” (14)

Briefly explain what they are talking about, and tell me if you think it is more valuable to be correct but everyone thinks you are crazy, or to be wrong but have have people believe you.

3.     Socrates says “writing is unfortunately like painting; for the creations of the painter have the attitude of life, and yet if you ask them a question they preserve a solemn silence. And the same may be said of speeches. You would imagine that they had intelligence, but if you want to know anything and put a question to one of them, the speaker always gives one unvarying answer. And when they have been once written down they are tumbled about anywhere among those who may or may not understand them, and know not to whom they should reply, to whom not: and, if they are maltreated or abused, they have no parent to protect them; and they cannot protect or defend themselves” (22). Briefly explain what he means by this and consider if what Socrates says about writing connects to the kind of information you find in the internet? 

IMPORTANT COVID-19 NOTE: this was originally supposed to be an in-class essay where I could make sure you didn’t use the internet for your first draft. Because of COVID I can’t do that. I considered making the assignment here very unusual so that it would be impossible for you to plagiarise, but I don’t feel like twisting this into knots to defeat you, because being unable to do the wrong thing is not the same as deciding to to the right thing (and that is a whole philosophical issue on its own so have fun thinking about that). 

So I am just asking you, as a personal favour to me, to use your brains and not the internet to do this assignment — and if you do use the internet you need to be clear where you are using it with phrases such as “According this This Expert Guy on This Website” and then you can say what he said before coming back to say what you want to say. If you need help with this check out the MLA Citation guide in the syllabus. 

One thing I would love to see here, and that would help me see that this was really your work would be if you could connect this speech to anything in modern society or movies, TV shows, comic, music etc that you are interested in and if you could use anything from my videos in your paper just to show me that you learned something from them.