Academic Writing

Need it by Monday, September 22, 2014 by 11am NY time Read an excerpt from the Republic (the “allegory of the cave”). Here is how to find it: Google: “Plato’s Republic.” Sometimes the Internet Classic Archive version of Book VII of the Republic does not want to come up. An alternative site is: [login to view URL] Read from the beginning of Book VII up to the point where it says: And if that is true, what sort of general must he have been? If you are using another version you are to read from the beginning of book VII up to a paragraph that mentions Palamedes and Agamemnon. If using the Mentor Book edition, read: The Republic, Bk. VII, 515a-522a (pp. 312-321). Answer the following questions: 1) Summarize briefly the allegory of the cave. (Just recount the story; make sure you include how the story ends, i.e., what happens when the person returns to the cave. Do not give an interpretation of it). 2) What is the context in which this allegory is told? (Skim through some of the unassigned pages to get the context. And if you do not know what "context" means, use a dictionary.) 3 a)What are two reasons why a person who has been in the cave, when brought out of the cave, has a hard time accepting that reality is as it is? b) What do the people in the cave think about the person who returns after being outside the cave? Why do they think this way? 4) One interpretation of this allegory is that all human beings are to some extent are like cave-dwellers because we think we know things we do not know. What are the various reasons why we are ignorant of our own ignorance? (Reflect on examples of you or others being ignorant that you were ignorant.) 5 a) What are two reasons why people in real life prefer remaining in the same state as the cave-dwellers (i.e., thinking they know things they really do not know?) b) What two moral qualities (virtues) must a person have to escape from this state? c) Assuming that we want to escape from our ignorance of our ignorance, what must we do?