What Your Professors Are Looking For

Sample Papers

Four students from PHIL 253, Section 002 (Spring 2008) have kindly given permission for excerpts from their work to appear in this writing guide. Each bulleted example of introductions and thesis statements, conclusions, and transitions comes from one of these student papers.

The question students were answering in these papers was:

(a) In Apology of Socrates, does Socrates claim to know the answers to the questions he asked the other Athenians (the questions that the Athenians were unable to answer)?

  • If so, identify the answers he gives.
  • If not, explain how it is that Socrates was able to "create a tension in the mind[s]" of the Athenians, a tension that showed them that they did not know what they thought they knew.

You may wish to choose one of the conversations Socrates has with Meletus, and identify the nature of the flaws Socrates exposes in what Meletus says.

(b) The craftsmen of Athens are among the people who have made the most of the gifts that the Greeks believe the god Prometheus gave to humans. Socrates finds that the craftsmen do indeed have more knowledge and understanding than most other people, at least in some subjects.

In lines 516-520 of Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound, Prometheus points out that craft knowledge is weaker than Necessity. Yet craft knowledge enables humans to use Necessity. "Necessity" is the Greek word for a force the Greeks believed was responsible for cause-and-effect relationships. What does knowledge of crafts have to do with knowledge of cause-and-effect relationships?

(c) Socrates seems to have shown that a significant and influential portion of the Athenian citizen population did not really know what they claimed to know.

  • What do these Athenian citizens NOT know about, according to Socrates' findings?
  • Explain what political problems would be caused in Athens by the fact that so many influential citizens did not know what they claimed to know, and explain why the citizens' failure to recognize their ignorance would cause these problems. (Simply stating what Athens' form of government was will not be enough to answer this question; you need to work out the details as well: for example, what are the dangers of having an ignorant citizen population under this form of government? What examples does Socrates give of cases where the Athenians' unacknowledged ignorance led to tragic or disastrous consequences?)

(d) Socrates claimed that he was committed to continuing his "service to the god," and would not cease in this service simply to avoid being convicted in court.

  • What was Socrates' "service to the god"?
  • How does Socrates think his "service to the god" will help Athens address the problems mentioned in part (c)?