Your essays should NOT contain lengthy quotations from Plato (or anyone else), an introduction, a conclusion, footnotes, or other paraphernalia. You should avoid long, complicated sentences in favor of shorter, clearer ones. You should also avoid using any sort of jargon. You should cite the texts of the Republic and the Nicomachean Ethics by the numbers and letters in the margins of your translation. (1) At the beginning of Book 7 of the Republic Socrates describes an image of prisoners in a case that is supposed to illustrate, as he says, “the effect of education and of the lack of it on our nature” (514A). Glaucon tells Socrates: “It’s a strange image you’re describing, and strange prisoners.” Socrates responds: “They’re like us.” (515A). First, describe the condition of the prisoners in the cave, and explain as clearly as you can how, according to Socrates, they are like Socrates, Glaucon, or any of us. Second, the education given to those in the ideal city who are to become rules is supposed to result in their liberation from the cave. Try to say as clearly as you can what the difference is between a prisoner in the cave and someone who escapes from the cave as a result of being given the sort of education that qualifies someone for ruling in the ideal city. What does the person outside of the cave know that the prisoner in the cave does not? Why is the relevant to ruling in the ideal city? Third, Socrates says that the city will compel those who make it out of the cave to return to the cave and rule in the city (520A-E). Why must those outside the cave be compelled to return to the cave and rule the city? And why is it just for the city to compel them to do so?
