For the last assignment I started with the idea of whether or not it was important to follow established laws in society. I thought I could make solid arguments from both Goldman and Socrates about following laws. I figured I would go into Goldman’s belief that government should not exist for the good of the people and Socrates’ belief that laws must be followed to maintain order. After starting the dialogue between them I reached the length of one page and realized I did not know how to expand either argument further. I felt like I could have expanded it more but that would have just ended up being filler, not introducing any new concepts or ideas that would contribute to the quality of the paper.
After typing one page I changed my topic to combat Goldman’s idea of government being unnecessary. I set it up so Socrates would take Goldman’s definition of government, an authoritative entity that influences how humans conduct themselves, and show her that it helps shape how man successfully lives in society. At the start of the new draft I incorporated a few ideas from my first one but shifted the focus from laws to government in general. I realized as I was writing that I was using Socrates as a foil to Goldman, simply questioning her to bring out her ideas in conversation. While I thought I was staying true to his Socratic method I realized I needed to add some of his ideas to back-up his questions in order to take all the focus off of Goldman. I plan to do this in the final draft by incorporating ideas from the Apology and Crito.
In summation, I found it was good to just start writing about an idea because, while it might not be great in the wrong run, it helps you think about the topic and you can possibly incorporate some ideas into your final paper. Also, I thought writing a dialogue would be more difficult than a traditional paper, but it actually helped make it easier because the ideas that I presented were clear and easy to debate between the two characters.
Pingback: Tim Carter
Pingback: Mitchell