Aristotle and Socrates on the Blessing of Death

by Graham Fassero 

PROMPT: Courage and death. Should death be feared? Do we need to be courageous in the face of death, or do we need merely to change our thinking about what death is? Your essay must be an original, philosophical work that develops and supports a claim. Successful philosophy papers deal with problems, and so writing a good paper requires you first to problematize the text you are writing about: Find a question that the text raises, or prompts you to raise, and then attempt to resolve or at least grapple seriously with that question. Pick one or two of the philosophers we have read and write a paper that reads the relevant texts closely and carefully in support of a thesis. If you decide to write about two philosophers, make sure that your paper does more than just “compare and contrast” but also explains the similarities and differences by appealing to the various principles at work.