1. What are the needs of the political community? What must all political communities do to insure their survival? What about Philosophy? What does philosophy seek? How does it go about this process? Before we get into what are the needs of a political community, lets define politics. What comes to your mind when you think of politics? For the purpose of this class, politics is the identification, maintenance, and transfer of the communities’ core values that are passed down from one generation to another. The needs of a political community have several factors that come together. These factors include governmental needs, power and institution separation, the organization of factions, the distribution of scares resources, the establishment and maintenance of territorial integrity and last but not least, the establishment of the laws. Laws don’t necessarily state what is best for its citizens, but they educate and provide a set of guidelines its citizens must follow just as a slave would obey its master. To ensure survival of a political community is the mutual set ideas, values and purposes. If these things are not insured in a political community, there is a high chance that the political community will fail. What is philosophy? Philosophy is the pursuit of the truth. Philosophy is interested in obtaining the truth and objective about important concepts, human beings and the world. The objective knowledge has two set ideas about philosophy; they are timeless and changeless. Asking questions does obtaining objective knowledge and gaining an understanding. Questions are asked through guided reason and language.
2. Is Socrates against nature, or following it? Please draw examples from Aristophanes’ The Clouds and the relevant Platonic Dialogues. In the four dialogues, Socrates professes that he is for nature in different ways. He describes nature and human nature. He believed that human nature involves reasoning and consisted