The piece of media can be the show “The office”
In order to be happier, we need to become a better version of ourselves, that is, perfect our virtues. The moral virtues of courage and temperance are rational dispositions to act and to feel well at the level of the irascible (spirit) and the concupiscible (appetite). However, the theological virtues of hope and love, which direct us toward the best (God), are the condition of the possibility of our irascible and concupiscible actions and passions in the first place, thus grounding the moral virtues themselves.
For this assignment, explore how love and hope allow us to make good decisions and feel well through a piece of media, cultural product, or any other form of artistic expression (such as shows, books, movies, songs, games, etc.) of your choice, and with the help of Aquinas’ Summa, Kierkegaard’s Concept of Anxiety and Sickness unto Death, Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, and Plato’s Republic.
—
Deadline 1 for abstract: 100-150 words by April 23
Deadline 2 for final paper: 1200-1500 words by Monday, April 29 (No late papers)
Submission format: PDF, double-spaced, 12-point Times New Roman
Instructions & grading criteria
Note that the assignment will be graded based on how much and how well you follow these instructions. For other grading criteria also at work, check the prompt for Writing Assignment 1:
1) Main task: always keep in mind that the task is to explore, by means of questions and answers, how hope and love allow us to act and to feel well at the irascible and concupiscible levels, grounding other virtuous dispositions.
2) Choice of media: I strongly advise you to choose a piece of media that you are interested in or that you enjoy. This will maximize the quality of your work and will be more fulfilling and meaningful for you, since you will apply what you are learning to things that matter to you. To make it easier, you should think of stories where one or several characters are able to overcome a difficult situation thanks to love and/or hope—or where they struggle because they lack them. Ideally, you should choose a story you identify with, so this work also pushes you to think how love and hope are important in your own experience.
3) Sources/material: once you have chosen the piece of media you will work with, it is time to identify initial questions that you have about them. If you are interested in the media, you are curious about the story and the characters and you already have questions—make sure you write down these initial questions and use them to guide your exploration. The next task is to review at least the slides on Aquinas, Plato, Aristotle, and Kierkegaard. How can these philosophers-theologians help you explore the work of love and hope. The more you employ the concepts (definitions and features hope, love, passions, virutes, etc.) provided by Aquinas, Plato, Aristotle, and Kierkegaard in your exploration of the piece of media, the better. Make sure you use Plato for the function of the parts of the soul and the basic role of the virtues; Aristotle for his development of the virtues, the role of pleasure, and his theory of friendship (love); Aquinas for the account of the irascible and concupiscible, the passions, and the theological virtues of love and hope; and Kierkegaard for his accounts of despair, and anxiety, and his description of how we make decisions.
4) Method: structure your exploration by formulating your own questions about how love and hope (and the rest of the related concepts) work will lead you to uncover different, nuanced aspects of many of the concepts we have worked on. The more aspects of the concepts you explore and question, the better. In attempting to answer your questions, you will move between the sources and materials (Aquinas, Plato, Aristotle, Kierkegaard), the piece of media, and your own thinking and experience. Your answers will lead to more questions.
5) Voices: some questions and answers that you have will be included in 1) the texts we are using as sources; 2) the piece of media that you chose; and 3) your own voice, your own thinking and experience. Your own voice is very important in this assignment. Think about how, when you are enjoying the piece of media (listening to the song, watching the show, etc.), you were enraptured by the events that lead the characters face their circumstances with love and hope (or without them). Make sure that you distinguish the voices and that you develop your own voice while showing that your own personal questions and answers are built upon what you have learned from our philosophical and theological sources and your piece of media. The more original questions of your own you are able to formulate, the better. And the more you show how your own original questions are connected with the sources, the better.
6) Object: your exploratory questions should be about the theological virtues of love and hope themselves, not about reconstructing or explaining what happens within the piece of media. Make sure you do not limit your work to reconstructing what happens in the piece of media. The ultimate object of your work is for you to think about how love and hope work in general. Rely on your own experience to keep exploring.
7) Main aim and result: in exploring and allowing you to keep formulating new questions, you are formulating and solving aproblem. A problem is a structurally unified set of questions. While running through your different questions, you will eventually realize that all your questions can be gathered into one main question concerning the nature of love and/or hope. The more you articulate your different questions into the unity of the problem, the better.
7) Originality: this assignment is creative and personal. Do not use secondary-internet sources, but if you do, quote them. No ChatGPT. Check what constitutes cheating
8) The abstract due on April 22 is just 100-150 words including the piece of media, as well as the main questions you want to formulate and solve in your paper about love and hope. This is for you to put some thought into this project as soon as possible before you write the paper itself.
The post “The Power of Love and Hope in ‘The Office’: An Exploration through Aquinas, Kierkegaard, Aristotle, and Plato” Exploring Love and Hope: A Philosophical and Theological Analysis of Media and Personal Experience appeared first on academic aid express.
