Free Essays on Equus

Reason and Logic The play Equus, by Peter Shaffer, revolves around a conflict between a boy driven by his passions, Alan Strang and an older psychiatrist sick of his rational world, Martin Dysart. Plato is a great philosopher and perhaps the most well known rationalist of all time. His ideas of epistemology and metaphysics are surrounded by his believe that the world is best knowable by human reason and had Plato been given the chance to talk with Alan and Dysart, he would have been disappointed in both. Plato would have been angry with Alan because of the lack of reason and logic in his life and Dysart because of his resistance to knowledge of the world of forms, Plato’s theory about what is really real. Everything wrong with Alan Strang stemmed from the fact that he allowed his passions to rule his every waking moment. In his book, Republic, Plato states, â€Å"It will be the business of reason to rule with wisdom and forethought on behalf of the entire soul; while the spirited element ought to act as its subordinate and ally† (104). Plato spends a fair amount of time in Republic setting out how the soul should be governed and the previous quote summarizes his conclusions about what the ideal soul should look like. In stark contrast to this ideal of Plato’s, Alan, â€Å"has known a passion more ferocious than I have felt in any second of my life†¦ he stands in the dark for an hour, sucking the sweat off his God’s hairy cheek!† says Dysart (Shaffer 82). Alan’s passion for his god Equus has taken over ever shred of logic and rationality in his body and Plato would find this an extremely unhealthy soul. Plato uses an analogy of a cave to des cribe where people are in their journey to knowledge of the Good. In this analogy, Alan would be one of the men chained in the cave, seeing only shadows on the wall. Alan has made no attempts to escape his dark prison and so Alan’s life is completely devoid of the reason Plato ... Free Essays on Equus Free Essays on Equus Reason and Logic The play Equus, by Peter Shaffer, revolves around a conflict between a boy driven by his passions, Alan Strang and an older psychiatrist sick of his rational world, Martin Dysart. Plato is a great philosopher and perhaps the most well known rationalist of all time. His ideas of epistemology and metaphysics are surrounded by his believe that the world is best knowable by human reason and had Plato been given the chance to talk with Alan and Dysart, he would have been disappointed in both. Plato would have been angry with Alan because of the lack of reason and logic in his life and Dysart because of his resistance to knowledge of the world of forms, Plato’s theory about what is really real. Everything wrong with Alan Strang stemmed from the fact that he allowed his passions to rule his every waking moment. In his book, Republic, Plato states, â€Å"It will be the business of reason to rule with wisdom and forethought on behalf of the entire soul; while the spirited element ought to act as its subordinate and ally† (104). Plato spends a fair amount of time in Republic setting out how the soul should be governed and the previous quote summarizes his conclusions about what the ideal soul should look like. In stark contrast to this ideal of Plato’s, Alan, â€Å"has known a passion more ferocious than I have felt in any second of my life†¦ he stands in the dark for an hour, sucking the sweat off his God’s hairy cheek!† says Dysart (Shaffer 82). Alan’s passion for his god Equus has taken over ever shred of logic and rationality in his body and Plato would find this an extremely unhealthy soul. Plato uses an analogy of a cave to des cribe where people are in their journey to knowledge of the Good. In this analogy, Alan would be one of the men chained in the cave, seeing only shadows on the wall. Alan has made no attempts to escape his dark prison and so Alan’s life is completely devoid of the reason Plato ...

Archaic Period - Ancient American Hunter-Gatherers

Archaic Period - Ancient American Hunter-Gatherers The Archaic period is the name given to generalized hunter-gatherer societies in the American continents from approximately 8,000 to 2000 years BC. Archaic lifestyles includes a dependence on elk, deer, and bison depending on where the site is, and a wide range of plant materials. In coastal areas, shellfish and marine mammals were important food sources, and fish weirs were an important technological advance. Archaic Advances Important advances of the later Archaic period include earthworks at sites such as Poverty Point and Watson Brake (both in Louisiana), and the first pottery in the Americas, a fiber-tempered ware named after Stallings Island South Carolina were an important invention. During the Altithermal, Archaic peoples dug wells to stay alive in the high plains of west Texas and eastern New Mexico. The Archaic period people are also responsible for the domestication of such important New World plants as bottle gourd, maize and cassava, the use of which plants would flourish in later periods. Regional Archaic The term Archaic is quite broad, and covers an enormous area of North and South America. As a result, several regional archaic groups have been recognized. Regional Archaic Traditions: Plains Archaic, Oshara Tradition, Maritime Archaic, Shield Archaic, Ortoiroid, Piedmont Tradition, Pinto Culture, San Dieguito, Orange Culture, Mount Albion See Guide to the Mesolithic for information about the roughly parallel period in the Old World.