Self-paced
Aristophanes' play . ███ ███████ █████ ███ ███████ ████ ███ ███████████ ████████ ███ ██ ███ ████████████ ████████ ████████ ██ ██ █████████ ███████████ █████████ █████████ ████ ██████ ██ ███████ ████████ ███ ████ █████ █████████ ██████████ ██ ████████ ████ ███████ █████ █████████ █████ ██ ███ ███ ████ █████████ ████████ ██ ██████ █ █████████ █████████ ███ █ ██████ █████ ██ ███████ ███████
"Surprising" Phenomenon
Portrayals of Socrates written after the end of his life are markedly different than the portrayal written midway through his life.
Objective
The right answer will be a hypothesis that explain why the portrayals of Socrates written after his death attribute a religious and ethical dimension to his philosophy, whereas the portrayal written during his life dascribes him as atheistic and scientific. We’re looking for something that either says the portrayals had different motivations, or that Socrates himself changed between the age of 40 and his death.
1.
Which one of the following, ██ █████ █████ ████ ████ ██ ███████ ███ ████████ ███████████ ███████ █████████████ █████████ ██ ████████ ███ ███ █████ █████████ ███████████
a
Aristophanes' portrayal of ████████ ██ ███ ██████ ███ █████████████ ███████ ███ █████ ██████████ ████ ████ ███████████
The portrayals are completely opposed. Whether or not they’re flattering doesn’t explain the vast differences in who they say Socrates really is.
b
Socrates' philosophical views ███ █████████ ███████ ████████ █████ ███ ████████████
Aristophanes portrays Socrates at age 40. If his views changed afterwards, then it makes sense that later portrayals would emphasize Socrates' later views. This explains the discrepancy in the stimulus.
c
Most of the ████████████ ███ █████ ██████ ████████ ████ █████████ █████████ ████ ███████ ████████
We don’t care about other philosophers. We need to know why later portrayals of Socrates differed from the contemporaneous one.
d
Socrates was a ████ ████ █████████████ ██████ ██ ███ █████ ██████ ███ █████ ████ ██ ███ ██ ███ ████████████
We need to know more about Socrates as a controversial figure for this to be right. How did the controversy influence those later portrayals? Why were they so different than the one in Aristophanes? We simply don’t have enough information to choose this.
e
Socrates had an █████████ ██ ████ ██████████ ████████████ ███ ████ █████████ █████████ ████ ███████ ████████
This doesn’t explain why Socrates was portrayed as an ethical and religious philosopher after his life. If this answer were true and he influenced philosophers concerned with natural science, why didn’t later accounts portray him as the scientific figure in Aristophanes?