Ideas for a philosophy Thesis

Hi all, I'm in my final year of a philosophy degree and I have to come up with a thesis proposal in the next ten days. I've kind of blagged my way through the degree thus far, and I'm a bit left in the dark when it comes to choosing a thesis. It has to be fairly specific, I mean I wouldn't be able to do one on say 'The Existence of God.' I quite like ancient philosophy, particularly Plato, and also political philosophy. I'd like to maybe write about censorship and freedom of the press, but I don't know if Plato touched on anything like this. I know CNN and Rupert Murdoch weren't around in his day but maybe in some passages of the Republic he referred to something to do with how much information should be given out to the public. I'm sure his ideas were fairly right wing whatever they were, but maybe somebody could refer me to a passage that I might be able to read in this light. Thanks for your help.

[pheasant tail (no 18)]

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I'm sure his ideas were fairly right wing whatever they were, but maybe somebody could refer me to a passage that I might be able to read in this light.

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Contemporary standards of right/left would not apply to Plato. He cannot be so easily penned up. I personally think Republic is 80% epistemological w/ the politics mainly for metaphorical purposes. But the 20% (at least) is undeniable.

I think the noble lies that he speaks of are certainly relevant. His ideas as to the divisions in a society have major implications on issues of free speech given the current administrations secrecy. Perhaps a cross reference with Aristotle's critiques of certain types of Gov. in the politics would be helpful in laying out platos case and why his ideas may not be fully discredited in light of current events.

Good luck, PT

[NobodysFreak]

The republic has some interesting things in it on censorship. If I remember my reading correctly, Plato was in favor of censoring certain acts from young children. If you want to go the legal/political route, you could do something contrasting natural law theory and legal positivism. I wrote a paper on it for my philosophy of law class last semester and there's a lot of material there.

[bearly]

hi, i am a bit confused. you think that plato would be 'right wing'. have you thoroughly read aristotle's ethics to get a better idea of what a 'man' was thought to be? you 'like' ancient and political philosophy. this is as sincere as i can make it. after 4 years is there something that you have immersed yourself in enough that you don't have to consult a poker forum for ideas. this breaks my heart but, how about the nature of the 'political man' (for the ancients). after all, this determines what follows. note: when i say 'nature' i mean, who had the right to an opinion, a vote, a public office. who was allowed to participate in public/political gatherings? and so forth...............b

[bholdr]

How about something about how the ontological perspectives of various philosophers have shaped their political theroies? i wonder if there's a predictable correlation?

I definitly feel that there's more to be said about how a person's conception of reality affects their political theroies... (maybe narrow it down to a general era and a few key guys, say... hobbes, calvin, mill, and rousseau).

gl

[bearly]

the problem w/ the above suggestion is that one can do a cut and paste job and it looks just dandy. no senior undergraduate could possibly understand (or have even read) all the mateial it would take to write such a paper from w/in the realm of their own understanding. i have found over the last 40 years that the most difficult thing for aspiring speculative thinkers is to precisely nail down very basic terms (ideas). conceptual analysis (what is still called philosophy) is made much less difficult if one will only approach every problem by identifying the key terms, getting a good working definition, and then proceeding to examine the relationships between (and among) the various tems (ideas)...................b

[pheasant tail (no 18)]

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this breaks my heart

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if you lighten up maybe you'll get over it

[bearly]

hey pheas. # 18, maybe if you got serious you would know something worth making public on a forum...................b