From an internet site http://www.lotsofessays.com/ where you can
purchase an essay! If you so desire, there are even institutions where
you can simply purchase your degree. In any case, here's the beginning
of one of their essays:
- The purpose of this essay is to explore the concept of Fortune in
the writings of Boethius and Dante, especially in terms of whether they
conceive of fortune as immutable or as something that can to some
extent be overcome or altered by human efforts. It will appear that
there was little concept in Dante's time or before of Fortune as
something that could be overcome by humans in any way except interior
attitude, that is, by taking a stance of Christian Stoicism in the face
to life's vicissitudes.
How about changing that to:
- This essay explores whether Boethius and Dante thought that human
efforts can change fortune or not. By the
end of the essay, it will be clear that both authors did not think
humans could overcome fortune except via interior attitude, that is by
adopting Christian Stoicism towards life's vicissitudes. The essay
first explains Boethius' idea of Fortune, then Dante's, and then
explores the implications of each.
Taken from Henry
Folse's website at Loyola University.
- 1. The Stoic position in metaphysics is materialistic.
- Stoics held that all reality was material or physical stuff,
but they
took as their paradigm of a material thing a living organism. To say
something is a living organism is to say it has both a body and a
"soul" or animating principle, that which directs the activity of the
body. For the stoics both body and soul are material things, soul just
being a special kind of material element, often identified by Stoics
with "fire" of the ancient four "elements": "earth, air, fire, and
water". To say the universe is one vast living organism was to say that
the universe has a body, the whole physical world, or what stoics
called "Nature," and also that this body is directed by a universal
"soul" which the Stoics called "The Logos" and often identified with
Zeus. "Logos" is often translated "Reason"; it may be thought of as the
"mind" which directs the cosmos.
- 2. The Stoic position in epistemology is rationalistic.
- As the Universe is a vast living organism directed by a
universal mind
or logos, one can understand the nature of reality when one can
understand how The Logos directs the universe. Thus it is by reasoning
that one attains knowledge of the universe, and hence of how to live an
ethically correct life (the life of virtue). In particular the Stoics
reasoned according to what was called the micro/macrocosmic analogy. We
humans are small living organisms (micro universes or "microcosms");
the universe as a whole is one great living organism ("Macrocosm").
Thus what we know of our own mind or soul, by analogy is true of the
universe as a whole. In the microcosmic case of the human organism the
soul directs the body to achieve certain purposes; thus the same must
hold for the universe: what happens is all part of some universal
purpose.