A good place to start when trying to think of what to write on is the list of possible reading response papers. There is a fair amount of overlap between those and what I have here.

Anyway...

The Euthyphro.

• Socrates claims that he benefits the citizens of Athens through his questioning of them. Is he right? What does his questioning of Euthyphro (as an example of what he does) show about how he benefits (or fails to benefit) the citizens of Athens?
• At the end of Euthyphro, has Euthyphro learned anything about the nature of piety? Has the reader of the dialogue? If so, what is it, and why? If not, does the elenchus benefit either the person who is subject to it, or the person who reads about it...?
• Has Socrates successfully shown that the pious is not the same as what is loved by all of the gods?
• Why does Socrates demand that Euthyphro produce a definition of piety? What is he looking for in an adequate definition? Are his standards for a definition correct? Is looking for this sort of definition a reasonable activity to engage in?
• Vlastos claims that we can discern a positive Socratic piety and theology from the Euthyphro and Apology. Is he right about this? And are these accounts of piety and theology independently plausible?

• Is Socrates right when he claims that (as far as he can determine) nobody else is wiser than he is?
• Burnyeat claims that Socrates is guilty as charged. Is he right?
• Why does Socrates claim that he wouldn't willingly corrupt those around him? Is the argument cogent? Can its assumptions be defended?
• Socrates claims that the jurors can kill him, but they can't harm him, and that when they convict him, they'll be harming themselves .Are his arguments for these claims cogent? Can their assumptions be defended?

• Why does Socrates say that the body is an obstacle to knowledge? Explain and evaluate his arguments.
• Discuss and evaluate one of the arguments regarding the existence and fate of the soul:
  • The Recollection argument for the pre-existence of the soul.
  • The Affinity argument for the immortality of the soul.
  • The discussion of the fate of the soul as dependent on the type of life it has led
  • Simmias' "harmony" theory of the soul, as an objection to Socrates' affinity argument.
  • One of Socrates' objections to the harmony theory.
• Why does Socrates say that the explanations given by the 'wisdom they call natural science' are inadequate? Explain and evaluate his arguments.

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