IRB

I am currently reading An Introduction to Early Greek Philosophy by John Mansley Robinson.  I had just completed a section that lays the foundation of Greek thought by evaluating the "origin of things." One section was dedicated to the explanation of Hesoid's account of the beginning of time, and another section was dedicated to that of Anaximander's account. The book draws parallels and differences between both of the philosopher's opinions. Not much is known about Robinson, but he references the actual Greek texts themselves and provides reports from a variety of modern day authors to support his claims. He references writings of modern day physicists and other studiers of Greek philosophies. The context of the book was writing it to use as introductory material in a philosophy course. The purpose of the text was to provide a look at the development of Greek philosophy over time and show how it affected current day thought. He writes specifically for students of philosophy, by directly stating in his preface how his book's organization will aid the student. The book so far has used parallelism between two thinkers to show how both has come together to affect modern day thought. I think he has not really accomplished his task so far because all I have read is him providing the foundations of Greek thought. I think this is helping to later reference back to it when he analyzes its affects on current philosophy.

Flash Point, Magazine Article

This week's text is "Flash Point," an article found in the the September 24, 2012 issue of TIME Magazine. "Flash Point" discusses the current attacks on the U.S. embassies in Benghazi and Cairo that led to the death of 4 U.S. officials.

The author of this article is Bobby Ghosh. He is a journalist and World Editor to TIME Magazine. Hw was one TIME's Baghdad bureau chief and a long serving correspondent in Iraq. He is an expert on profiling Iraq and Arab Countries.

The context of the text is the occurrence of the Arab Springs in both Egypt and Libya last year. The overthrow of harsh dictatorships have left the countries with a series of temporary and unstable democracies that don't know how to handle angry mobs and outbursts by the people.

The purpose of the text was to evaluate the effect of the Arab Springs on the countries' overall security and the author suggests that these Arab countries compromised civil safety in exchange for freedom. He also condemns both countries by saying the state of their civil unrest is headed down the path of becoming as chaotic as Pakistan.

The audience of the text are readers of TIME magazine. The article is under the WORLD section of the magazine, and is also on the front cover. The audience was anyone who found the cover story intriguing or anyone who keeps up with Middle Eastern events often.

Some rhetorical devices used was one of the appeals, logos, who argued logically to make his point of the countries becoming as chaotic as Pakistan. He drew parallels to different events that are similar to each other in all of the countries and uses that to make a prediction of Egypt and Libya's future.

The author completely achieved his point and was constantly supporting his condemnation of those countries by supporting it with the failure of the new Arab democracies and growing tension and anger from Islamic extremists. I believe he has achieved his purpose because I support his "cause-and-effect" examination of the events and I believe that his opinion of the countries' future are completely valid.