Your thesis statement isn't really a thesis statement. You say what what your paper will contain, but not really what the heart of it is. Papers of this nature aren't just encyclopedic articles recapping a subject, but an analysis of what you have learned. You are writing about your interpretation of the subject, your point of view on the material. Instead of just giving the reader a road map of where you are going, a thesis statement tells the reader
why you are going there. Thesis statements often have a point that can be disputed, but they don't have to. When your professors ask you to compare and contrast, evaluate, interpret, analyze, or argue a point, the need for a thesis statement is implied.
Here are a couple of links that explain how to write a thesis for a college-level paper:
indiana.edu/~wts/pamphlets/thesis_statement.shtml
owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/545/01/
As I was reading though your paper, I got the feeling that you lack confidence. I know that you are just a student writing for a professor who has been studying the subject much longer, but you still need to come across as understanding the content. Here's an example of what I mean:
Aristotle and Plato both seem to be elitists, they seem to hold the notion that people aren't created equally.
The word
seem is very weak here. You can simply say, "Aristotle and Plato are both elitists and would eschew the notion that people are created equal."
And another example:
The two philosophers also appear to have different notions
Appear makes it sound like you did a surface read. "Well, you know, I like, um, glanced at the textbook and read the little caption thingies under the pictures, and I, ummm, think, that like, you know, Plato and that Aristotle guy appear to have different notions." You have been using the word
notion a lot.
Notion is a word that means more than just
idea--it conveys that the idea is hazy, unformed, imperfect, or based on opinion rather than thought. If my mechanic only had a notion of how to fix transmissions, I'd be out there in a heartbeat. Plato and Aristotle have more than just notions; they have spent a lot of time and care putting together their philosophical theories (or we surely wouldn't still be studying them today!). There are a lot of words that you could use instead that would not only add a little more life, but would be closer to the correct meaning . . . belief, view, opinion, conception, insight, understanding, judgment, examination, analysis.
You might also want to go more into what the philosophers meant by some of their descriptions . . . tripartite soul, for example. Okay, so it has three parts, but tell us more about how the three types of desires function. I know that you went into the chariot with the horses, but that is an example from Plato's day that is more a paraphrase of his allegory than an analysis. He carried the tripartite viewpoint to society as well . . . what are your thoughts on this. The concept of a tripartite, with body, soul, and spirit, is common in theology. When Freud formulated theories with his super-ego, ego, and id, he's probably been reading Plato.
Just a few more style notes . . . when you format your paper, you will want to put the titles of the writings in italics. Rewrite your sentences so you can include the information that you have in parenthesis within your sentences. You could off-set these asides in commas or em-dashes (the long dash that a lot of word-processing programs will give you automatically when you use two hyphens . . . or you can use ALT+1051). Personally, I find it distracting when a paper with parenthetical citations has other parenthesis in it. My eye is trained to kind of skip over the stuff in the parenthesis to improve flow. Here is a website that give some more info particular to using MLA style with philosophy papers:
people.creighton.edu/~ees33175/Intro-phil_WebSite/MLA-guidelines-jan2007.htm
And one last thing:
Plato and Aristotle seem to possess fundamentally similar views of human nature with different alternations to their own philosophizes respectively.
What are you trying to say here?
Alternations means the act of alternating, taking turns . . . or it can mean the process of changing something, like when you alternate a dress.
Philosophizes is a verb. Did you mean
philosophies? This sentence doesn't make sense. Even if I were to change the words to say what I think you are trying to say, it is fluff. Go out on a conclusion that leaves a good impression.
I was hoping that someone else would jump in here with an opinion and some feedback, but things are pretty busy on this site lately! I thought that summer would be slow, but I forgot about all of the college-application essays.