I.  SHORT ANSWER QUESTIONS (50%).

A. Ancient Philosophy

1.  How does the Myth of the Cave illustrate Plato's concept of Forms?

2. According to Aristotle, you are an actual substance capable of changing in many ways.  Explain this briefly in terms of Potentiality and Actuality.

3.  What did the Roman Stoics mean by Natural Law?

4. Indicate briefly at least two ways in which the One of the Neo-Platonists differs from the Judeo-Christian God.

B. Modern Philosophy

1.  What does Descartes mean by cogito, ergo, sum?  What does he wish to accomplish through this insight?

2.  What does it mean for Kant to say that mathematical judgments are synthetic a priori?

3.  How is Hegel's Absolute Idealism different from Berkeley's Subjective Idealism?

4.  Explain Wittgenstein's picture theory of meaning.

C. Logic

1. What is the Fallacy of Composition?  Give an example.

2. Distinguish Deductive Validity from Inductive Strength.

3. Give an example of the argument form modus tollens.

D. Ethics

1.  According to Rule Utilitarians, why should a person tell the truth on any given occasion?

2. According to Kant, why should a person always tell the truth?

3. If your professor were an Ethical Relativist and decided that it seemed good to him that everyone in his course should fail, what coherent response could you give to this, ... if you too were an Ethical Relativist?  Explain.

4.  Define Cultural Relativism and state one objection to it.

E. Philosophy of Religion

1. Briefly give one version of the Cosmological Argument.

2. Zoroastrianism posits two equal gods, one good and one evil.  Give one reason in favor of this conception and one against it.

3.  Why does the consistency of mystical experience across cultures lead some to argue that such experience is grounds for religious belief?

F. Social and Political Philosophy

1.  What features of Plato's ideal Republic would be unappealing or even repulsive to citizens of modern democracies?

2.  Hobbes and Locke present different answers to the question of why we should submit to the rule of law.  Indicate how their answers would be different.

3.  Why does Rousseau think that Participatory Democracy is the only true democracy?  What is his critique of representative democracy?

4. Identify in Marx's theory of social justice the feature that you like the most and the one you like the least... and then explain your judgments.

G. Philosophy of Science

1.  Why do scientists aim to falsify rather than to verify their theories?

2. What is a paradigm?  How do these work in scientific investigation?

3.  Define Instrumentalism.  What does this mean for the ontology of theories?

II.  ESSAY QUESTION:  CHOOSE ONE (50%).

1.  Which philosopher would you choose to be our philosopher-king?  Justify your choice.

2.  What changes would you like to see in doing philosophy?  Are these the changes you expect?  Explain.

3.  Which discipline taught at UNCA contains the most truth?  Least truth?  Justify your answers.

4.  Critically evaluate the claim that your life is a work of art to be judged on aesthetic grounds.

LOGIC

1. Test the following categorical syllogism by means of a Venn diagram AND state whether the argument is valid or invalid: 

"Some M is P; All S is M;  therefore some S is P."

2. In traditional Aristotelian logic, from the truth of "All scholars are philosophers," what, if anything, can one infer about the truth or falsify of the following.  Give the reason for each of your answers.

a. "No scholars are philosophers."

b. "Some scholars are philosophers."

c. "Some philosophers are scholars."

d. "No scholars are non-philosophers."

e. "All non-philosophers are non-scientists."

3. State the "justification" for each line of the following formal proof that is not a premiss.

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