The final exam will be held on
Thursday, 14 Dec 2000, 9 a.m. - 12 noon, WCH 1.120. Please bring an
exam book.
I. You will be asked to identify
ten of fourteen quotations (30%) by text or
author. Then you will asked to write, for
four of the quotes
identified, a short paragraph specifying the context and the
position, reasoning, or issue addressed (20%). Candidate
authors/texts are limited to the following:
Plato (the Meno), the Upanishads,
Sankara (Advaita Vedanta), the Gita, the Yoga-sutra, Sermons of the
Buddha, Questions to King Milinda, (the Jaina) Acaranga Sutra, (the
Mahayana) Surangama Sutra, Confucius (the Analects and the Great
Learning), Lao Tsu, Avicenna, Aurobindo, Zera Jacob, Nyaya-sutra,
Carvaka, Gangesa, Bertrand Russell, Jorge Luis Borges, and Keiji
Nishitani.
II. You will be asked to write two
essays, each from a different area among the four below (25%
each).
A. Religious
metaphysics. Review the selections that we read
from the following works or authors: the Upanishads, the Gita, and
Aurobindo (on Brahman), all the Buddhist selections in NWP, Anselm
(the ontological argument, on the web), Avicenna, Lao Tsu's Tao te
Ching (on Tao), and Nishitani (on Emptiness).
B. Epistemology (i.e., theory of knowledge and
justification). Review the selections that we read from Plato's Meno,
the Nyaya-sutra, Carvaka, Gangesa, Russell on knowledge, and the
overhead on the epistemology of mysticism.
C. Ethics and theory of
value. Review Confucius, Lao Tsu, Plato's
Meno, the Buddha's "First Sermon," the Jaina selections, Zera Jacob,
and the overhead on pluralism (from Isaiah Berlin).
D. Meta-philosophy (i.e., the nature, limits, and value of
philosophy). Review the selections from Russell, Borges, Plato, the
Majjima Nikaya (the Buddha's anti-intellectual sermon), Nishitani,
and the overhead on existentialism.
Here are likely questions under
each category.
A. Religious
metaphysics.
1. Explain the Upanishadic view of
the relationship between self (atman) and Brahman, as well as the
Buddhist theory of no-self. Some commentators on the Upanishads have
claimed that the Upanishadic teaching is similar to the Buddhist on
this score: the one advocates an illusory individual self with
respect to a grand Self and the other an illusory individual self
with respect to a grand Nothing. What is the nature of the conflict
between the views? What assumptions do the views share, and do their
differences make much of a difference? What about
rebirth?
2. Present and criticize the
following: Anselm's ontological argument, Avicenna's first-cause
argument, and Aurobindo's teleological argument. Can these be
advanced together? That is, are their
conclusions (about the Perfect, God the First Cause and Necessary
Being, and Brahman) convergent or at least consistent? Do they
mutually support one another? How so or why
not?
3. Do you find ethical implications of any of the religious world views that we surveyed? For example, with Taoism, are there metaphysical reasons why one should shun "false" values such as jade and gold? Would these be good reasons? Be prepared to discuss the interrelationship between ethical and metaphysical claims with respect to your favorite (or least disliked) world view, whether theism, pantheism (Taoism or another flavor), or another.
B. Epistemology.
1. Explain the "means of knowledge"
of the Indian Realists ("Nyaya philosophers"). Present the
Nyaya-sutra's theory of inference or of perception in some detail. If
you choose inference, explain the Carvaka attack and the Nyaya
response (see the selection from Gangesa). If you choose perception,
be sure to explain the definition given in the Nyaya-sutra. Be sure
to outline all four of Nyaya's "knowledge sources." Can a person know
something by more than one means? What would Nyaya say and what is
your own opinion?
2. What is Plato's account of
knowledge? Could an Indian Realist (Nyaya philosopher) make use of
it? How about Bertrand Russell?
3. Explicating the concept of
justification through either the views of the Indian Realists (Nyaya
philosophers) on knowledge sources (perception and so on) or Bertrand
Russell's Cartesian position (see below), could a mystic be justified
in believing a "mystic proposition," for example, that God is real,
or Brahman, or the Tao, or, to give a Buddhist example, that
everyone's true nature is Emptiness as revealed in nirvana experience
(satori)? What are the most important considerations on this
issue?
4. Bertrand Russell distinguishes between knowledge by acquaintance--which is direct awareness, unmediated by language--and knowledge by description, which is indirect and mediated by words. Using this distinction, elucidate, and, if you wish, criticize, his teaching about self-evidence and degrees of warrant or justification. About what do we have direct acquaintance? On what principles do our direct acquaintances, according to Russell, support, or provide evidence for, beliefs about (a) physical objects, (b) our own thoughts, desires, and feelings (and our very self), (c) the past, and (d) mathematical objects? Also, what does Russell say about the justificatory role of coherence or considerations of coherence? Optionally, contrast Russell's views about the epistemic value of perception with those of the Indian Realists (Nyaya).
C. Ethics and theory of
value.
1. Reconstruct and evaluate the
Jaina argument for ahimsa, "non-injury," that proceeds from "being a
self" or "being conscious" as a moral-sphere-making characteristic
(cf., in the glossary, moral pull). Are the Jainas right to urge
vegetarianism, etc.? Is this teaching comparable to the Confucian
precept about "likening to oneself," to the Christian "Golden Rule,"
and/or to Zera Jacob's ethics? Explain.
2. Present Confucius's views on the
development of moral character. Explain the importance of music and
harmony as well as ritual in the course of illuminating Confucius's
teaching about the importance of appropriation, or internalization,
of cultural mores. Is every custom or practice in one's society to be
endorsed? On what grounds is there to be rejection or reform? You
might also reflect on the question of how the teaching about
character connects with Confucius's political philosophy, or compare
Confucius's emphasis on harmony with the ethical teaching of Zera
Jacob. These are options. As a final requirement, please address the criticism of
Confucius that he fails to draw a sharp line between a moral and a
political sphere. Is this criticism fair?
3. A3 may
count as an ethics question.
4.
Isaiah Berlin argues that the view that the good is the same
for everyone has totalitarian political consequences, namely, rule by
an elite, those "party members" or priests or "philosopher-kings" who
have the clearest understanding of that single good, the telos to
which all human life should be
directed. Furthermore,
elimination of the non-conforming would be
right. How would denial of a uniform
good (and a corresponding assertion of a fundamental
pluralism of values) challenge -- if indeed it
would challenge or draw into question -- either one or both of the
following: (A) the ethical teaching implicit in Buddhism's "Four
Noble Truths" or (B) Socrates' insistence that there be a single
logos or account of virtue?
D.
Meta-philosophy.
1. Jorge Luis Borges treats
philosophy as continuous with fiction, playfully, that is, not vexed
by the antinomy, for example, between the reality of time and the
empiricist argument that notions whereof we have no experience (e.g.,
matter conceived as existing independently of all consciousness
thereof) are empty and nonsensical. Sketch out a similar antinomy for a self
(something that "I" refers to that is different from perceptions,
rememberings, and other conscious states and acts), or, if you wish,
an "enduring self." What would Bertrand Russell's
attitude be toward this
"problem?"
Alternatively, Keiji Nishitani's?
2. The practice of philosophy requires skill at refutation, an ability to understand metaphysical systems, ethical teachings, et cetera, including claims about philosophy itself, and to see why and how they fail (as it appears most do). Blocking off the fields of scientific inquiry (physics, chemistry, and so on, including psychology and the social sciences), do you see areas (ethics, perhaps, or the enterprise of trying to make things clear, political theory, whatever) where philosophers might hope to achieve positive results, new knowledge or a definitively right and detailed view of a subject matter -- beyond knowing that certain theories are deficient? Be venturesome. (Suggestion: talk about the responsibility of philosophers to be the keepers and interpreters of the history of philosophy and defend the positive results of a good interpretation of one or more of the philosophers that we studied this term. Alternatively you might develop an essay on the political virtue of lack of dogmatism.)