Enlivened Exam

Developed in preparation for the Boston College Philosophy M.A. Comprehensive Exams.

• Distinction – outstanding in at least four of five parts and competence in the other.
• Pass – competence in all five parts.
• Fail – lack of competence in any one of the five parts.

Note: Competence in historical parts includes ability to connect and compare texts within the historical period. Competence in systematic areas includes ability to articulate common questions and explain and relate different responses across all historical periods.

All referenced translations/resources available in PDF form.

Required Texts:

• Plato – Republic and either
  • Theaetetus
  • Sophist
• Aristotle – Nicomachean Ethics and one of
  • Metaphysics Books I, VII
  • Physics Books II-III.3
  • De Anima Books II-III
• Augustine – Confessions Books I-XI; De Trinitate Books X-XI
• Aquinas – Summa Theologiae – Part I qq. 1-3; 75-6, 79, 84; Part I-II qq. 90-92, 94-95
• Descartes – Meditations
• Kant – Critique of Pure Reason: Prefaces, Introduction, Transcendental Aesthetic, Transcendental Logic, Transcendental Analytic (Books I-II); Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals

Elective Texts:

• Ancient
  • Plotinus – Enneads 1.6 On Beauty, 3.7 On Time
  • Epicureans – The Hellenistic Philosophers, Long and Sedley: 6, 8, 11, 14-17, 20-25
  • Stoics – The Hellenistic Philosophers, Long and Sedley: 33, 39, 40, 46, 55, 57-63, 65
• Medieval
  • Boethius – Consolation of Philosophy
  • Ibn Sina – The Metaphysics of “The Healing”
  • Anselm – Monologion and Proslogion
  • Ibn Rushd – Incoherence of the Incoherence (section on the natural sciences)
  • Maimonides – Guide for the Perplexed (selections in Hackett ed.)
  • Scotus – Philosophical Writings (selections in Hackett ed.)
  • Ockham – Philosophical Writings (selections in Hackett ed.)
• Modern
  • Hobbes – Leviathan (Introduction; Part I – chs. I, II, X, XI, XIII, XIV; Part II – chs. XVII-XIX)
  • Spinoza – Ethics
  • Locke – Second Treatise on Government
  • Locke – An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Books I and II
  • Bayle – Historical and Critical Dictionary (selections by R. Popkin)
  • Leibniz – Theodicy
  • Hume – A Treatise of Human Nature, Book I: Parts I and III
  • Rousseau – Discourse on the Origins of Inequality; The Social Contract
  • Hegel – Phenomenology of Spirit
• Contemporary Analytic
  • Mill – On Liberty; Utilitarianism
  • Peirce – “The Fixation of Belief,” “The Essentials of Pragmatism,” “Evolutionary Love”
  • James – Pragmatism; The Will to Believe, chs. 1-3; Principles of Psychology, chs. 9-10, 15
  • Frege – The Foundations of Arithmetic; Collected Papers on Mathematics, Logic and Philosophy – “Function and Concept,” “On Sense and Meaning,” “Concept and Object”
  • Dewey – Experience and Nature; Art and Experience
  • Whitehead – Process and Reality
  • Russell – The Philosophy of Logical Atomism; The Problems of Philosophy
  • Wittgenstein – Philosophical Investigations
  • Ryle – Concept of Mind; Dilemmas
  • Popper – The Logic of Scientific Discovery, chs. 1-8, 10; Conjectures and Refutations – “Science: Conjectures and Refutations”
  • Lonergan – Insight
  • Quine – Word and Object; From a Logical Point of View
  • Austin – How to Do Things with Words; Sense and Sensibilia
  • Davidson – Truth and Interpretation
  • Foot – Virtues and Vices and Other Essays in Moral Philosophy
  • Rawls – Theory of Justice, Part I chs. 1-3; Political Liberalism, chs. 2, 6-8
  • Kuhn – The Structure of Scientific Revolutions; Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge (Lakatos and Musgrave) – pp. 1-25, 51-76, 91-137, 197-229
  • MacIntyre – After Virtue; Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry
  • Taylor – Sources of the Self
  • Hacking – Representing and Intervening: Introductory Topics in the Philosophy of Natural Science
  • Nussbaum – Love’s Knowledge
• Contemporary Continental
  • Kierkegaard – Fear and Trembling; Philosophical Fragments
  • Marx – Paris Manuscripts; German Ideology I; Capital I, Book I – Parts I-III
  • Nietzsche – Genealogy of Morals; Birth of Tragedy
  • Husserl – Cartesian Meditations; Logical Investigations (1, 2, 6)
  • Bergson – Time and Free Will; Creative Evolution
  • Blondel – Action
  • Heidegger – Being and Time (Introduction; Part I, Division I); Letter on Humanism
  • Gadamer – Truth and Method
  • Adorno and Horkheimer – Dialectic of the Enlightenment
  • Sartre – Being and Nothingness, Parts I and III; Existentialism Is a Humanism
  • Levinas – Totality and Infinity
  • Arendt – The Human Condition
  • Merleau-Ponty – Phenomenology of Perception
  • Beauvoir – The Second Sex
  • Ricœur – Time and Narrative, Volume III Section 2; From Text to Action
  • Foucault – Discipline and Punish
  • Foucault – History of Sexuality, Volume I; History of Sexuality, Volume II
  • Habermas – Theory of Communicative Action, Volume I, chs. 1-4; Between Facts and Norms, chs. 1, 3, 5, and 9
  • Derrida – Voice and Phenomenon; Writing and Difference
  • Kristeva – Desire in Language: A Semiotic Approach to Literature and Art
  • Young – On Female Body Experience: “Throwing Like a Girl” and Other Essays
  • Butler – Gender Trouble

Systematic Areas

• Metaphysics
• Epistemology
• Ethics
• Natural Theology/Philosophy of Religion
• Social/Political Philosophy