Sample questions for Metaphysics Exam #1, SP08

 

I will give you perhaps six essay questions from which you will choose four on which to write. Be sure to explain all specialized terms and to tease out relevant subtleties. Expect to write for the full period and to get a cramp in your hand.

 

This is an exam given in SP04

 

 

Exam 1

Answer five of the following questions. Answer at least one question from each of the three groups. Remember: Explain, explain, explain!

 

Group A: Persons, Minds, and Bodies

  1. Mr. Peterson currently has amnesia. According to Locke, is he the same person that he was prior to the amnesia? Explain.
  2. What is – and what is the point of – Nagel’s “bat argument”?
  3. Mr. Carttar is in fact merely a brain-in-a-vat. Why, according to Putnam, could he not say or think that he is?

Group B: Fate, Freedom and Determinism

  1. Assume Darwin is correct that an earthworm possesses some manner of intelligence. According to Hume, would it also possess “liberty?”
  2. According to Dennett, is it possible that Mr. Simmons has free will even in situations where he “could not have done otherwise?”
  3. Consider Osmo (the fellow who reads the book of his life). Would you expect him to accept Sartre’s claim that “existence precedes essence?”

Group C: Assorted Other Tasty Bits

  1. Aristotle claims that metaphysics is a preeminently divine science. Would he consider Beauvoir’s “Woman as Other” to be a metaphysical work?
  2. How does Plato’s argument for the immortality of the soul differ from that offered by Descartes?
  3. What is – and what is the point of – Descartes’ bee’s wax example?