1 Either (a) How does Boethius use his conception of God’s eternity to
solve the problem of prescience? Is the solution satisfactory?
Or (b) Which, if any, of the problems he raises about the
compatibility of divine omniscience and human freedom does Boethius fail
to solve? How do you explain any failure or failures you find?
2 Either (a) How successful is Ockham’s critique of Scotus’s position on
God’s knowledge of future contingents?
Or (b) Ockham admits that he does not know how God has
knowledge of future contingents. Is this a serious flaw in his solution to the
problem of prescience?
3 Does Descartes stop the all-corrosive spread of doubt by a defensible
move or a questionable shuffle?
4 Compare and contrast the role and content of Descartes’s argument for
the existence of God in Meditation III with his argument in Meditation V.
5 Can Leibniz account for the existence of genuine contingency?
6 Explain Leibniz’s idea of an individual substance. Evaluate Leibniz’s
arguments for introducing substances into our ontology.
7 Either (a) Outline and critically discuss Locke’s contrast between
simple and complex ideas and the use he makes of it.
Or (b) Does Locke have good reason to deny the existence of
innate ideas?
8 Do Berkeley’s criticisms of Locke’s distinction between primary and
secondary qualities hit their target?
9 Is Berkeley’s problem with matter that the idea of it is incoherent or that we
cannot be justified in postulating its existence?
10 What is Berkeley’s account of the nature of minds? Is he entitled to be
more confident of their existence than of the existence of matter?
11 What is the significance of Hume’s denial that ‘reason’ is responsible for
particular functions of the mind?
12 Compare Hume’s treatment of induction with his treatment of the external
world.
– 3 – PHT1/5
13 Compare and contrast the views of Descartes and Leibniz on unconscious
ideas.
14 Do the so-called ‘British Empiricists’ have distinctive shared views? If so,
what are they?
15 Compare and contrast the views of any two philosophers on the syllabus
on the interaction of mind and body.