SECTION A
1. Identify each of the passages below, explain the part it plays in the
argument of the text from which it is taken and supply whatever background
material and interpretative comments a reader now would need in order to
understand its full significance. You may also compare the two passages.
Passages (a) and (b) – on separate sheet
2. Identify each of the passages below, explain the part it plays in the
argument of the text from which it is taken and supply whatever background
material and interpretative comments a reader now would need in order to
understand its full significance. You may also compare the two passages.
Passages (c) and (d) – on separate sheet
SECTION B
3. How well does Boethius’s solution meet the problems raised about
universals in the argument he takes from Alexander of Aphrodisias?
4. EITHER (a) explain Abelard’s doubts about how universal words signify and
assess how convincingly he replies to those doubts
OR (b) explain Abelard’s doubts about the understandings produced by
universal words and assess how convincingly he replies to those doubts.
5. ‘Horseness has a definition that is not in need of the definition of
universality, but is [something] to which universality accidentally occurs. For,
in itself, it is nothing at all except horseness; for, in itself, it is neither one nor
many …’ Assess how Avicenna uses the idea proposed here to solve the
Problem of Universals.
6. EITHER (a) Explain what Scotus means by a ‘formal distinction’ and what is
its role in his theory of universals,
OR (b) Why does Scotus think that we must posit less-than-numerical unity?
7. What is Ockham’s most powerful objection to Scotus’s theory of universals?
Would Scotus be able to answer it?
8. EITHER (a) How does Locke distinguish between real and nominal
essence? Does this distinction allow him to take a new approach to the
Problem of Universals?
OR (b) Contrast Locke’s treatment of universals with that of either Ockham
or Abelard.
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9. How well does Averroes’s Decisive Treatise explain the way in which
philosophical demonstration sometimes contradicts the Quran, and yet ‘truth
does not contradict truth’?
10. Are Maimonides’s reasons for believing that the world had a beginning as
strong as he says they are?
11. ‘Boethius of Dacia avoids a contradiction between Aristotelianism and
Christian doctrine only by accepting a relativization of knowledge that puts
the truth out of human grasp.’ Discuss.
12. Explain and assess Scotus’s main arguments to show that philosophical
argumentation alone is not adequate for human needs.
13. EITHER (a) ‘Pomponazzi’s arguments against the immortality of the soul are
so powerful that his real intention can only be to undermine Christian belief.’
Discuss.
OR (b) How well does Pomponazzi show that belief in an after-life is not a
necessary condition for virtue? What is the role of this argument in his
position?
14. EITHER (a) Why does Spinoza think that understanding how the Bible was
written has important consequences for political society?
OR (b) Assess Spinoza’s naturalistic account of prophecy (in comparison, if
you wish, with any earlier naturalistic account).
15. Compare any two theories of universals in the set texts, explaining which is
the more successful,
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Passages for Q.1
a) And so these things exist in singulars, but are thought of as universals.
Species is to be regarded as nothing else than the thought gathered from
the substantial likeness of individuals that are unlike in number. Genus,
on the other hand, is the thought gathered from the likeness of species.
This likeness becomes sensible when it exists in singulars, and becomes
intelligible when it is in universals. In the same way, when it is sensible it
stays in singulars, but when it is understood it becomes universal. They
subsist therefore in the realm of sensibles, but are understood apart from
bodies.
b) So neither ‘man’ nor any other universal word appears to signify anything.
For it does not establish an understanding of any thing. But it seems
there can be no understanding that does not have a subject thing it
conceives. Thus Boethius in his Commentary says ‘Every understanding
arises from a subject thing either as that thing is disposed or as it is not
disposed (for no understanding can arise from no subject).’
For these reasons universals seem wholly unsuited to signification.
But this is not so. For they in a way ‘signify’ diverse things by naming
them, not by establishing an understanding that arises from them but one
that pertains to each of them.
Passages for Q.2
c) There is therefore no contradiction between faith and the philosopher.
Why then do you make complaints against the philosopher, since you
concede the same thing as he does? Nor should you believe that the
philosopher, who has placed his life in the study of wisdom, has
contradicted the truth of the Catholic Faith in anything. Rather, you
should take care – since you have a limited understanding with respect to
the philosophers, who were and are the wise men of the world – that you
can understand what they say. For what a master says should be
understood in the best way, nor is there anything in what some malign
people say, who devote all their energies to finding reasonings that
contradict in something the truth of the Christian Faith – which without
doubt is impossible. For they say that a Christian, as such, cannot be a
philosopher, because he is compelled by his Law to destroy the principles
of philosophy. For this is false, because the Christian concedes that the
conclusion concluded through philosophical reasons could not be
otherwise through those things through which it is concluded. And if it is
concluded through natural causes that a dead man will not immediately
return alive and the same in number, he concedes that this cannot be
otherwise through the natural causes through which it is concluded. But
he concedes however that this can be otherwise through a superior cause
which is the cause of all nature and of every caused entity. And so a
Christian who understands subtly is not compelled by his Law to destroy
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the principles of philosophy, but he can preserve Faith and philosophy
without blaming either.
d) That is because people’s natures vary in excellence with respect to
assent. Thus, some assent by means of demonstration; some assent by
means of dialectical statements in the same way the one adhering to
demonstration assents by means of demonstration, there being nothing
greater in their natures; and some assent by means of rhetorical
statements, just as the one adhering to demonstration assents by means
of demonstrative statements.
That is because, when this divine Law of ours called to people by means
of these three methods, assent to it was extended to every human being –
except to the one who denies it obstinately in speech or for whom no
methods have been determined in it for summoning to God (may He be
exalted) due to his own neglect of that.