How does Avicenna think intellectual cognition is reached? How well does his
theory explain how human beings think?
2 Why does Aquinas think that the intellective soul can exist without the body it
informed? What are the main arguments against this position, and does Aquinas
succeed in meeting them?
3 How does Aquinas’s account of the relationship between human souls and bodies
differ from Avicenna’s? Are there good philosophical grounds for these
differences?
4 Either (a) Why did Descartes describe his task as being to ‘lead the mind
away from the senses’? Did he succeed in doing so?
Or (b) ‘Cartesian doubt is psychologically impossible.’ Would that make
it philosophically useless?
5 What is a real distinction? Assess Descartes’ attempt to establish a real distinction
between Mind and Body.
6 Why did Leibniz think that we need a principle of sufficient reason to move from
mathematics to metaphysics?
7 Does Leibniz give a convincing account of contingent and necessary truths?
8 Can Locke account for our acquisition of ideas of primary qualities?
9 How satisfactory is Locke’s account of sensitive knowledge?
10 Is it a travesty to classify Locke as an empiricist?
11 Describe and assess Berkeley’s attack on abstract ideas in the Introduction to
Principles of Human Knowledge.
12 Why did Berkeley think that nothing we perceive can inhere in an unperceiving
substance? Was he right?
13 ‘Interpreting Hume as a Naturalist avoids some of the standard criticisms of him
as an Empiricist.’ Discuss.
14 Does Hume’s account of human understanding rely too much on ‘the association
of ideas’?
15 Is Hume’s account of Causation adequate for its purpose?
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16 ‘The difference between so-called Rationalists and Empiricists is simply the
different status and nature they ascribe to mathematics.’ Discuss with respect to at
least two philosophers.
17 If causal connection is required to be intelligible, which philosopher provides the
best account of causation? Discuss with respect to at least two philosophers on the
syllabus for the paper.
18 Does any of the philosophers on the syllabus for the paper give a satisfactory
account of the Self?