SECTION A
1. Identify each of the passages (i) and (ii), 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 (i) and (ii) – at end of paper.
2. Identify each of the passages (iii) and (iv), 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 (iii) and (iv) – at end of paper.
SECTION B
3. EITHER (a) What is the role of the bodily organs in relation to immaterial
intellects in Avicenna’s account of human cognition?
OR (b) What does Avicenna aim to show from the thought experiment of
the flying man? Is he successful?
4. How well does Averroes justify his claim that there is only one intellect for
all humans?
5. EITHER (a) What does Aquinas mean by ‘intelligible species’? How do
they help him to explain human thinking?
OR (b) ‘Aquinas fails to account for central aspects of self-knowledge.’
Discuss.
6. Is Gersonides justified in thinking that his account of human immortality is
better than those he rejects?
7. Show how
EITHER (a) comparison with scholastic theories
OR (b) the Objections and Responses
can help to elucidate Descartes’s account of the relationship between
mind and body in his Meditations.
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8. ‘The object of the idea constituting the human mind is the body’
(SPINOZA). Explain what Spinoza means by this assertion and how he
tries to justify it.
9. ‘The Philosopher’s views are always cogently argued, but sometimes,
Abelard indicates, they are mistaken.’ Discuss with regard to Dialogue II
of Collationes.
10. How well in the Decisive Treatise does Averroes defend himself and other
Aristotelians from accusations of committing and encouraging heresy?
11. What are the strongest arguments Maimonides gives against the eternity
of the world? How strong does he think they are?
12. ‘Since Boethius of Dacia accepts that Christian doctrine is true without
qualification, he cannot be described as a relativist about truth.’ Discuss.
13. Why does Pomponazzi think that human immortality cannot be
demonstrated? Why does he think this is an important point to make?
14. EITHER (a) How does Spinoza defend the freedom to philosophize in his
Tractatus Theologico-Politicus?
OR (b) Compare Spinoza’s views on biblical interpretation with those of
Maimonides.
PASSAGES
Question 1
i) Objection: Further, the Philosopher says (De Anima iii, 5) there are two
things in the intellectual soul – the passive intellect and the active
intellect. But it does not belong to the passive intellect to abstract the
intelligible species from the phantasm, but to receive them when
abstracted. Neither does it seem to be the function of the active
intellect, which is related to the phantasm, as light is to colour; since
light does not abstract anything from colour, but rather streams on to it.
Therefore in no way do we understand by abstraction from phantasms.
Response: Not only does the active intellect throw light on the
phantasm: it does more; by its own power it abstracts the intelligible
species from the phantasm. It throws light on the phantasm, because,
just as the sensitive part acquires a greater power by its conjunction
with the intellectual part, so by the power of the active intellect the
phantasms are made more fit for the abstraction therefrom of intelligible
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intentions. Furthermore, the active intellect abstracts the intelligible
species from the phantasm, forasmuch as by the power of the active
intellect we are able to disregard the conditions of individuality, and to
take into our consideration the specific nature, the image of which
informs the passive intellect.
ii) At other times, it is related in some way to the perfect potential when
the acquired intelligible forms have also occurred in it after the primary
intelligibles, though it is not acquainted with them and does not consult
them in actuality. Rather, it is as though they are stored in it, and it can
be actually acquainted with them when it so wishes and can reason
about them, reasoning that it can reason about them. At that point, it
will be termed an “actual intellect,” for it has reasoned and can reason
when it so wishes without the effort of acquisition, even though it can be
termed a potential intellect in comparison to what comes afterwards.
At yet other times, it is related to absolute actuality, when the intelligible
form is present in it, it is acquainted with it and reasons about it in
actuality, and reasons that it reasons about it in actuality. At that point,
it will become an acquired intellect, for as will become clear, the
potential intellect becomes actual only due to an intellect that is always
actual. If a potential intellect connects with the intellect that is always
actual in some way, it will be actually imprinted with a type of form that
is externally acquired.
Question 2
iii) If someone were to say: “Muslims have formed a consensus that in the
Law are things to be taken in their apparent sense and things to be
interpreted, and there are things about which they disagree. So, is it
permissible for demonstration to lead to interpreting what they have
formed a consensus to take in its apparent sense, or to taking in its
apparent sense what they have formed a consensus to interpret?” we
would say: “If the consensus were established by a method of certainty,
it would not be valid [to do so]; but if the consensus about them were
suppositional, then it would be valid [to do so].” That is why Abū Hāmid
[al-Ghazālī], Abū al-Mac ālī, and others from among the leading thinkers
said that unbelief is to be affirmed of no one for going against
consensus by interpreting things like these.
iv) Let the arguments for the opposite side be granted for the sake of the
conclusion, although they can be resolved, since they are sophistical.
From all of this it is evident that for the philosopher to say that
something is possible or impossible is to say that it is possible or
impossible for reasons which can be investigated by man. When
someone puts aside rational arguments, he immediately ceases to be a
philosopher; philosophy does not rest on revelations and miracles. You
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yourself hold and ought to hold that many things are true, which,
however, if you did not affirm them to be true except insofar as human
reason could lead you to do so, you should never grant them. Such is
true of the resurrection of men which faith teaches, and rightly so. In
such matters one relies on divine authority, not on human reason. I will
ask you what rational argument proves this. I will also ask what rational
argument proves that a thing which is produced by generation can
return again after its corruption without being generated, and even so
as to be numerically the same as it was before its corruption. This must
be the case in the resurrection of men according to the teaching of our
faith. Nonetheless, at the end of De Generatione 2, the Philosopher
states that a corrupted thing can return again so as to be the same in
species but not so as to be the same in number. In saying this he does
not contradict the faith, because he says that this is not possible
according to natural causes. The natural philospher reasons from such
causes. Our faith, however, teaches that this is possible by reason of a
higher cause which is the beginning and the end of our faith, the
glorious and blessed God.