PHIL 305
Fall 2019
Format:
The exam will consist of two parts. Part One will consist of several pointed short-answer questions – these are questions that can be answered in a few sentences. Part Two will consist of a smaller number of short-essay questions – these are typically multi-parted questions that can be answered in a few paragraphs.
No notes or other materials may be used. You will write directly on the exam itself (no blue book needed).
Figures:
Thales
Anaximander
Anaximenes
Pythagoreans
Heraclitus
Parmenides
Focus:
- Anything that we’ve discussed in class is fair game. Having said that, I confess that I have no interest in picking out obscure sentences and demanding that you cite their chapter and verse. I’m rather more interested in helping you to develop a nuanced appreciation of the figures, arguments, and doctrines that we study, as well as an aptitude for the methods that are distinctive of philosophy.
- We’ve discussed both high-level themes (those that span across figures) and figure-specific themes (details of a particular philosopher’s view). You should be prepared to discuss both types.
- Prep questions provide an obvious source for study materials, as do class notes.
- Studying in groups or partnerships is an excellent idea. Philosophy is a communal activity; the greater degree to which you can make your class-related activities genuinely philosophical, the more likely you are to succeed.
Feedback
(before you’ve taken the exam, even!):
- The “Five C’s” – correctness, completeness, clarity, cleverness (i.e., philosophical ingenuity), and conciseness – jointly form my grading criteria.
- Expanding on the fifth criterion: more compact answers are generally better than less compact answers. Show me that you can distinguish what’s genuinely relevant from what is not by producing answers that are directly responsive to the questions as they are asked. Trying to write everything you know that’s in any way related to the topic in question displays an insensitivity to relevance and salience. So the strategy if I write enough, I’m bound to hit on at least part of the right answer is in fact a very bad one to employ in this class.
- I don’t mark down on account of errors in grammar or spelling as such (not on in-class work, at any rate). However, sufficiently bad grammar or spelling can make it very difficult to understand what you’re trying to say, which will undoubtedly detract from the quality of your work.
- Write honestly and with conviction. Puffed-up language generally doesn’t impress me, and I don’t reward hollow-sounding praise or unsupported claims. (“Thales was a brilliant thinker whose water-theory is endorsed even today, though in the form of quantum chromodynamics.” Yeah, probably not.)