Cambridge University Reporter


Philosophy Tripos, 2006: Prescribed texts and subjects

The Faculty Board of Philosophy give notice that the following texts and subjects are prescribed for the Philosophy Tripos in 2006.

Part Ia

Paper 4. Set texts

Plato, Meno; Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.

Part Ib

Paper 3. Ethics

Hume, Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals.

Paper 4. History of ancient philosophy

Section A: Plato, The Republic

Analysis and defence of justice (I-IV); Moral psychology (IV, VIII-IX); Power: the critique of democracy; women in the state (V-VI); Philosopher-rulers (V-VII); The critique of the arts (II-III and X).

Section B: Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics.

Happiness (eudaimonia); the analysis of happiness (I, 1-7); happiness and fortune (I, 8-11); practical and intellectualist conceptions (X, 7-8).

The analysis of moral virtue and the distinction between virtue and continence (encrateia) (II-IV and VII, 1-10); moral character and responsibility; justice as a virtue (V); the nature of practical wisdom and the interdependence of practical wisdom and moral virtue (VI).

Acrasia (VII, 1-10).

Friendship: the varieties of friendship; self-love and egoism (VIII, 1-5; IX 4, 7-9).

Paper 5. History of modern philosophy

Avicenna, On the Soul from the Kitab al-najat, translated in Medieval Islamic Philosophical Writings, ed. M.A. Khalidi (Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy, 2005), pp. 27-58.

Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I, qq. 75-76 (On the Essence of the Soul, Of the Union of Soul and Body).

Descartes, Meditations on first philosophy.

Leibniz, Discourse on Metaphysics and Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence, ed. H. G. Alexander (Manchester University Press).

Berkeley, The Principles of Human Knowledge.

Hume, Treatise of Human Nature, Book I and Appendix.

Paper 7. Political philosophy

Locke, Second Treatise chaps. 1-4, 7-11, and 18-19; Nozick, Anarchy, State and Utopia chaps 1-6.

Part II

Paper 1. Metaphysics

Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.

Candidates taking Paper 9 may not answer questions in this paper on Wittgenstein's Tractatus (which will be marked with an asterisk).

Paper 3. Ethics

Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals.

Paper 4. History of modern philosophy

Kant, Critique of Pure Reason to the end of the Transcendental Dialectic. (A704, B732)

Hegel, The Phenomenology of Spirit Introduction, Consciousness, Self-consciousness (paragraphs 73-230); Hegel's Logic: being part of the Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences paragraphs 1-111; Introduction to Lectures on the Philosophy of History, as far as (but not including) The Geographical Basis of World History.

Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morality, The Gay Science, The Birth of Tragedy, Beyond Good and Evil.

Paper 9. Special subject specified by the Faculty Board

In 2005-06: Wittgenstein
Tractatus
Philosophical Investigations
Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics, part I
On Certainty

Candidates taking this paper are barred from answering questions on the Tractatus in the Metaphysics paper.

Paper 11. Aesthetics

Plato, Ion, Symposium, and Republic (Books II, III, X).

Hume, 'On the Standard of Taste' Essays, Moral, Political and Literary.