PhD Doctor of Philosophy Cheat Sheet 2026

The 30 highest-yield PhD Doctor of Philosophy facts, distilled from real exam questions. Print it, save it as a PDF, or study it here — free, no sign-up.

1. Moral relativism holds that moral judgments are: → True or false relative to cultural or individual standards
2. Which best describes the 'hard problem of consciousness' as formulated by David Chalmers? → Explaining why physical processes give rise to subjective, qualitative experience (qualia)
3. Carol Gilligan's ethics of care challenged Kohlberg's moral development theory primarily on the grounds that it: → Privileged a justice-oriented, typically male moral voice over a care-oriented one
4. Which view holds that the meaning of a concept is determined by its role in a network of inferential relations rather than by reference to objects in the world? → Conceptual role semantics (inferential role semantics)
5. Virtue epistemology, associated with Ernest Sosa and Linda Zagzebski, grounds knowledge in: → Intellectual virtues of the knower
6. When you hold a belief because it is comforting rather than because evidence supports it, you are engaging in what philosophers call: → Wishful thinking (motivated reasoning)
7. Rawls' difference principle states that social and economic inequalities are just only if they benefit: → The least advantaged members of society
8. Mereology is the study of the relationship between: → Parts and wholes
9. Substance ontology, dominant in the Aristotelian tradition, holds that the fundamental entities of reality are: → Individual substances that bear properties
10. Critical race theory examines how race and racial inequality are perpetuated through: → Legal systems and institutional structures
11. Ontology is the branch of metaphysics that investigates the nature and categories of: → Being and existence
12. The philosophical thought experiment of 'Neurath's boat' is most relevant to which epistemological position? → Coherentism
13. Philo claims that the analogy Cleanthes draws to support his position is _____. → weak
14. Kant asserts that only _____ can be characterized as "good" without further explanation. → a good will
15. John Rawls' 'veil of ignorance' is a device used in his theory to ensure that principles of justice are chosen: → Without knowledge of one's place in society
16. Which philosopher argued that moral worth depends solely on acting from duty (Pflicht) rather than inclination? → Immanuel Kant
17. Supererogatory acts are those that are: → Praiseworthy but beyond the call of moral duty
18. In discussions of religious pluralism, John Hick's 'pluralistic hypothesis' holds that the great world religions are: → Equally valid culturally conditioned responses to a single transcendent Real
19. The phrase 'existence precedes essence,' central to Sartrean existentialism, means: → Humans first exist without a fixed nature and create their own essence through choices
20. The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis in its strong form claims that language: → Determines what thoughts are thinkable
21. Which philosophical position claims that scientific theories are merely useful instruments for prediction and do not describe an underlying reality? → Instrumentalism (anti-realism)
22. Gödel's first incompleteness theorem states that any consistent formal system capable of expressing basic arithmetic contains statements that are: → True but unprovable within the system
23. The 'veil of ignorance' thought experiment asks you to design social institutions without knowing your position in society. Its purpose is to: → Generate principles of justice by eliminating self-interested bias
24. According to Aquinas, ______ is the first effective cause of everything. → God
25. The problem of induction, highlighted by Hume, questions the rational justification for inferring: → General laws from particular observations
26. Pragmatic theories of truth, associated with James and Peirce, hold that truth is a property of beliefs that: → Work satisfactorily or prove useful in practice
27. John Locke differed from Hobbes on the state of nature by arguing it is governed by: → Natural law conferring rights to life, liberty, and property
28. The distinction between 'doing' and 'allowing' harm is most directly relevant to which moral debate? → The doctrine of acts and omissions in applied ethics
29. A question-and-answer exchange in which claims are meticulously examined to ascertain the truth is referred to as _____. → the Socratic method
30. Metaphysics, epistemology, axiology, and _____ are the four main subfields of philosophy. → logic