Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Qualifying Examination in Philosophy — Questions and Answers

Question 1: In Nietzsche's ethics, the 'master morality' values which of the following above all?

Obedience to divine commands
Universal benevolence and impartiality
Power, nobility, and self-affirmation (Correct answer)
Pity, humility, and self-denial

Correct answer: Power, nobility, and self-affirmation

Nietzsche's master morality is characterized by strength, creativity, and self-affirmation, in contrast to the resentment-based slave morality he associated with Christianity.

Question 2: 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 (Correct answer)
Ignored cultural differences in moral development
Overemphasized emotion at the expense of reason
Relied on virtue ethics rather than principled reasoning

Correct answer: Privileged a justice-oriented, typically male moral voice over a care-oriented one

Gilligan argued Kohlberg's model was gender-biased, neglecting the relational, care-focused moral reasoning more common among women.

Question 3: Eliminative materialism, defended by Paul and Patricia Churchland, holds that folk psychological concepts like 'belief' and 'desire' will eventually be:

Replaced by neuroscientific descriptions (Correct answer)
Reduced to functional roles
Shown to be irreducibly mental
Vindicated by cognitive science

Correct answer: Replaced by neuroscientific descriptions

Eliminativists argue that our common-sense mental vocabulary is a false theory that neuroscience will eliminate rather than reduce.

Question 4: Pyrrhonian skepticism, associated with Sextus Empiricus, recommends achieving tranquility through:

Embracing empiricism
Suspension of judgment (epoché) (Correct answer)
Adopting Stoic certainties
Relying on divine revelation

Correct answer: Suspension of judgment (epoché)

Pyrrhonists advocate epoché — withholding assent on all non-evident matters — as a path to ataraxia (mental peace).

Question 5: The philosophical thought experiment of 'Neurath's boat' is most relevant to which epistemological position?

Coherentism (Correct answer)
Contextualism
Reliabilism
Foundationalism

Correct answer: Coherentism

Neurath's boat—rebuilding the ship plank by plank while at sea—illustrates coherentism: beliefs are revised by adjusting the overall web of belief, not from an external foundation.

Question 6: Speech act theory, developed by Austin and Searle, distinguishes the illocutionary act (what you do in speaking) from the locutionary act (what you literally say) and the:

Constative act (the truth claim)
Propositional act (the content expressed)
Perlocutionary act (the effect on the hearer) (Correct answer)
Performative act (the explicit action word)

Correct answer: Perlocutionary act (the effect on the hearer)

Austin's three-level analysis identifies the locutionary (saying something), illocutionary (doing something in saying it), and perlocutionary (achieving an effect) dimensions of utterances.

Question 7: The debate between presentism and eternalism in philosophy of time concerns whether:

Only the present exists vs. past, present, and future are equally real (Correct answer)
Time is objective or subjective
Time is absolute or relative
Change is real or illusory

Correct answer: Only the present exists vs. past, present, and future are equally real

Presentists hold that only present entities exist, while eternalists (four-dimensionalists) hold that past and future entities are as real as present ones.

Question 8: The 'experience machine' thought experiment by Robert Nozick is intended to challenge which view?

Contractarianism
Hedonistic utilitarianism (Correct answer)
Virtue ethics
Deontological ethics

Correct answer: Hedonistic utilitarianism

Nozick's experience machine argues that if pleasure were all that matters, we would plug in, but since most people wouldn't, hedonistic utilitarianism must be incomplete.

Question 9: Descartes' method of doubt in the Meditations is an example of which epistemological approach?

Contextualism
Reliabilism
Methodological skepticism (Correct answer)
Pragmatism

Correct answer: Methodological skepticism

Descartes used systematic doubt as a method to strip away uncertain beliefs and find indubitable foundations for knowledge.

Question 10: The debate between reductionism and emergence concerns whether higher-level properties such as life or consciousness can be fully explained in terms of:

Teleological functions
Irreducible holistic principles
Lower-level physical components and their interactions (Correct answer)
Divine impartation

Correct answer: Lower-level physical components and their interactions

Reductionists claim higher-level properties are exhaustively explained by lower-level physics, while emergentists argue new properties arise that are irreducible to the base level.

Question 11: Marilyn McCord Adams's response to 'horrendous evils' argues that God's redemption of such evils involves:

Proving to humanity that God's power is sufficient to overcome any evil
Ensuring that perpetrators of horrors receive proportionate punishment
Guaranteeing that future goods will causally outweigh past horrors on a utilitarian calculus
Integrating horror-participation into a relationship with God that constitutes the defeated individual's own beatitude (Correct answer)

Correct answer: Integrating horror-participation into a relationship with God that constitutes the defeated individual's own beatitude

Adams argues that horrendous evils must be defeated from the inside of a person's own life story, not merely outweighed externally, by being integrated into an intimate relationship with God who is the ultimate good.

Question 12: Nominalism in the debate over universals holds that only:

Both particulars and universals exist
Mental images exist
Particular individual things exist (Correct answer)
Abstract universal forms exist

Correct answer: Particular individual things exist

Nominalists deny the existence of abstract universals, claiming that general terms like 'redness' refer only to collections of similar particulars.

Question 13: Frank Jackson's Mary's Room thought experiment challenges physicalism by arguing that Mary gains new knowledge when she sees red for the first time, namely:

The wavelength of red light
The neural correlates of color vision
What it is like to see red (Correct answer)
The name of the color

Correct answer: What it is like to see red

Jackson's knowledge argument suggests that phenomenal consciousness involves facts not captured by physical descriptions.

Question 14: Social epistemology studies how social factors and institutions affect:

Individual cognitive processes only
The acquisition, distribution, and transmission of knowledge (Correct answer)
The metaphysical nature of truth
Mathematical proof procedures

Correct answer: The acquisition, distribution, and transmission of knowledge

Social epistemology, developed by Alvin Goldman and others, examines how group dynamics, testimony, and institutions shape what we collectively know.

Question 15: Epistemic injustice, a concept developed by Miranda Fricker, refers to a wrong done to someone specifically in their capacity as a:

Political citizen
Moral agent
Knower or epistemic subject (Correct answer)
Social contract participant

Correct answer: Knower or epistemic subject

Fricker identifies two types: testimonial injustice (unfair credibility deficit) and hermeneutical injustice (gaps in collective interpretive resources).

Question 16: The 'principle of credulity,' introduced by Richard Swinburne to defend the evidential value of religious experience, states that:

Religious testimony is credible only when the experiencer is morally virtuous
We should believe religious experiences are veridical only when multiple witnesses corroborate them
The credulity of religious believers is explained by psychological projection
If it seems to a subject that x is present, that is good prima facie reason to believe x is present, absent defeaters (Correct answer)

Correct answer: If it seems to a subject that x is present, that is good prima facie reason to believe x is present, absent defeaters

Swinburne's principle of credulity holds that in the absence of special reasons for doubt, how things seem to us is good evidence for how things are, applying this to religious as well as perceptual experience.

Question 17: The trolley problem is primarily used in ethics to illustrate tension between:

Contractarianism and libertarianism
Virtue and vice
Consequentialist and deontological intuitions (Correct answer)
Divine command theory and natural law

Correct answer: Consequentialist and deontological intuitions

The trolley problem highlights the clash between maximizing outcomes (consequentialism) and the prohibition on using people as means (deontology).

Question 18: The 'original position' with a 'veil of ignorance' is a thought experiment developed by:

Jean-Jacques Rousseau
John Rawls (Correct answer)
Thomas Hobbes
Robert Nozick

Correct answer: John Rawls

John Rawls used the original position and veil of ignorance in A Theory of Justice to derive fair principles of justice.

Question 19: Virtue epistemology, associated with Ernest Sosa and Linda Zagzebski, grounds knowledge in:

Coherence among propositions
Reliability of belief-forming processes
Intellectual virtues of the knower (Correct answer)
Social justification norms

Correct answer: Intellectual virtues of the knower

Virtue epistemology holds that knowledge and justified belief are grounded in the exercise of intellectual virtues such as open-mindedness and thoroughness.

Question 20: Phenomenology, as developed by Edmund Husserl, focuses on the systematic study of:

Brain states underlying behavior
Social construction of mental concepts
Logical analysis of mental language
Structures of conscious experience as they appear to the subject (Correct answer)

Correct answer: Structures of conscious experience as they appear to the subject

Husserl's phenomenology employs the epoché (bracketing) to describe the essential structures of intentional conscious experience.

Question 21: 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 (Correct answer)
Demonstrate that ignorance is epistemically virtuous
Argue for libertarian minimal state principles
Prove that social contracts are historically real

Correct answer: Generate principles of justice by eliminating self-interested bias

Rawls' veil of ignorance strips away knowledge of one's class, gender, and talents so that chosen principles reflect impartiality rather than personal advantage.

Question 22: The view that beliefs are justified by their coherence within an interconnected system is called:

Reliabilism
Foundationalism
Coherentism (Correct answer)
Contextualism

Correct answer: Coherentism

Coherentism, associated with thinkers like BonJour, judges justification by how well beliefs fit together in a web.

Question 23: Platonism in metaphysics holds that abstract objects such as numbers and properties:

Exist independently of minds and concrete things (Correct answer)
Are mental constructions
Are useful fictions
Reduce to physical patterns

Correct answer: Exist independently of minds and concrete things

Plato argued that abstract entities like the Form of Beauty or the number 7 have objective, mind-independent existence in a non-physical realm.

Question 24: According to social contract theory in the tradition of Locke, political authority is legitimate only if:

It is based on the consent of the governed (Correct answer)
It is ordained by divine right
It reflects natural aristocratic hierarchy
It maximizes aggregate welfare

Correct answer: It is based on the consent of the governed

Locke held that governmental authority derives from the consent of individuals who agree to form a civil society to protect natural rights.

Question 25: The realism vs. anti-realism debate in metaphysics concerns whether the objects studied by a given domain:

Are identical to sense data
Exist independently of human minds and practices (Correct answer)
Are useful constructs for scientific prediction
Are defined by cultural consensus

Correct answer: Exist independently of human minds and practices

Realists hold that entities like electrons or numbers exist mind-independently; anti-realists argue that such entities depend on human conceptual schemes or practices.

Question 26: In debates about causation, counterfactual theories hold that event C causes event E if and only if:

C preceded E in time
C and E are constantly conjoined
Had C not occurred, E would not have occurred (Correct answer)
C transfers energy to E

Correct answer: Had C not occurred, E would not have occurred

David Lewis developed counterfactual analysis of causation, defining causal dependence in terms of what would have happened in the nearest possible world where the cause was absent.

Question 27: Feelings are _____ in the moral life.

an unerring guide
essential and inevitable (Correct answer)
essential to impartiality
reason based

Correct answer: essential and inevitable

While moral philosophy often emphasizes reason, feelings (emotions) are widely recognized as an essential and inevitable component of human moral experience. They motivate moral action, inform our perceptions of right and wrong, and are deeply intertwined with our values and empathy. Although not an unerring guide, emotions play a crucial role in our moral judgments and responses.

Question 28: Contextualism in epistemology holds that the truth conditions for knowledge attributions vary with:

The context of the attributor (Correct answer)
The coherence of the system
The reliability of the process
The content of the belief

Correct answer: The context of the attributor

Epistemic contextualism, defended by DeRose and Cohen, argues that what counts as 'knowing' shifts depending on conversational context.

Question 29: Supererogatory acts are those that are:

Praiseworthy but beyond the call of moral duty (Correct answer)
Morally required under all circumstances
Morally forbidden but commonly excused
Defined as duties within virtue ethics

Correct answer: Praiseworthy but beyond the call of moral duty

Supererogatory actions go beyond what morality demands—they are morally good but their omission is not a moral failure.

Question 30: Heidegger's concept of 'Being-in-the-world' (In-der-Welt-sein) in Being and Time challenges traditional Cartesian metaphysics by emphasizing that:

Knowledge begins with sense data
Humans are always already embedded in a world of practical engagement (Correct answer)
Consciousness is a substance distinct from matter
The subject observes the world from outside

Correct answer: Humans are always already embedded in a world of practical engagement

Heidegger argued that Dasein's primary mode is practical involvement — using tools, acting with others — not detached theoretical observation of objects.

Question 31: Peter Singer's utilitarian argument for famine relief concludes that affluent individuals are morally obligated to give until:

Local needs are fully met first
They have given 10% of income
Government foreign aid becomes sufficient
Giving more would cause comparable moral harm to themselves (Correct answer)

Correct answer: Giving more would cause comparable moral harm to themselves

Singer argues we must give until the point where giving further would sacrifice something of comparable moral importance.

Question 32: Which philosopher is most closely associated with the view that scientific knowledge is a social construction shaped by community norms and power relations?

W.V.O. Quine
Bruno Latour (Correct answer)
Bas van Fraassen
Carl Hempel

Correct answer: Bruno Latour

Bruno Latour, along with Steve Woolgar, developed the sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK), arguing that scientific facts are constructed through social processes, negotiations, and inscription devices in laboratories.

Question 33: The 'transcendental argument for God's existence' (TAG), associated with Cornelius Van Til and Greg Bahnsen, argues that:

The cosmological structure of reality entails the existence of a first cause
The design of the universe is best explained by intelligent causation
Logical laws, induction, and moral absolutes are intelligible only if the Christian God exists (Correct answer)
Every possible world contains at least one necessarily existing being

Correct answer: Logical laws, induction, and moral absolutes are intelligible only if the Christian God exists

TAG contends that the preconditions of intelligibility—logic, induction, ethical absolutes—are only possible if the Christian God exists, making atheism self-refuting when it uses logic to deny God.

Question 34: The 'cumulative case' approach to natural theology, associated with Basil Mitchell and Richard Swinburne, argues that:

Natural theology must be abandoned in favor of revelation
The existence of God is self-evident to properly functioning rational faculties
Religious experience alone provides sufficient warrant for theistic belief
No single argument for theism is decisive but converging lines of evidence raise theism's probability (Correct answer)

Correct answer: No single argument for theism is decisive but converging lines of evidence raise theism's probability

Swinburne's cumulative case applies Bayesian reasoning to show that multiple independent arguments—cosmological, teleological, experiential—together make theism more probable than not.

Question 35: The No False Lemmas condition was added to the JTB account to handle Gettier cases by requiring that:

Beliefs be produced by reliable faculties
The inference chain contain no false intermediate steps (Correct answer)
Knowledge be certain
Justification be non-defeasible

Correct answer: The inference chain contain no false intermediate steps

The No False Lemmas response to Gettier requires that no false propositions play an essential role in the justificatory chain for knowledge.

Question 36: Which response to the problem of evil argues that God and creation together form a developing whole in which God genuinely suffers with creatures?

Skeptical theism
Felix culpa theodicy
Process theodicy (Correct answer)
Soul-making theodicy

Correct answer: Process theodicy

Process theodicy, drawing on Whitehead and Hartshorne, holds that God is not omnipotent in the classical sense but persuades rather than coerces, genuinely affected by creaturely suffering.

Question 37: Kant's 'Copernican Revolution' in epistemology claimed that:

Empiricism fully explains knowledge
Objects conform to our cognition, not the reverse (Correct answer)
Mathematics is empirically derived
Knowledge mirrors an independent reality

Correct answer: Objects conform to our cognition, not the reverse

Kant argued that our cognitive faculties impose structure on experience, making the mind constitutive of objects of knowledge.

Question 38: The principle of parsimony (Occam's Razor) in metaphysics recommends not multiplying:

Intuitions without evidence
Entities beyond necessity (Correct answer)
Arguments beyond their scope
Definitions without precision

Correct answer: Entities beyond necessity

William of Ockham's principle holds that when two theories explain the same facts, prefer the one that posits fewer kinds of entities.

Question 39: The problem of personal identity over time asks what makes a person at one time the same person as a person at another time. Psychological continuity theories hold that identity consists in:

Continuity of the same physical body
Continuity of memories and psychological connections (Correct answer)
Social recognition by others
Persistence of a non-physical soul

Correct answer: Continuity of memories and psychological connections

Locke and later Parfit argued that personal identity is constituted by overlapping chains of memory and psychological continuity.

Question 40: Which philosopher argued that all knowledge comes from sensory experience, coining the phrase 'tabula rasa'?

John Locke (Correct answer)
René Descartes
Immanuel Kant
Gottfried Leibniz

Correct answer: John Locke

Locke held in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding that the mind begins as a blank slate filled by experience.

Question 41: According to Aquinas, ______ is the first effective cause of everything.

an infinite series
God (Correct answer)
nature
the universe

Correct answer: God

In his 'Five Ways,' Thomas Aquinas argues that there must be a first efficient cause, an uncaused cause, for the chain of causality to begin. He concludes that this first efficient cause, which is not itself caused by anything else, is what everyone understands to be God. Without such a first cause, there would be an infinite regress of causes, which Aquinas deemed impossible.

Question 42: The phenomenological method developed by Husserl involves 'bracketing' assumptions about the external world—a procedure he called:

Transcendental deduction
Deflationism
Dialectical synthesis
Epoché (phenomenological reduction) (Correct answer)

Correct answer: Epoché (phenomenological reduction)

The phenomenological epoché suspends the 'natural attitude' toward the existence of the external world to focus purely on the structure of conscious experience.

Question 43: Robert Nozick's entitlement theory holds that a distribution is just if it arises from:

Equal shares for all
Maximizing overall welfare
Democratic deliberation
Just acquisition and voluntary transfer (Correct answer)

Correct answer: Just acquisition and voluntary transfer

Nozick argues in Anarchy, State, and Utopia that justice in holdings depends entirely on the historical process by which they were acquired.

Question 44: According to Kant's Formula of Humanity, one must always treat rational beings:

As ends in themselves and never merely as means (Correct answer)
As the greatest happiness principle demands
According to their social utility
In proportion to their moral virtue

Correct answer: As ends in themselves and never merely as means

The Formula of Humanity requires that we never use persons solely as instruments for our ends but always also respect their inherent rational dignity.

Question 45: The problem of induction, highlighted by Hume, questions the rational justification for inferring:

Moral claims from facts
Mathematical truths from logic
General laws from particular observations (Correct answer)
God's existence from design

Correct answer: General laws from particular observations

Hume showed that no logical necessity forces future cases to follow patterns observed in the past, undermining inductive inference.

Question 46: Higher-order theories of consciousness hold that a mental state is conscious when it is accompanied by:

Global availability in a workspace
A first-order sensory state
Phenomenal qualia
A higher-order mental state representing it (Correct answer)

Correct answer: A higher-order mental state representing it

HOT theories, associated with David Rosenthal, argue that consciousness requires a higher-order thought that one is in a given mental state.

Question 47: Moral relativism holds that moral judgments are:

True or false relative to cultural or individual standards (Correct answer)
Universally valid across cultures
Irreducibly emotional expressions
Always derived from natural law

Correct answer: True or false relative to cultural or individual standards

Moral relativism maintains that the truth of moral claims is relative to the norms of a particular culture or individual.

Question 48: The philosophical problem of 'dirty hands' in political ethics refers to:

Moral disagreement within democratic legislatures
Corruption caused by prolonged exposure to power
The problem of identifying corrupt politicians
The situation where doing what is morally right in politics may require committing a moral wrong (Correct answer)

Correct answer: The situation where doing what is morally right in politics may require committing a moral wrong

Dirty hands cases (discussed by Michael Walzer) involve political leaders who must commit genuine moral wrongs (e.g., torture) to achieve morally important ends.

Question 49: Foundationalism in epistemology holds that all knowledge ultimately rests on:

Coherent webs of belief
Pragmatic utility
Social consensus
Basic or foundational beliefs (Correct answer)

Correct answer: Basic or foundational beliefs

Foundationalism posits a structure of basic non-inferred beliefs that support all other justified beliefs.

Question 50: Extended mind theory, proposed by Clark and Chalmers, argues that mental processes can extend beyond the skin and skull into:

The environment and external tools (Correct answer)
The unconscious
The linguistic community
The Platonic realm

Correct answer: The environment and external tools

Clark and Chalmers argue that notebooks, smartphones, or other environmental resources can be part of the cognitive system if they play the right functional role.

Question 51: The 'is-ought gap' (Hume's guillotine) refers to:

The logical gap between descriptive facts and normative conclusions (Correct answer)
The distinction between justice and charity
The problem of other minds in moral reasoning
The impossibility of moral knowledge

Correct answer: The logical gap between descriptive facts and normative conclusions

Hume observed that one cannot validly derive normative 'ought' statements from purely descriptive 'is' statements without additional normative premises.

Question 52: A priori knowledge is best described as knowledge that is:

Independent of sensory experience (Correct answer)
Derived from empirical observation
Culturally transmitted
Based on inductive reasoning

Correct answer: Independent of sensory experience

A priori knowledge, like mathematical truths, can be known through reason alone without relying on experience.

Question 53: Testimony as a source of knowledge is debated between reductionists and anti-reductionists. Anti-reductionists hold that testimony is:

Inferior to perceptual evidence
A basic and irreducible source of justification (Correct answer)
Only justified if corroborated by perception
Always subject to inductive verification

Correct answer: A basic and irreducible source of justification

Anti-reductionists argue we have a default entitlement to accept testimony without positive independent evidence for the speaker's reliability.

Question 54: An infinite regress of causes, in Aquinas's view, is _____.

necessary
possible
impossible (Correct answer)
finite

Correct answer: impossible

Thomas Aquinas, in his Five Ways to prove God's existence, particularly the first three (from motion, efficient cause, and contingency), argues against an infinite regress of causes. He believed that for anything to exist or move, there must be a first, uncaused cause or an unmoved mover to initiate the chain of causality. An infinite regress would mean no ultimate explanation or origin, rendering the entire series unintelligible and impossible.

Question 55: 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 (Correct answer)
Are accepted at the end of inquiry by all
Correspond to mind-independent facts
Cohere with all other accepted beliefs

Correct answer: Work satisfactorily or prove useful in practice

James argued that a true idea is one that 'works' — that leads to successful action and prediction — making truth an instrumental, not metaphysical, property.

Question 56: The distinction between 'knowing how' (procedural knowledge) and 'knowing that' (propositional knowledge) was famously articulated by:

Alvin Goldman
Edmund Gettier
Gilbert Ryle (Correct answer)
W.V.O. Quine

Correct answer: Gilbert Ryle

Gilbert Ryle in 'The Concept of Mind' (1949) drew the distinction between knowing how to do something and knowing that a proposition is true.

Question 57: In applied ethics, the principle of double effect permits harmful side effects of an action when:

The majority benefits from the action
The agent intends only the good effect and harm is merely foreseen, not intended (Correct answer)
The agent lacks the power to prevent the harm
The harm is greater than the intended good

Correct answer: The agent intends only the good effect and harm is merely foreseen, not intended

The doctrine of double effect allows an action with bad side effects if the bad effect is foreseen but not intended and the good effect is proportionate.

Question 58: Which scenario best illustrates the philosophical concept of 'moral luck'?

A philosopher revises a thesis after peer review
Two equally reckless drivers, one of whom happens to hit a pedestrian who steps out suddenly (Correct answer)
A student picks an exam answer arbitrarily and gets it right
A researcher chooses a topic based on funding availability

Correct answer: Two equally reckless drivers, one of whom happens to hit a pedestrian who steps out suddenly

Moral luck, as discussed by Nagel and Williams, occurs when factors beyond an agent's control influence the moral judgment we make of them.

Question 59: In virtue ethics, eudaimonia is best translated as:

Moral perfection
Pleasure
Flourishing or well-being (Correct answer)
Duty fulfillment

Correct answer: Flourishing or well-being

Eudaimonia, central to Aristotle's ethics, refers to human flourishing or living well rather than mere pleasure.

Question 60: The divine command theory has been criticized for suggesting that God's orders are ___.

well supported
arbitrary (Correct answer)
unknowable
unclear

Correct answer: arbitrary

A major criticism of the Divine Command Theory, which states that an action is morally right if and only if God commands it, is that it makes morality seem arbitrary. If God's commands are the sole basis for morality, then God could, in principle, command anything (e.g., cruelty) and it would become morally right. This implies that morality is not based on inherent goodness or reason, but simply on divine will, which many find problematic and lacking a rational foundation.

Question 61: The 'pessimistic meta-induction' is an argument against scientific realism that reasons:

Inductive reasoning cannot ground any belief in the reliability of science
Past scientific theories were successful yet later proven false, so current theories are probably also false (Correct answer)
Most scientific hypotheses are never tested rigorously enough to be trusted
Scientists are motivated by career incentives and therefore unreliable reporters of findings

Correct answer: Past scientific theories were successful yet later proven false, so current theories are probably also false

The pessimistic meta-induction, associated with Larry Laudan, argues that because many past successful theories (phlogiston, caloric) were replaced, we should expect current theories are also false.

Question 62: Cosmopolitanism in political philosophy holds that the primary unit of moral concern is the:

Individual human being, regardless of national origin (Correct answer)
Cultural community
Family unit
Nation-state

Correct answer: Individual human being, regardless of national origin

Cosmopolitans like Peter Singer and Thomas Pogge argue that national borders have no fundamental moral significance and obligations extend to all of humanity.

Question 63: The principle of rectificatory justice, distinct from distributive justice, concerns:

Establishing fair procedures
Maximizing aggregate welfare
Distributing goods according to merit
Correcting past wrongs and unjust holdings (Correct answer)

Correct answer: Correcting past wrongs and unjust holdings

Rectificatory (or corrective) justice focuses on remedying injustices in how holdings were acquired, including historical wrongs like theft or enslavement.

Question 64: G.E. Moore's 'open question argument' was designed to refute:

Divine command theory
Social contract theory
Moral skepticism
Ethical naturalism (Correct answer)

Correct answer: Ethical naturalism

Moore argued that for any natural property F, it remains an open question whether 'what is F is good,' showing goodness cannot be identified with any natural property.

Question 65: Mereology is the study of the relationship between:

Causes and effects
Parts and wholes (Correct answer)
Mind and body
Space and time

Correct answer: Parts and wholes

Mereology examines questions like when parts compose a whole, whether wholes are distinct from their parts, and what determines an object's boundaries.

Question 66: Modal realism, defended by David Lewis, holds that all possible worlds are:

Abstract sets of propositions
Genuinely existing concrete realities (Correct answer)
Useful fictions for logical analysis
Mental constructs

Correct answer: Genuinely existing concrete realities

Lewis argued that each possible world is a concrete spatiotemporal reality just as real as the actual world, differing only in being spatiotemporally isolated from ours.

Question 67: Which metaethical position holds that moral statements express attitudes rather than describe facts?

Moral realism
Natural law theory
Emotivism (Correct answer)
Intuitionism

Correct answer: Emotivism

Emotivism, associated with A.J. Ayer and C.L. Stevenson, treats moral utterances as expressions of emotional attitudes, not truth-apt propositions.

Question 68: Philippa Foot's naturalistic virtue ethics grounds moral norms in:

Social consensus and convention
The natural teleology and life-form of a species (Correct answer)
God's commands revealed through scripture
The hypothetical contract of rational agents

Correct answer: The natural teleology and life-form of a species

Foot argued in Natural Goodness that moral virtues are grounded in what constitutes a good specimen of a human being, analogously to natural goodness in plants and animals.

Question 69: Substance ontology, dominant in the Aristotelian tradition, holds that the fundamental entities of reality are:

Relations between things
Properties or qualities themselves
Events and processes
Individual substances that bear properties (Correct answer)

Correct answer: Individual substances that bear properties

For Aristotle, substances — individual cats, stones, people — are the primary beings, while properties like 'white' or 'running' exist only as attributes of substances.

Question 70: Edmund Gettier's 1963 paper challenged the JTB account of knowledge by providing cases where justified true belief is:

Insufficient for knowledge (Correct answer)
Unnecessary for knowledge
A form of skepticism
Equivalent to wisdom

Correct answer: Insufficient for knowledge

Gettier cases show that a person can have a justified true belief yet still lack knowledge due to epistemic luck.

Question 71: Paul Tillich's concept of God as 'Being-Itself' rather than 'a being' is intended to:

Reduce theology to philosophical ontology
Affirm pantheism as the correct theological view
Deny the existence of a personal deity
Avoid treating God as one object among others subject to ordinary predication (Correct answer)

Correct answer: Avoid treating God as one object among others subject to ordinary predication

Tillich argued that calling God 'a being' subjects God to the structure of being-and-non-being; as Being-Itself, God is the ground of being that transcends theistic and atheistic categories.

Question 72: Immanuel Kant's critique of the ontological argument rests on his claim that:

The concept of a necessary being is self-contradictory
Existence is a real predicate that adds to our concept of a thing
Existence is not a determining predicate and 'exists' adds nothing to a concept (Correct answer)
We cannot form a coherent concept of an infinitely perfect being

Correct answer: Existence is not a determining predicate and 'exists' adds nothing to a concept

Kant argued that existence is not a 'real predicate' that augments a concept, so saying God 'exists' adds no content to the concept of God, undermining the ontological argument's claim that existence belongs to God's essence.

Question 73: What does it mean for a moral theory to be 'agent-neutral'?

It treats all cultures as morally equivalent
The reasons it generates are the same for every agent regardless of their personal relationships (Correct answer)
It applies only to impartial spectators, not ordinary agents
It prioritizes the agent's own welfare above all others

Correct answer: The reasons it generates are the same for every agent regardless of their personal relationships

Agent-neutral theories give every agent the same reason structure (e.g., 'reduce suffering wherever it occurs'), unlike agent-relative theories that give different reasons to different agents.

Question 74: Alvin Plantinga's 'free will defense' is primarily deployed against which formulation of the problem of evil?

The eschatological problem of evil
The moral problem of evil
The evidential problem of evil
The logical problem of evil (Correct answer)

Correct answer: The logical problem of evil

Plantinga's free will defense aims to show that God and evil are not logically incompatible by appealing to libertarian free will, directly addressing J.L. Mackie's logical version of the problem.

Question 75: Moral particularism (Jonathan Dancy) holds that:

Moral reasons are context-dependent and a feature that is reason-giving in one case may not be in another (Correct answer)
Moral knowledge is only possible through intuition
General moral principles are the foundation of all correct moral judgments
Only particular consequences, not rules, determine moral value

Correct answer: Moral reasons are context-dependent and a feature that is reason-giving in one case may not be in another

Dancy's particularism denies that there are universal moral principles; instead, the moral relevance of any feature varies across situations.

Question 76: Supervenience, a key concept in metaphysics, states that properties of type A supervene on properties of type B when:

No two things can differ in A-properties without differing in B-properties (Correct answer)
A-properties are reducible to B-properties
All A-properties are identical to B-properties
A-properties cause B-properties

Correct answer: No two things can differ in A-properties without differing in B-properties

Supervenience is a dependency relation weaker than reduction: mental properties supervene on physical properties if there can be no mental difference without a physical difference.

Question 77: The 'felix culpa' theodicy, associated with Augustine and later Leibniz, argues that:

God permitted evil to demonstrate His power over chaos
Natural evil and moral evil serve entirely different theological functions
Evil is necessary for the development of moral virtue in creatures
The Fall was fortunate because it occasioned the greater good of Incarnation and redemption (Correct answer)

Correct answer: The Fall was fortunate because it occasioned the greater good of Incarnation and redemption

Felix culpa ('happy fault') argues that Adam's sin was providentially permitted because it led to the greater good of Christ's Incarnation and the redemption of humanity.

Question 78: The 'separateness of persons' objection to utilitarianism, associated with Rawls and Nozick, argues that utilitarianism:

Wrongly treats all pleasures as commensurable
Fails to account for future generations
Illegitimately aggregates welfare across individuals, ignoring their distinctness (Correct answer)
Cannot explain why justice matters more than happiness

Correct answer: Illegitimately aggregates welfare across individuals, ignoring their distinctness

Critics argue that by summing welfare across persons, utilitarianism treats society as a single individual and ignores that sacrifices imposed on one person cannot be compensated by gains to another.

Question 79: Tarski's semantic theory of truth defines a sentence as true when:

It coheres with other accepted sentences
It corresponds to the facts described — e.g., 'Snow is white' is true iff snow is white (Correct answer)
It is accepted by a community of users
It is verifiable by empirical observation

Correct answer: It corresponds to the facts described — e.g., 'Snow is white' is true iff snow is white

Tarski's T-schema provides a deflationary correspondence account: a sentence S is true iff the state of affairs it describes obtains.

Question 80: Ontology is the branch of metaphysics that investigates the nature and categories of:

Knowledge and justification
Moral value
Logical inference
Being and existence (Correct answer)

Correct answer: Being and existence

Ontology asks fundamental questions about what exists, what kinds of things there are, and what it means for something to exist.

Question 81: Which scenario best illustrates the philosophical concept of 'bad faith' (mauvaise foi) as used by Sartre?

A person tells themselves they had no choice but to obey orders, denying their freedom (Correct answer)
A researcher discovers her hypothesis was wrong and revises it
A philosopher changes her position after encountering a strong counterargument
A student accurately assesses her academic strengths and limitations

Correct answer: A person tells themselves they had no choice but to obey orders, denying their freedom

Bad faith is Sartre's term for self-deception that denies one's radical freedom by pretending one's choices are determined by role, nature, or circumstance.

Question 82: Which term refers to the view that scientific theories are merely useful instruments for prediction, not descriptions of unobservable reality?

Scientific realism
Coherentism
Instrumentalism (Correct answer)
Naturalized epistemology

Correct answer: Instrumentalism

Instrumentalism holds that scientific theories need not be literally true about unobservable entities as long as they produce accurate predictions.

Question 83: What is the classical tripartite definition of knowledge according to Plato's Theaetetus?

True rational belief
Justified true belief (Correct answer)
Logical necessary truth
Empirical verified fact

Correct answer: Justified true belief

The classical definition holds that knowledge is justified true belief, though Gettier cases later challenged its sufficiency.

Question 84: The principle of 'Occam's Razor' (parsimony) in scientific methodology advises that:

Theories should include as many variables as possible to maximize explanatory power
Scientific theories must be derived from the fewest possible axioms
Experiments should be designed to minimize the number of variables tested
Among competing theories with equal explanatory power, the simpler one is preferable (Correct answer)

Correct answer: Among competing theories with equal explanatory power, the simpler one is preferable

Occam's Razor holds that, all else being equal, the hypothesis that introduces the fewest unnecessary entities or assumptions is to be preferred.

Question 85: Which position holds that moral properties are identical to or reducible to natural properties discoverable by science?

Moral intuitionism
Moral constructivism
Ethical naturalism (Correct answer)
Non-cognitivism

Correct answer: Ethical naturalism

Ethical naturalism claims that moral facts are a subset of natural facts and can in principle be studied by empirical methods.

Question 86: The concept of 'theory-ladenness of observation,' associated with Norwood Russell Hanson, claims that:

Observations become valid only after they are reviewed by the scientific community
What scientists observe is shaped and interpreted through the lens of prior theoretical commitments (Correct answer)
All empirical observations are ultimately theory-independent and purely objective
Scientific theories can only be tested through direct observation, never through inference

Correct answer: What scientists observe is shaped and interpreted through the lens of prior theoretical commitments

Hanson argued that observation in science is not neutral data-collection but is colored by the theoretical background and concepts the observer brings, so two scientists with different theories may 'see' different things.

Question 87: Physicalism (or materialism) in metaphysics holds that everything that exists is:

Mental or dependent on mind
Physical or dependent on the physical (Correct answer)
Abstract and non-spatiotemporal
Neutral between mind and matter

Correct answer: Physical or dependent on the physical

Physicalism is the view that all facts, including mental facts, are ultimately physical facts or fully determined by physical facts.

Question 88: The 'no-miracles argument' for scientific realism holds that:

The predictive success of science would be miraculous unless scientific theories are approximately true (Correct answer)
Scientific consensus must be accepted on faith, analogous to religious belief
Statistical anomalies in data should be treated as potential violations of natural law
Religious miracles can be scientifically explained by quantum indeterminacy

Correct answer: The predictive success of science would be miraculous unless scientific theories are approximately true

Hilary Putnam's no-miracles argument asserts that the extraordinary success of scientific theories in prediction and explanation would be an inexplicable miracle if those theories did not approximately describe reality.

Question 89: The ship of Theseus paradox raises questions about which of the following metaphysical topics?

The nature of causation
The existence of abstract objects
Identity conditions for persisting objects (Correct answer)
Free will and determinism

Correct answer: Identity conditions for persisting objects

The paradox asks whether an object replaced plank by plank remains the same object, challenging our criteria for identity through change.

Question 90: Moral luck refers to the phenomenon where:

Chance determines the existence of moral facts
Moral rules apply differently to the wealthy and poor
Moral judgments are influenced by factors beyond an agent's control (Correct answer)
Lucky individuals are always more virtuous

Correct answer: Moral judgments are influenced by factors beyond an agent's control

Thomas Nagel and Bernard Williams identified moral luck as the troubling way in which factors outside our control affect how we are morally judged.

Question 91: Which philosopher argued that moral worth depends solely on acting from duty (Pflicht) rather than inclination?

Aristotle
John Stuart Mill
Immanuel Kant (Correct answer)
David Hume

Correct answer: Immanuel Kant

Kant held that an action has moral worth only when performed from duty, not from inclination or self-interest.

Question 92: Process philosophy, associated with Alfred North Whitehead, holds that the basic constituents of reality are:

Mental monads
Physical particles
Eternal unchanging substances
Events and processes rather than static substances (Correct answer)

Correct answer: Events and processes rather than static substances

Whitehead's process philosophy treats dynamic events, experiences, and relations as fundamental, replacing the traditional substance ontology with a philosophy of becoming.

Question 93: Alvin Goldman's reliabilist epistemology defines justified belief as one produced by:

Logical deduction alone
Self-evident intuition
Cultural agreement
A reliable cognitive process (Correct answer)

Correct answer: A reliable cognitive process

Reliabilism holds that a belief is justified if it is produced by a cognitive process that reliably yields true beliefs.

Question 94: A philosopher argues that language does not simply describe reality but actively shapes and constitutes our experience of it. This position is most consistent with:

Linguistic idealism or the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis in philosophy of language (Correct answer)
Logical atomism
Naive realism
Eliminative materialism

Correct answer: Linguistic idealism or the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis in philosophy of language

The view that linguistic structure shapes thought and experience—ranging from Wittgenstein's later work to strong versions of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis—challenges the picture theory of language.

Question 95: Paul Feyerabend's 'epistemological anarchism' is best summarized by which claim?

Science must follow strict inductive methods to be trustworthy
Science is the only legitimate form of knowledge in modern society
There is no single scientific method, and 'anything goes' in scientific practice (Correct answer)
Scientific theories must be tested exclusively through quantitative experiments

Correct answer: There is no single scientific method, and 'anything goes' in scientific practice

Feyerabend argued in Against Method that no single methodological rule has never been violated by successful science, so 'anything goes' best describes actual scientific practice.

Question 96: Making a false promise, in Kant's view, would be wrong because _______

you could not consistently will that everyone should make lying promises (Correct answer)
lying to people harms society
most people condemn the practice
lying to people can cause them harm

Correct answer: you could not consistently will that everyone should make lying promises

Kant's ethical philosophy, particularly the Categorical Imperative, dictates that an action is moral only if it can be universalized without contradiction. If everyone were to make lying promises, the very concept of a promise would lose its meaning and trust, making it impossible to consistently will such a practice as a universal law. Therefore, making a false promise is wrong because it fails this test of universalizability.

Question 97: John Rawls' 'veil of ignorance' is a device used in his theory to ensure that principles of justice are chosen:

By elected representatives
Based on utilitarian calculations
Through divine command
Without knowledge of one's place in society (Correct answer)

Correct answer: Without knowledge of one's place in society

Behind the veil of ignorance, rational contractors do not know their class, talents, or conception of the good, motivating fair principles.

Question 98: Quine's criterion of ontological commitment states that we are committed to the existence of all entities that are:

Named by nouns in our language
Perceived by the senses
Logically necessary
Values of bound variables in true statements (Correct answer)

Correct answer: Values of bound variables in true statements

Quine argued that to find what a theory says exists, ask what objects must be quantified over for its sentences to be true.

Question 99: Philosophers who study 'epistemic injustice' are primarily concerned with:

The reliability of sensory perception
Ways in which social identity affects the credibility and capacity granted to knowers (Correct answer)
Determining the correct theory of knowledge
Mathematical proofs of logical systems

Correct answer: Ways in which social identity affects the credibility and capacity granted to knowers

Miranda Fricker's concept of epistemic injustice focuses on harms done to people in their capacity as knowers—testimonial injustice (credibility deficits) and hermeneutical injustice (conceptual gaps).

Question 100: The naturalistic fallacy, identified by G.E. Moore, is the error of defining 'good' in terms of:

Logical necessity
Social consensus
Natural properties such as pleasure or survival (Correct answer)
Supernatural commands

Correct answer: Natural properties such as pleasure or survival

Moore argued that 'good' is a simple, unanalyzable, non-natural property, and any attempt to define it in terms of natural properties commits the naturalistic fallacy.

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Qualifying Examination in Philosophy

The PhD qualifying examination tests doctoral candidates on core areas of academic philosophy including epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and philosophy of mind, requiring mastery of major philosophical traditions and the ability to critically analyze philosophical arguments.

100

Questions

120 min

Time Limit

70%

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