Intellectual History



Intellectual History

Final Exam – Study Sheet

Exam: December 8, 8-10am

Short answer section. The following list of terms is to be used in studying for the short answer section of the final. The final will have 12 short answer questions, of which you are to answer 10 (4 points each).

Role of monasteries Descartes

Rise of universities Hume (inductive vs. deductive)

Relation between church and secular power Importance of printing press

Anselm (ontological argument) writing as profession

Abelard German university reform

St. Bernard of Clairvaux pantheist controversy

Scholastic method Kant

Rediscovery of Aristotle Goethe and Romantics

Aquinas Transcendental Idealism

Dominicans/Franciscans Hegel and dialectic

Duns Scotus University of Berlin

Essence/existence (Aquinas) Marx (communism)

Haecceitas (thus-ness) Nietzsche (will to power)

Nominalism/realism Husserl and Frege

Lorenzo Valla Analytic vs. Continental phil.

Montaigne Existentialism (Heidegger, Camus, Sartre)

Scientific revolution (math & technology) Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze

Rapid-discovery science Discipline and Power

Role of intellectual today

Essay Question. Two of the following three will be on the final. You are to write on one of the two (60 points).

1. Aquinas is considered by most to represent the high-water mark of medieval philosophy. From the arguments we have discussed in Collins’ book, what are the crucial factors that led Aquinas to such a dominant position? Be sure to discuss the role of universities, the Franciscan and Dominican orders, and the scholastic method, among other things. What factors then changed that both led to the decline of traditional medieval thought and then to the eventual rise of science? Elaborate.

2. Our current university system is in large part a continuation of the German university system. What was the university system like before the German university reforms of the late 18th century, and what reforms were implemented? What intellectual debates and concerns (be sure to name and cite the intellectuals involved too) were significant at the time, and why did philosophy and philosophers play such an important role in the reform movement (in particular German Idealism). Marx and Nietzsche both emerged from this intellectual environment. Briefly explain their philosophies and relate them to the philosophies of those involved in the university reform movement.

3. Twentieth-century philosophy can be roughly divided into two camps, the Anglo-American camp of analytic philosophy and the Continental camp of Existentialists, Deconstructionists, and others. Which philosophers were integral to the emergence of these two approaches, and what are these two approaches. Be sure to discuss at least two different philosophers, and at least one from each camp, when clarifying the differences between the two philosophical schools of thought.

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