Part IA introduces the fundamental topics of metaphysics and philosophy of mind, ethics and political philosophy, philosophy of language and logic, together with detailed work on prescribed texts. All papers are compulsory.
Candidates are asked to answer three questions out of at least ten set.
- Causation
- Free will
- Induction and Miracles
- Personal Identity
- Mind and Matter: Dualism and Functionalism
Candidates are asked to answer three questions out of at least ten set.
- Metaethics: fact and value; objectivity and subjectivity
- Normative ethics: consequentialism; deontology; virtue ethics
- Moral psychology: egoism and altruism; empathy; cognitive and affective attitudes
- Political obligation and authority: Classical social contract theory; natural duty and fair play theory; anarchism
- Equality of opportunity: varieties of equality of opportunity; justifications and controversy; positive discrimination
Candidates are asked to answer three questions out of at least ten set.
- Conditionals: Grice
- Frege and Russell on names and descriptions
- Necessity, Analyticity, The a priori
- Intention and convention: Grice and Lewis
- Causal theories of names
- Verificationism
The paper will be divided into three sections, one on each of the set authors. Candidates are asked to answer three questions out of at least twelve set, which must be chosen from at least two sections.
Plato, Meno (lectures provided by the Faculty of Classics).
Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy.
J. S. Mill, On Liberty and The Subjection of Women.
Paper 5 is worth 1/9 of the total marks at IA, and each of the remaining four papers 2/9. Paper 5 is in two sections, A and B. Candidates are asked to answer all five questions in section A and two out of four questions in section B. Section A is worth 45 marks and section B is worth 40 marks. Note that students should not expect to have any supervisions on Paper 5. (They should learn by attending the lectures and logic classes, and studying independently.)
- Basic notions: object-/meta-language; use/mention; validity
- Truth-functional logic: syntax; semantics; proofs
- First-order logic: syntax; semantics; proofs
- Theories: the definitions of consistency, soundness, completeness, independence
- Classes and relations
- Elementary probability
