Candidates must take four Part II papers from among Papers 1–10 and the papers borrowed from other Triposes. All candidates must offer either Paper 11 (General Paper) or a Dissertation in lieu of Paper 11.
Part II may be taken in one year after Part IB of the Philosophy Tripos or in two years or one after any other Honours Examination except Part IA of the Philosophy Tripos. For candidates who have not done Part IB Philosophy, please see section ‘Change to Philosophy after studying another subject’.
Dissertation
Candidates for Part II have the option of offering a dissertation in place of Paper 11 on a topic of philosophical interest proposed by them and approved by the Chair of Examiners. A dissertation must be of not more than 8,000 words and (except with the permission of the Chair of Examiners) not less than 6,000 words in length, including footnotes and appendices but excluding bibliography.
Essays
In place of any one of Papers 1–10, and the papers borrowed from the Classical Tripos, candidates may submit two essays, each of not less than 3,000 words and not more than 4,000 words in length, including footnotes and appendices but excluding bibliography, on two topics proposed by them and approved by the Chair of Examiners, which shall both fall within the syllabus of that paper, provided that
Candidates are asked to answer three questions out of at least ten set.
- Realism and its alternatives; conceptual schemes; transcendental arguments
- Objects and properties: the contrast of particular and universal, and of abstract and concrete, realism about universals and alternatives
- Causation: theories of causation; realism about causation; direction of causation
- Time: dynamic versus block conceptions; the direction of time; the existence and persistence of entities in time
- Self: theories of the self; no-self in Western and non-Western philosophy
Candidates are asked to answer three questions out of at least ten set.
- Epistemology of mind: knowledge of one’s own mind; knowledge of other minds
- Consciousness: varieties of consciousness; intentional theories of consciousness; the explanatory gap; the unity of consciousness
- Intentionality and mental representation: theories of content; externalism and internalism; perception and belief
- Mental faculties: intention and the will; imagination; desire
Candidates are asked to answer three questions out of at least ten set.
- Expanding the Moral Circle: animal ethics; environmental ethics and climate justice; future generations
- Metaethics: metaphysical foundations of ethics; moral epistemology
- Kant’s ethics and Kantian ethics: duty and motive; morality and freedom; conditioned and unconditioned value; the categorical imperative; autonomy
- Topics in moral psychology: trust, ethics of knowing, responsibility
Candidates are asked to answer three questions out of at least ten set.
- 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; Introduction to the Philosophy of Right, paragraphs 1-40, 104-114, 141-157 and 257-259
- Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morality, The Birth of Tragedy, Beyond Good and Evil.
This paper covers philosophy in the period from c. 400 to c. 1700, in the Latin, Arabic and Hebrew traditions. All texts are studied in translation. For 2023 - 2024, the two set themes will be (a) Scepticisms and (b) Happiness and Love. The examination will consist of fifteen questions on the set texts below. Of these, two will be commentary questions, one on an extract from each of the two asterisked texts under Theme 1, the other one on extract from each of the two asterisked texts under Theme 2. Candidates must answer three questions, including one or both of the commentary questions. They may answer essay questions using texts on which they have commented in a commentary question, so long as any substantial repetition of material is avoided.
Theme 1: Scepticisms
Set Texts:
*Al-Ghazali, The Incoherence of the Philosophers, 17th Discussion; Deliverance from Error, 1-17
William Crathorn, Questions on the Sentences, bk. I, q. 1, in The Cambridge Translations of Medieval Philosophical Texts, ed. Pasnau, vol. 3, CUP, pp. 245-301.
*Nicholas of Autrecourt, Letters to Bernard of Arezzo, in Medieval Philosophy: Essential Readings with Commentary, ed. Klima, Blackwell, pp. 134-142, *supplemented with an extract from Exigit ordo (Universal Treatise), trans. Kennedy, Marquette University Press pp. 114-120.
John Buridan, Questions on the Metaphysics, bk. II, q. 1, in Medieval Philosophy: Essential Readings with Commentary, ed. Klima, Blackwell, pp. 143-150, supplemented with an extract from Buridan, Questions on the Posterior Analytics, bk. II, q. 2, trans. K. Majcherek.
Christine de Pizan, Le livre de l’advision Cristine
Francisco Sanches That nothing is known, ed. Elaine Limbrick and Douglas Thomson, Cambridge University Press 1988.
Theme 2: Happiness and Love
Set Texts:
Boethius: Consolation of Philosophy, Books 1-4 (many translations)
Ibn Tufayl: Hayy ibn Yaqzân, trsl. Lenn Goodman, new edn: London , University of Chicago Press, 2009
Maimonides: - Introduction to Mishnah. Tractate Sanhedrin, chapter 10 (Perek Helek),
Trsl in Israel Abrahams, ‘Maimonides on the Jewish Creed’, Jewish Quarterly Review 19 (1906), 24- 58, available at https://www.proquest.com/docview/2480532/fulltextPDF/25EF67DEF62641CBPQ/1?accountid=9851
Eight Chapters in Ethical Writings of Maimonides, ed. Raymond Weiss and Charles Butterworth, New York, Dover, 1975, 27-104
*Henry of Ghent: Quodlibet 12, q. 13 (‘Is it rational for someone without hope of a future life to choose to die for the commonwealth?’) = CT no. 5
Marguerite Porete The Mirror of Simple Souls, trans. E.L. Babinsky (transl.), Paulist Press.
*Spinoza: Ethics, Book 5 (many translations)
CT = The Cambridge Translations of Medieval Philosophical Texts Vol. II: Ethics and Political Philosophy, ed. A. S. McGrade, John Kilcullen and Matthew Kempshall, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2001.
Candidates are asked to answer three questions out of at least fifteen set.
Topics for 2023-24:
- Philosophy of Physics I: the metaphysics of space and space-time: absolute and relational theories of space and space-time; geometry and conventionalism.
- Philosophy of Physics II: the interpretation of quantum mechanics; non-locality.
- Philosophy of Biology: biological kinds, the nature of species; biological laws; functional and causal explanation in biology.
- Philosophy of Economics and Social Science: social science versus natural science; rational choice theory and social science; social ontology.
- Philosophy of cognitive science: folk psychology; non-human minds; situated cognition; philosophy of psychiatry.
Candidates are asked to answer three questions out of at least ten set.
- First and second order logic: completeness, compactness, conservativeness, expressive power, and Löwenheim-Skolem theorems, cut-elimination.
- First and second order theories: categoricity, non-standard models of arithmetic.
- Set theory: embedding mathematics in set theory, the cumulative iterative hierarchy, elements of cardinal and ordinal arithmetic, the axiom of choice.
- Recursive functions and computability: decidability, axiomatizability, Church's thesis, Gödel's incompleteness theorems, Hilbert's programme.
Candidates are asked to answer three questions out of at least ten set.
- Radical interpretation: Quine on radical translation; Davidson and Lewis on radical interpretation.
- Theories of meaning: the aims and structure of a theory of meaning; modest vs full-blooded theories.
- Indexicals and context-dependence.
- The language and logic of plurals.
- Conditionals: indicative; subjunctive.
- Interpretations of probability: subjective; frequentist; chance; logical.
- The nature of logic: analytic versus empirical; conventionalism.
- Intuitionism: intuitionistic logic; traditional and contemporary arguments for intuitionism in mathematics; indefinitely extensible concepts.
- The nature of mathematics: formalism; if-thenism; platonism; neo-Fregean logicism; structuralism and fictionalism.
Candidates are asked to answer three questions out of at least ten set.
Wittgenstein, Blue Book,Philosophical Investigations
Anscombe, Intention
Austin, Sense and Sensibilia, How to Do Things with Words
The paper may also include comparative questions on the following themes: solipsism, action, mental states, and perception.
Candidates are asked to answer three questions out of at least ten set.
- Global political issues: migration; international distributive justice; colonialism, historic injustice, and reparations; nationalism and cosmopolitanism
- Topics in feminism: pornography; sexual violence; sex work; misogyny
- Embodiment and identity: sex and gender; race and racism; disability and impairment; religion and culture; beauty and appearance
Radical political theory: Marxism; power; ideal theory and its critics; resisting injustice
Candidates are asked to write a philosophical essay on one of at least twenty questions set.
As well as the papers listed for Part II above, Part II students may also take a maximum of two papers from the following:
Classical Tripos:
- B1 Plato
- B2 Aristotle on Soul and Body
- B3 Greek and Roman philosophers on Beauty
