Philosophy MA Comprehensive Examination Requirements

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The MA Comprehensive Examination

  1. The MA Comprehensive Examination is taken near the end of the semester in which the student takes the Comprehensive Examination Course. Students must obtain written permission from the Director of the Center in order to schedule the MA Comprehensive Examination in a semester other than the fourth semester of MA study.
  2. The candidate takes the two parts of the six-hour written examination on two consecutive days. The first part of the examination will cover ancient and medieval; the second part will cover early modern, late modern, and recent Thomistic material. Students must take the oral examination within one week of the written examination.
  3. The MA Comprehensive Examination is organized by the faculty member designated as the Faculty Coordinator. The Faculty Coordinator is responsible for the MA Comprehensive Course for that academic year. The Faculty Coordinator will solicit written questions from all Center faculty and at least two Center faculty members must grade each question. In consultation with the Director of the Center, the Faculty Coordinator will average the grades on the written test. Students must pass the written test with a minimum grade of 80 in order to proceed to the oral examination. If a student fails the written examination, she/he must retake the exam within six months.
  4. The oral component of the examination lasts one hour and is set by three faculty examiners chosen by the Faculty Coordinator in consultation with the Director of the Center. The three examiners determine the grade for the oral examination. If the candidate passes the oral with a minimum grade of “B-”, the three examiners compare the written and oral grades and then by vote determine an overall grade for the MA Comprehensive Examination. This grade is entered as the grade for the MA Comprehensive Course. If a student fails the oral examination, he must retake it within six months.

Book List for the MA Comprehensive Examination

For this examination the student must choose twelve (12) readings from the following menu of options:

Ancient Greek Philosophy (3 works must be chosen)

1 text from Plato

  • Plato Republic (required)

2 texts from Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics is required)

  • Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics (required)
1 from the following
  • Aristotle Physics
  • Aristotle On the Soul

Medieval/Latin Philosophy (Choose 3 authors; Aquinas is mandatory)

Augustine

  • Augustine Confessions (Books I-VI, X-XI, XIV, XIX, XXII)
  • Augustine Free Choice of the Will and On Christian Teaching

Anselm

  • Proslogion and On the fall of the Devil

1 text from Aquinas

  • Aquinas De ente et essentia and Summa theologiae Ia, qq. 1-13, 44-46
  • Aquinas Summa theologiae Ia, qq. 75-87
  • Aquinas Summa theologiae Ia-IIae, qq. 1-20
  • Aquinas Summa theologiae Ia-IIae, qq. 56-67, 90-100

Scotus

  • Selections
    • On common nature and individuals. Ord. 2, d. 3, p. 1, qq. 5-6, translated Paul Vincent Spade, 93-113. q.5: “Is a material substance a ‘this’ and individual through matter.’ q. 6: “Is a material substance individual through some entity that by itself determines the nature to singularity.” Q. 6 is embedded in q. 5. (Five Texts on the Medieval Problem of Universals, trans. and ed. Paul Vincent Spade).
    • Reportatio IA, d. 2 (Parisian Proof for the Existence of God, Selections) Trans. Allan Wolter and Marilyn Adams, in Duns Scotus, Metaphysician, ed. William A. Frank and Allan Wolter, pp. 40-73 (fewer pages because of facing translation)
    • On the will as a rational potency. Quaestiones in Metaphysicam IX, q. 15, trans. Allan Wolter in Duns Scotus on the WIll and Morality, 1st ed., 145-173 (really 14 pages because of facing translation).
    • On happiness and the will. Ord. 4, q. 49, qq. 9-10, trans. Allan Wolter, 183-197 (really around 7 pages).

Suarez

  • Metaphysical Disputations (Selections: DM 31. On the Essence of Finite Being as Such, On the Existence of That Essence and Their Distinction. Trans. Norman J. Wells.)

Early Modern Philosophy (Choose 2 authors, one from Group A and one from Group B)

Group A (choose one of the following)

  • Descartes Meditations
  • Leibniz Monadology and Discourse on Metaphysics
  • Kant Prolegomenon to Any Future Metaphysics
  • Kant Grounding of the Metaphysics of Morals

Group B (choose one of the following)

  • Hobbes Leviathan, Parts I-III
  • Locke Second Treatise on Government
  • Locke Essay Concerning Human Understanding (Selections: Book I, ch. 1-4; Book II, ch. 1-2, 8-13, 21-27; Book IV, ch. 1-7, 15-19)
  • Hume Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
  • Hume Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals
  • Hume Dialogue on Natural Religion

Late Modern Philosophy (Choose 2 authors/group(s) of authors, one from A and one from B)

Group A (choose one of the following)

  • Hegel Phenomenology of Spirit, Selections
    • Preface 1-45
    • Self-consciousness 104-139
    • Reason (Page numbers based on the Miller translation for Oxford):
      • (BB) Spirit: VI. Spirit : C. Spirit that is certain of itself. Morality 364-410
      • (CC) Religion 453-479
      • (DD) Absolute Knowing 479-495
  • Nietzsche The Genealogy of Morals
  • Kierkegaard Fear and Trembling
  • Heidegger Being and Time
  • Husserl Cartesian Meditations

Group B (choose one of the following)

  • Frege “Sense and Reference,” Russell “The Theory of Descriptions,” Russell "On Denoting," Kripke Naming and Necessity, and Kripke “Identity and Necessity”
  • Wittgenstein Philosophical Investigations, Part I
  • Anscombe “Modern Moral Philosophy,” and Geach God and the Soul
  • Quine “Two Dogmas of Empiricism” and Quine “On What There Is”
  • Rawls Theory of Justice, Ch. 1

Recent Thomistic Philosophy (Choose 2 authors/group(s) of authors)

Choose 2 of the following, but not 2 of the same author

  • Maritain The Degrees of Knowledge
  • Maritain Existence and the Existent and Preface to Metaphysics
  • Maritain Integral Humanism
  • Gilson The Unity of Philosophical Experience
  • Gilson Being and Some Philosophers
  • Finnis Moral, Political, and Legal Theory
  • MacIntyre After Virtue
  • MacIntyre Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry
  • De Koninck “On the Primacy of the Common Good,” and De Koninck “In Defense of St. Thomas,” and Eschmann “In Defense of Jacques Maritain”
  • Wallace Modeling of Nature (selections: Part I, all, except 2.10, 4.10; Part II: 6.1-6.8; 7.1-7.5; 8.1-8.6)

See Approved CTS Comps List for PDF chart. 

See Addendum