Philosophy MA Comprehensive Examination Requirements

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The MA Comprehensive Examination

  1. The MA Comprehensive Examination is taken at 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 either on the same day or 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 “B-” 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) books from the following menu of options:

Ancient Greek Philosophy (3 works must be chosen, the Republic and Nicomachean Ethics are mandatory)

Required
  • Plato, Republic
  • Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics
Additional Text
  • Aristotle, Physics or On the Soul

Medieval /Latin Philosophy (3 authors must be chosen, one must be Aquinas)

  • Augustine, Confessions, Free Choice of the Will and On Christian Teaching
  • Anselm, Proslogion and On the Fall of the Devil
  • Aquinas: Metaphysics: De ente et essentia and Summa theologiae Ia, qq.1-7, 12-13, 44-46; Person: Summa theologiae Ia, qq. 75-87; Ethics: Summa theologiae Ia-IIae, qq. 1-20 or Summa theologiae Ia-IIae, qq.55-67, 90-100
  • Scotus: Selections
  • Suarez: Metaphysical Disputations (selections)

Early Modern Philosophy (2 texts must be chosen, one from A and one from B)

Group A

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

Group B

  • Hobbes, Leviathan Parts I-III
  • Locke, Second Treatise on Government or Essay Concerning Human Understanding (selections: from
    the Hackett edition, books 1, 2, and 4, omitting book 3)
  • Hume, Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, or Dialogue on Natural Religion

Late Modern Philosophy (2 authors must be chosen, one from A and one from B)

Group A
  • Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit
  • Nietzsche, The Genealogy of Morals
  • Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling
  • Heidegger, Being and Time
  • Husserl, Cartesian Meditations
Group B
  • Frege, “Sense and Reference” and Russell, "The Theory of Descriptions" and “On Denoting” and Kripke, Naming and Necessity and “Identity and Necessity” (Frege and Russell and Kripke are counted as one author.)
  • Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, Part I.
  • Anscombe and Geach, "Modern Moral Philosophy" and God and the Soul (Anscombe and Geach are counted as one author).
  • Quine, "Two Dogmas of Empiricism" and "On What There Is"
  • Rawls, Theory of Justice, Ch. 1

Recent Thomistic Philosophy (2 authors must be chosen)

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