Multiple Choice:
The multiple choice questions will cover the material from the lecture
notes on my blog and the readings, below are listed the concepts and
points with which you should be familiar.
Existentialism: Heidegger &
setting sail, thrownness, Dasein, closed vs uncanny, revealing as
concealing, horizon & death, dwelling vs fleeing, authenticity,
metaphysics vs hermeneutics, focus & articulation, tools &
social roles as extension of self, the unthought, issues & time,
symbiosis of self & world, distancing, the They, moods, fear &
anxiety, support of Nazis, Sartre & Camus, cafe waiter, racism, bad faith, de Beauvoir & woman as Other, Existential Feminism, Fanon & Postcolonialism
Logical Positivism: Comte &
verified science vs opinion & nonsense, unified coherent science,
three stages of history, Sociology & mathematics, Russell &
axioms vs grounded mathematics, mathematicians vs philosophers, problem
of induction, whittling down to universal principles, Wittgenstein &
early logic vs the Vienna Circle, search for rhino, world as facts,
oven & carbon, lure of the secret cellar, explanation vs
description, subjective & objective together, language games &
forms of life, rules variously interpreted, child at the blackboard,
descriptions add complexity, Vienna Circle pamphlet, Ayer & weak verificationism, Common Language Movement & turn to common sense, Moore & the lights of Wheeler Hall
Unitarianism & Pragmatism: Mill &
progressive rights, utilitarianism, long & social view, no hard
sciences, no first principles, bad as good example, Pragmatism &
late Wittgenstein, Peirce & belief as willing to act, fallibilism, three categories, James & no objective truth, functionalism, stream of consciousness, Dewey &
progressive diverse education, truth vs inquiry, affecting & being
affected, philosopher’s fallacy, three stages of history, Rorty &
Neopragmatism, problem with the mirror metaphor, society as open
conversation, taking metaphors too literally, similarity of early
Heidegger & late Wittgenstein, West & master mappers, demythologizing theory, disconnected academia & activism
Philosophy of Science: Kuhn & paradigm shift, normal vs revolutionary science, textbooks normalize science, Popper & falsifiability, open society vs metaphysics, joke vs poker, Feyerabend &
epistemological anarchism, democratization of science, localized
practices, no unified pragmatic method, detailed human thought,
“prescientific” as foot-binding, contradicting accepted theory, taboo
reactions, separation of science and state, Latour &
Antimodernism, outlying data & orthodox theory, Moderns, myth &
idol of icy reason, Portuguese & African fetishes, Helvetius & equal mental capacity
Structuralism & Poststructuralism: Marx & social class, Freud & satisfaction vs repression, Saussure & signs, arbitrariness vs motivated onomatopoeia & portmanteau, Levi-Strauss
& three loves, the practical & symbolic, relationships of
relationships, exchange, totemism, mythemes, myth as expression of
contradiction, debate with Sartre, Lacan & self-image, narcissism, paranoia, the Real, Barthes &
the death of the author, criticism of the ‘natural’, wrestling,
Operation Margarine, Paris Match cover, depoliticized speech, Foucault &
distrusting binary oppositions & institutions, knowledge as power,
the Panopticon, capillary level & marginalization
Postmodernism: Lyotard vs thought as language, metanarrative vs micronarratives, obsession with precision, cure vs symptom, Deleuze & identity as difference, repetition, concepts vs systems, ideals as useful, Marx & Freud as lenses, Baudrillard & consumption, nihilism, the Hyperreal, simulacra, ecstatic acceptance, Haraway & cyborgs, hybridity, Derrida & freeplay, incoherent center, recentering, ethnocentrism, scandal of incest, displacement, debate with Searle
Short Answers:
Pick four topics from the list below. For each of your choices, write a
half page in each of the spaces provided. You should demonstrate that
you 1) understand the meaning of the concept, 2) that you can connect it
to other material from the class, and 3) that you can apply it to
examples. If you demonstrate each of these three things and complete
the required page length, you will get full points for your answer.
Heidegger’s Horizon Heidegger’s Authenticity Heidegger’s Unthought
Heidegger’s Symbiosis Sartre’s Bad Faith de Beauvoir’s Existential Feminism
Fanon’s Postcolonialism Comte’s Sociology Wittgenstein’s Oven
Wittgenstein’s Blackboard Mill’s Utilitarianism Peirce’s Pragmatism
James’ Functionalism Dewey’s Philosopher’s Fallacy Rorty’s Open Conversation
West’s Demythologizing Theory Kuhn’s Paradigm Shift Popper’s Falsifiability
Feyerabend’s Anything Goes Saussure’s Arbitrariness Levi-Strauss’ Symbolic
Lacan’s Self-Image Barthes’ Death of the Author Barthes’ Magazine Cover
Foucault’s Knowledge/Power Foucault’s Panopticon Lyotard’s Metanarrative
Deleuze’s Repetition Baudrillard’s Hyperreal Haraway’s Cyborgs
Derrida’s Freeplay Derrida’s Scandal of Incest Derrida vs Searle
