Гуманитарное образование
Каждую осень оксфордский Колледж "Староста и Коллегия Душ всех Праведных Людей, усопших в Университете Оксфорда" ("Всех Душ") проводит экзамены по выбору двух "братьев" (Prize Fellows) из оксфордских выпускников. Конкурс - около 40 человек на место. Именно здесь раз в сто лет обитает " Лорд Дикая утка".
"Братья" сдают 4 письменных экзамена. Два на общие темы и два по выбранной специальности. Специальности: Классические языки (греческий и латынь) и история, Экономика, Английская литература, История, Правоведение, Философия, Политика.
Каждый экзамен длится 3 часа. Для "классиков" и историков дополнительный - 2-х часовой перевод двух отрывков с древнегреческого и латыни.
Поскольку все сдавали философию в институте, а некоторые читатели этого ЖЖ и в аспирантуре, наряду с общими вопросами за 2014 год привожу вопросы по философии. Все дисциплины можно найти здесь.
Из списка нужно ответить на три вопроса. Из сдавших экзамен нескольких будущих "братьев" приглашают на собеседование. Задают вопросы по письменным ответам (нужно помнить, что было написано в течении 12 часов экзаменов). Из них и выбирают двух новых.
Итак
Общие вопросы
Первый экзамен
1. ‘How can you know anything about literature if all you’ve done is read books?’ [GEOFF DYER]
2. Should you be allowed internet access during this exam?
3. Does the future of nutrition lie with chemistry?
4. When we make contact with an extra-terrestrial civilization, what should we tell them is humanity’s greatest achievement?
5. Have email, blogs and tweets restored the primacy of writing?
6. Do we need borders?
7. ‘Thinking is my fighting.’ [VIRGINIA WOOLF, 1940] Discuss.
8. Which peoples should be considered ‘indigenous’?
9. Should there be such a thing as intellectual property?
10. What is good about ‘Big data’?
11. Is hip-hop/rap more political than the Eurovision Song Contest?
12. Why do autocrats oppress?
13. Are democracy and nationalism allies or enemies
14. What accounts for the success of the gay rights movement in the West?
15. Is Edward Snowden a hero or a villain?
16. ‘More boys from Eton went to Oxford and Cambridge than boys eligible for free school
meals.’ [MICHAEL GOVE] What should be done about it?
17. Are cooperatives doomed to fail?
18. Is the physicists’ sought-for ‘theory of everything’ a chimera?
19. ‘Businesses owned by responsible and organized merchants will eventually surpass
those owned by wealthy rulers.’ [IBN KHALDUN, c. 1377] Discuss.
20. Must an idol have died young?
21. Is it possible to dress rationally?
22. Is cosmetic surgery wrong?
23. Did Eve make the right choice?
24. Postmodernism - sooo last century. Discuss.
25. Why, seemingly, does the public have a taste for abstract art but not for atonal music?
26. ‘Fright is fun, but only up to a point.’ [EVA FIGES] Has contemporary culture passed that point?
27. ‘we owe most of our pleasures to illusion; woe to those who lose it’ [EMILIE DU CHATELET, c. 1740] Discuss.
28. ‘the sole end of science is the honour of the human mind, … under this title a question about numbers is worth as much as a question about the system of the world.’ [C.G.J.JACOBI, 1830] Discuss.
29. Are sting operations defensible?
30. Is rising life expectancy a good thing?
Второй экзамен
1. ‘Every collection of human beings … preserves its fables and its history in the archives of the shaman and the griot and the bard’s memory.’ [DEREK WALCOTT] Discuss.
2. ‘Not just some, but all writing of the narrative kind, and perhaps all writing, is motivated, deep down, by a fear of and a fascination with mortality - by a desire to make the risky trip to the Underworld, and to bring something or someone back from the dead.’ [MARGARET ATWOOD] Discuss.
3. ‘Tell all the truth … But tell it slant.’ [EMILY DICKINSON] Is this sound advice to writers?
4. Can a good person be a really good novelist?
5. Some languages, for example French and Italian, do not distinguish clearly between ‘history’ and ‘story’. Should we be warned?
6. What is, or should be, ‘global history’?
7. What is the role of the ‘hard sciences’ in historical research?
8. ‘The Labor Movement was the principal force that transformed misery and despair into hope and progress.’ [MARTIN LUTHER KING] Discuss.
9. Does the teaching of economics need a radical overhaul?
10. Is ever-rising inequality inevitable under capitalism?
11. Should the richest part of a country have the right to secede?
12. How should we measure the cost of climate change?
13. Should prisoners have the right to vote?
14. Should litigation be encouraged?
15. Does it matter that there is only one woman judge on the UK Supreme Court?
16. Does it matter what a judge had for breakfast?
17. Did people have human rights in the Paleolithic era?
18. When Romeo bribes the apothecary to sell him a drug, the apothecary says, ‘My poverty but not my will consents.’ Is that a coherent thing for him to say?
19. Privatization of public services: solution or problem?
20. ‘If it be desirable that the public servants should be contented with small salaries, it is more desirable that they should be willing to serve gratuitously, and most desirable that they should pay for the liberty of serving’ [J. BENTHAM]. Discuss.
21. What sort of event is most likely to precipitate the abolition of monarchy in Britain?
22. ‘I am for violence if non-violence means we continue postponing a solution to the American black man’s problem just to avoid violence.’ [MALCOLM X] Discuss.
23. ‘Death is nothing to us, since when we are there, death is not; and when death is, we are not.’ [EPICURUS] Discuss.
24. Should we banish the poets?
25. Is the abortion debate separable from issues of gender?
26. Does mathematics need foundations?
27. If ‘excavation is destruction’ [MORTIMER WHEELER] can we defend it?
28. Does multilingualism mean multiple identities?
29. ‘Domesticating’ or ‘foreignizing’? Which approach to translation is more appropriate to
any one foreign-language book or author you have read?
30. Theories come to Classics to die. Discuss.
31. Is English the new Latin?
Философия
Первый экзамен
1. Is a person’s gender socially constructed? Is a person’s sex?
2. Does anger have a legitimate role to play in politics?
3. Does the status quo have any moral privilege?
4. ‘What distinguishes actions which are intentional from those which are not? The answer that I shall suggest is that they are actions to which a certain sense of the question “Why?” is given application; the sense is of course that in which the answer, if positive,
gives a reason for acting’ [ELIZABETH ANSCOMBE]. Discuss.
5. What can we learn about the mind by considering its disorders?
6. Can emotions be reasons for decisions?
7. Is higher-order evidence just more evidence?
8. How do apologies work?
9. Should epistemology be naturalised?
10. Can there be substantive disagreement in the absence of fact?
11. What is it to beg a question?
12. What is it to win a philosophical argument?
13. Should we seek to eradicate blame?
14. Are philosophers experts?
15. Is every consensual arrangement morally permissible?
16. Is Bill Gates a moral hero?
17. What divides Analytic and Continental philosophers?
18. What can slur words teach us about the philosophy of language?
19. ‘The sentence adjacent to this one is not true. The sentence adjacent to this one is not true.’ Discuss.
20. Are there clear borderline cases?
21. ‘If it is now true that you will go to Paris next year, then it is pointless for you to choose not to go to Paris next year.’ Discuss.
22. Are there ineffable truths?
23. What is the significance of Naming and Necessity?
24. Is there a privileged description of the world?
25. Is studying the history of philosophy more likely to widen or to narrow your perspective on issues in contemporary philosophy?
26. Is Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason a work of epistemology or of metaphysics?
27. Does it matter if someone misrepresents the view of a dead philosopher in order to support her own philosophical theory?
28. Is irony of philosophical interest?
29. Should analytic philosophers take postmodernism seriously?
30. Choose a work of art and discuss its philosophical significance.
31. Do universals exist - and, if so, how?
32. What should we make of the fine-tuning problem?
33. What (if anything) is problematic with David Lewis’ theory of possible worlds?
Второй экзамен
1. Is contemporary ethics essentially bourgeois?
2. What should philosophers make of dog-whistling?
3. Is there a mind-body problem?
4. Are we in a better position to know our own minds than those of other people?
5. What is it I do when I ‘make up my mind’?
6. What is the relationship between permissibility and blamelessness?
7. What’s wrong with hypocrisy?
8. ‘The utilitarian is like the external world sceptic - there’s no point in talking to him.’ Discuss.
9. Is raising children with religion a form of child abuse?
10. Can there be non-epistemic reasons for belief?
11. Is there such a thing as rational persuasion?
12. Should we abandon the internalist/externalist distinction in epistemology?
13. What philosophical problem is it time to stop discussing?
14. Does experimental philosophy rest on a mistake?
15. If race is socially constructed, can racial identity still be used as a basis for resistance to racism?
16. Could we make do without modus ponens?
17. ‘Missing woman unwittingly joins search party looking for herself” [Toronto Sun].
Why is this occurrence of interest to the philosophy of language?
18. ‘How she resembles her mother!’ Does this sentence have a truth-value?
19. How does metaphor work?
20. What philosophical purpose can the notion of a ‘language game’ serve?
21. What should we be eliminativists about?
22. How does time differ from space?
23. What are particulars?
24. Are ancient theories of perception still relevant?
25. What changes would have to be made to the political and social structures of Plato’s
Kallipolis to render it democratic?
26. Can there be relations without relata, as structural realists claim?
27. If it is impossible to know whether God exists, is it irrational to pray?
28. Are genes real?
29. Is there a coherent pragmatism?
30. Can art tell the truth?
31. Is the beauty of an artwork one of its properties?
32. Is the Absurd a reason for nihilism?
"Братья" сдают 4 письменных экзамена. Два на общие темы и два по выбранной специальности. Специальности: Классические языки (греческий и латынь) и история, Экономика, Английская литература, История, Правоведение, Философия, Политика.
Каждый экзамен длится 3 часа. Для "классиков" и историков дополнительный - 2-х часовой перевод двух отрывков с древнегреческого и латыни.
Поскольку все сдавали философию в институте, а некоторые читатели этого ЖЖ и в аспирантуре, наряду с общими вопросами за 2014 год привожу вопросы по философии. Все дисциплины можно найти здесь.
Из списка нужно ответить на три вопроса. Из сдавших экзамен нескольких будущих "братьев" приглашают на собеседование. Задают вопросы по письменным ответам (нужно помнить, что было написано в течении 12 часов экзаменов). Из них и выбирают двух новых.
Итак
Общие вопросы
Первый экзамен
1. ‘How can you know anything about literature if all you’ve done is read books?’ [GEOFF DYER]
2. Should you be allowed internet access during this exam?
3. Does the future of nutrition lie with chemistry?
4. When we make contact with an extra-terrestrial civilization, what should we tell them is humanity’s greatest achievement?
5. Have email, blogs and tweets restored the primacy of writing?
6. Do we need borders?
7. ‘Thinking is my fighting.’ [VIRGINIA WOOLF, 1940] Discuss.
8. Which peoples should be considered ‘indigenous’?
9. Should there be such a thing as intellectual property?
10. What is good about ‘Big data’?
11. Is hip-hop/rap more political than the Eurovision Song Contest?
12. Why do autocrats oppress?
13. Are democracy and nationalism allies or enemies
14. What accounts for the success of the gay rights movement in the West?
15. Is Edward Snowden a hero or a villain?
16. ‘More boys from Eton went to Oxford and Cambridge than boys eligible for free school
meals.’ [MICHAEL GOVE] What should be done about it?
17. Are cooperatives doomed to fail?
18. Is the physicists’ sought-for ‘theory of everything’ a chimera?
19. ‘Businesses owned by responsible and organized merchants will eventually surpass
those owned by wealthy rulers.’ [IBN KHALDUN, c. 1377] Discuss.
20. Must an idol have died young?
21. Is it possible to dress rationally?
22. Is cosmetic surgery wrong?
23. Did Eve make the right choice?
24. Postmodernism - sooo last century. Discuss.
25. Why, seemingly, does the public have a taste for abstract art but not for atonal music?
26. ‘Fright is fun, but only up to a point.’ [EVA FIGES] Has contemporary culture passed that point?
27. ‘we owe most of our pleasures to illusion; woe to those who lose it’ [EMILIE DU CHATELET, c. 1740] Discuss.
28. ‘the sole end of science is the honour of the human mind, … under this title a question about numbers is worth as much as a question about the system of the world.’ [C.G.J.JACOBI, 1830] Discuss.
29. Are sting operations defensible?
30. Is rising life expectancy a good thing?
Второй экзамен
1. ‘Every collection of human beings … preserves its fables and its history in the archives of the shaman and the griot and the bard’s memory.’ [DEREK WALCOTT] Discuss.
2. ‘Not just some, but all writing of the narrative kind, and perhaps all writing, is motivated, deep down, by a fear of and a fascination with mortality - by a desire to make the risky trip to the Underworld, and to bring something or someone back from the dead.’ [MARGARET ATWOOD] Discuss.
3. ‘Tell all the truth … But tell it slant.’ [EMILY DICKINSON] Is this sound advice to writers?
4. Can a good person be a really good novelist?
5. Some languages, for example French and Italian, do not distinguish clearly between ‘history’ and ‘story’. Should we be warned?
6. What is, or should be, ‘global history’?
7. What is the role of the ‘hard sciences’ in historical research?
8. ‘The Labor Movement was the principal force that transformed misery and despair into hope and progress.’ [MARTIN LUTHER KING] Discuss.
9. Does the teaching of economics need a radical overhaul?
10. Is ever-rising inequality inevitable under capitalism?
11. Should the richest part of a country have the right to secede?
12. How should we measure the cost of climate change?
13. Should prisoners have the right to vote?
14. Should litigation be encouraged?
15. Does it matter that there is only one woman judge on the UK Supreme Court?
16. Does it matter what a judge had for breakfast?
17. Did people have human rights in the Paleolithic era?
18. When Romeo bribes the apothecary to sell him a drug, the apothecary says, ‘My poverty but not my will consents.’ Is that a coherent thing for him to say?
19. Privatization of public services: solution or problem?
20. ‘If it be desirable that the public servants should be contented with small salaries, it is more desirable that they should be willing to serve gratuitously, and most desirable that they should pay for the liberty of serving’ [J. BENTHAM]. Discuss.
21. What sort of event is most likely to precipitate the abolition of monarchy in Britain?
22. ‘I am for violence if non-violence means we continue postponing a solution to the American black man’s problem just to avoid violence.’ [MALCOLM X] Discuss.
23. ‘Death is nothing to us, since when we are there, death is not; and when death is, we are not.’ [EPICURUS] Discuss.
24. Should we banish the poets?
25. Is the abortion debate separable from issues of gender?
26. Does mathematics need foundations?
27. If ‘excavation is destruction’ [MORTIMER WHEELER] can we defend it?
28. Does multilingualism mean multiple identities?
29. ‘Domesticating’ or ‘foreignizing’? Which approach to translation is more appropriate to
any one foreign-language book or author you have read?
30. Theories come to Classics to die. Discuss.
31. Is English the new Latin?
Философия
Первый экзамен
1. Is a person’s gender socially constructed? Is a person’s sex?
2. Does anger have a legitimate role to play in politics?
3. Does the status quo have any moral privilege?
4. ‘What distinguishes actions which are intentional from those which are not? The answer that I shall suggest is that they are actions to which a certain sense of the question “Why?” is given application; the sense is of course that in which the answer, if positive,
gives a reason for acting’ [ELIZABETH ANSCOMBE]. Discuss.
5. What can we learn about the mind by considering its disorders?
6. Can emotions be reasons for decisions?
7. Is higher-order evidence just more evidence?
8. How do apologies work?
9. Should epistemology be naturalised?
10. Can there be substantive disagreement in the absence of fact?
11. What is it to beg a question?
12. What is it to win a philosophical argument?
13. Should we seek to eradicate blame?
14. Are philosophers experts?
15. Is every consensual arrangement morally permissible?
16. Is Bill Gates a moral hero?
17. What divides Analytic and Continental philosophers?
18. What can slur words teach us about the philosophy of language?
19. ‘The sentence adjacent to this one is not true. The sentence adjacent to this one is not true.’ Discuss.
20. Are there clear borderline cases?
21. ‘If it is now true that you will go to Paris next year, then it is pointless for you to choose not to go to Paris next year.’ Discuss.
22. Are there ineffable truths?
23. What is the significance of Naming and Necessity?
24. Is there a privileged description of the world?
25. Is studying the history of philosophy more likely to widen or to narrow your perspective on issues in contemporary philosophy?
26. Is Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason a work of epistemology or of metaphysics?
27. Does it matter if someone misrepresents the view of a dead philosopher in order to support her own philosophical theory?
28. Is irony of philosophical interest?
29. Should analytic philosophers take postmodernism seriously?
30. Choose a work of art and discuss its philosophical significance.
31. Do universals exist - and, if so, how?
32. What should we make of the fine-tuning problem?
33. What (if anything) is problematic with David Lewis’ theory of possible worlds?
Второй экзамен
1. Is contemporary ethics essentially bourgeois?
2. What should philosophers make of dog-whistling?
3. Is there a mind-body problem?
4. Are we in a better position to know our own minds than those of other people?
5. What is it I do when I ‘make up my mind’?
6. What is the relationship between permissibility and blamelessness?
7. What’s wrong with hypocrisy?
8. ‘The utilitarian is like the external world sceptic - there’s no point in talking to him.’ Discuss.
9. Is raising children with religion a form of child abuse?
10. Can there be non-epistemic reasons for belief?
11. Is there such a thing as rational persuasion?
12. Should we abandon the internalist/externalist distinction in epistemology?
13. What philosophical problem is it time to stop discussing?
14. Does experimental philosophy rest on a mistake?
15. If race is socially constructed, can racial identity still be used as a basis for resistance to racism?
16. Could we make do without modus ponens?
17. ‘Missing woman unwittingly joins search party looking for herself” [Toronto Sun].
Why is this occurrence of interest to the philosophy of language?
18. ‘How she resembles her mother!’ Does this sentence have a truth-value?
19. How does metaphor work?
20. What philosophical purpose can the notion of a ‘language game’ serve?
21. What should we be eliminativists about?
22. How does time differ from space?
23. What are particulars?
24. Are ancient theories of perception still relevant?
25. What changes would have to be made to the political and social structures of Plato’s
Kallipolis to render it democratic?
26. Can there be relations without relata, as structural realists claim?
27. If it is impossible to know whether God exists, is it irrational to pray?
28. Are genes real?
29. Is there a coherent pragmatism?
30. Can art tell the truth?
31. Is the beauty of an artwork one of its properties?
32. Is the Absurd a reason for nihilism?