Final Exam
Philosophy 106 Kant
Professor Eric Watkins
Instructions: Your answers should not total more than 2200 words. You must send a copy of your exam via e-mail (either in the body of an e-mail or as an attachment saved as Word, rtf, or pdf) to me at ewatkins@ucsd.edu before 11:00 am (Pacific) Wednesday, June 13th. Good luck!
I. Short Answer Questions: Answer all of these questions.
1. Identify the following passage (either by A/B pagination or by the relevant section of the text [e.g., First Analogy of Experience]) and explain its significance:
"For in order for certain sensations to be related to something outside
me (i.e., to something in another place in space from that in which I find myself),
thus in order for me to represent them as outside one another, thus not merely
as different, but as in different places, the representation of space must already
be their ground".
2. Identify the following passage and explain its significance:
"Every composite substance in the world consists of simple parts,
and nothing exists anywhere except the simple or what is composed of
simples".
3. Identify the following passage and explain its significance:
"If intuition has to conform to the constitution of the objects,
then I do not see how we can know anything of them a priori; but if the
object (as an object of the senses) conforms to the constitution of our
faculty of intuition, then I can very well represent this possibility
to myself".
4. Identify the following passage and explain its significance:
"[T]his thoroughgoing identity of the apperception of a manifold given in intuition contains a synthesis of the representations, and is possible only through the consciousness of this synthesis".
II. Long Essay Questions: Answer only two of the three questions.
1. Explain the systematic importance of Kant's claim that he intends "to deny knowledge in order to make room for faith".
2. Explain Kant's reaction to rationalism, and consider how effective his response is to it.
3. Explain Kant's reaction to empiricism, and consider how effective his response is to it.
Enjoy your summer!