Previously Used Final Exam Questions
UC Davis Philosophy 175 (Mattey)
Part One (There will be one question only, to be answered by everyone.)
- Explain the role of the notion of necessity in Kant's critical philosophy. Discuss its overall significance as well as its significance in each of the Aesthetic, Analytic and Dialectic.
- According to Kant, the proper problem of pure reason is contained in the question: How are synthetic judgments possible a priori (B19)? What did Kant mean by this claim? How did he attempt to solve the problem of pure reason?
Part Two (Answer one question from this part.)
- Kant claimed that space and time are forms of human intuition. On what basis did he make this claim, and what are some of the consequences of it?
- What is the unity of apperception, and what role does it play in Kant's deduction of the categories?
- How did Kant account for change?
- What were Kan'ts major objections to the application of the ideas of reason to experience?
- Kant stated that the general principle of the three analogies rests on the necessary unity of apperception, in respect of all possible empirical consciousness (B220). Explain, by reference either to the first or to the second analogy, what Kant might have had in mind here.
- What is the "synthesis of apprehension," (B160), and what is its role in the Transcendental Deduction?
- In what sense did Kant "annul knowledge in order to make room for faith" (Bxxx)?
- How did Kant try, in both the first and second editions of the Critique, to prove the existence of the external world?
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