(2005) In his letter to Marcus Herz of 1772, Kant posed the problem of how representations that have their origin in the human intellect can refer to an object when they neither are caused to exist by the object nor cause the object to exist. How did Kant answer this question in the Prolegomena? Why did he think that both the rationalists (such as Descartes and Leibniz) and the empiricists (such as Locke and Hume) could not give a satisfactory answer to this question.

(2006) Kant thought that he was the first philosopher to place metaphysics on the sure path of a science. What did he mean by this claim? How did he propose to do so? What was the reason he thought his predecessors had all been "groping" rather than following a plan that would lead to a secure science of metaphysics?

Part Two. (Answer any one of these questions)

(2003) What was Descartes's method of doubt? What was it supposed to accomplish, and what were its results for Descartes?

(2003) What was Locke's account of the origins of our knowledge of the world? How did Reid criticize this kind of account?

(2003) Newton claimed that "true motion" requires absolute space and time. How did he describe them? What evidence did he adduce for their existence? How did Leibniz criticize the doctrine of absolute space and time?

(2003) Compare and contrast the views of Descartes and Spinoza concerning substance and its modes.

(2004) How did Spinoza argue that the universe consists of a single substance, God?

(2004) What was the "corpuscular philosophy?" How did it function in the philosophy of Boyle and Locke?

(2004) According to Leibniz, all the predicates of a substance are contained in its very notion. Why did Leibniz hold this view? What threat did it pose to human and divine freedom, and how did Leibniz cope with this threat?

(2004) Hume thought that we cannot justify our "implicit faith in our senses" given either the "popular" or the "philosophical" systems (Treatise, p. 306). What was his basic argument for this conclusion? How did Reid think that Hume ("the author of the Treatise of Human Nature") went wrong?

(2005) Descartes declared that he is a thinking thing. What did he mean by that? How did he claim to know that he is a thinking thing? What problems does this characterization of himself raise for the relation between himself and his body?

(2005) Explain the relation between God and the created world in Leibniz.

(2005) Hume ultimately defined causality in terms of constant conjunction and the expectation that the conjunction will continue. Explain why he held this view and rejected the view that cause and effect are necessarily connected.

(2005) Berkeley argued that the being of a "sensible thing" is to be perceived. Explain what this doctrine means and how it differs from Locke's account of sensible things. Show how Berkeley argued for his position.

(2006) According to Descartes, the security of our beliefs rests on the proof that that God is no deceiver. Why did he make this claim? How did he try to prove that human error is not attributable to God's deception?

(2006) Explain why Reid thought that the adoption of Descartes's doctrine of ideas led ultimately to the skepticism of Hume about the external world.

(2006) Sketch Hume's argument for the claim that our causal reasoning is based on custom and habit alone.

(2006) Sketch Spinoza's argument for the existence of God.