• Indicate the role of human reason in each of the philosophers studied in the course.

• Trace the concept of alienation, from its roots in Hegel, through any two of the post-Hegelian thinkers, Marx and Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and Dostoyevski.

• Compare and contrast any three of Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and Dostoyevski on human freedom.

• Compare and contrast the role of the concept of God in the philosophies of three or four of the philosophers covered in the course.

• Sketch Dostoyevsky's underground man's tirade against the "Crystal Palace" and compare it to Nietzsche's critique of the modern human being.

• Nietzsche endorsed what is "life-affirming" and accused Schopenhauer of saying "no" to life. Compare the views of the two philosophers on this topic.

• Both Marx and Kierkegaard thought of human beings as suffering from a kind of alienation. Discuss the similarities and differences between their two views.

• Contrast Hegel's and Kierkegaard's conceptions of the meaning of Christianity.

• Compare and contrast the conceptions of freedom in Hegel and Schopenhauer.

• How might Kierkegaard have responded to Nietzsche, had he the opportunity?

• Contrast Schopenhauer's view of the world as phenomenon with Nietzsche's perspectivism.

• Compare Kierkegaard and Schopenhauer on the ethical and salvation.

• Compare Marx and Nietzsche on the errors of philosophy.

• Compare and contrast the attitude toward rational decision-making in Schopenhauer and in Dostoyevsky’s underground man.

• Both Kierkegaard and Dostoyevsky emphasized the importance of irrational psychological states in human life. Give some examples of such states and show the kind of significance assigned to them.

• Show how for Marx the worker in a capitalist society is alienated. How would Nietzsche describe the plight of the masses of humanity?

• Nietzsche: “The falseness of an opinion is not for us any objection to it” (p. 333). Kierkegaard: “If only the mode of this relationship is in the truth, the individual is in the truth even if he should happen to be thus related to what is not true” (p. 302). How much is there in common between the two positions?

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