You are viewing: 2014/15 version

Preliminary Examination in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics

A

  • 1. The subjects of the Preliminary Examination for Philosophy, Politics, and Economics shall be:

    • (1) Introductory Economics

    • (2) Introduction to Philosophy

    • (3) Introduction to the Theory and Practice of Politics.

  • 2. A candidate shall be allowed to offer himself or herself for examination in one, two, or three subjects.

  • 3. A candidate shall be deemed to have passed the examination if he or she shall have satisfied the Moderators in three subjects.

  • 4. The Moderators may award a distinction to candidates of special merit who have passed all three subjects at a single examination.

B

Three three-hour papers will be set as follows.

Introductory Economics

Elementary economics including: consumer theory; producer theory; market equilibrium with perfect competition, monopoly and imperfect competition; factor markets; partial equilibrium analysis of welfare, market failure and externalities; national income accounting; the determination of national income and employment; monetary institutions and the money supply; inflation; balance of payments and exchange rates . Elementary mathematical economics; application of functions and graphs, differentiation, partial differentiation, maxima and minima, optimization subject to constraints.

Calculators may be used in the examination room subject to the conditions set out under the heading ‘Use of calculators in examinations’ in the Special Regulations concerning Examinations.

Introduction to Philosophy

The paper shall consist of three sections: (I) General Philosophy, (II) Moral Philosophy, (III) Logic. Each candidate will be required to show adequate knowledge in each of the three sections.

  • I. General Philosophy

    Subjects to be studied include: knowledge and scepticism, induction, mind and body, personal identity, free will, and God and evil. Candidates will have the opportunity, but will not be required, to show first-hand knowledge of Descartes’ Meditations and Hume’s An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding.

  • II. Moral Philosophy

    This section shall be studied in connection with Mill's Utilitarianism. While not being confined to the detailed views of the author of the set text, the section will be satisfactorily answerable by a candidate who has made a critical study of the text. Questions will normally be set on the following topics: pleasure, happiness and well-being; forms of consequentialism; alternatives to consequentialism; ethical truth, ethical realism and the ‘Proof’ of Utilitarianism; justice and rights; virtue, character, and integrity.

  • III. Logic

    Subjects to be studied include: syntax and semantics of propositional and predicate logic, identity and definite descriptions, proofs in Natural Deduction, and the critical application of formal logic to the analysis of English sentences and arguments.

    These topics shall be studied in conjunction with Volker Halbach’s Introduction to Logic manual, published by Oxford University Press. The logical symbols to be used are those found in this publication. The first question in this section of the paper will be a question of an elementary and straightforward nature.

Introduction to the Theory and Practice of Politics

The paper will be divided into two sections. Candidates are required to answer four questions, of which at least one must be from section (a) and two from section (b).

  • (a) Theorizing the Democratic State

    Questions will be set on the following topics: the nature and grounds of democracy; power and influence in the democratic state; ideology; civil society; public choice approaches to democracy; the nature and limits of liberty. Questions will also be set on the following texts: J. J. Rousseau, The Social Contract; J. S. Mill, On Liberty; Alexis de Toqueville, Democracy in America; Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto, Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon, Preface to a Critique of Political Economy, Critique of the Gotha Programme, plus readings 14, 37, 39 in David McLellan, ed., Karl Marx: Selected Writings, Second Edition (Oxford University Press, 2000).

  •  

  • (b) The Practice of Politics

    Questions will be set on the following topics: (i) regime types; definition and measurement of variations between types of democracy; (ii) political institutions and practice outside the advanced industrial democracies; stability, state capacity and state formation; (iii) the state and its institutions (executives, legislatures, parties and party systems, electoral systems, courts, constitutions and centre-periphery relations); (iv) parties and party systems; political values and identity politics.