ПРАВИТЕЛЬСТВО РОССИЙСКОЙ ФЕДЕРАЦИИ
Федеральное государственное автономное образовательное учреждение
высшего профессионального образования
Национальный исследовательский университет
«Высшая школа экономики»
Утверждаю
Проректор
_________________
«____»______________2015 г.
Программа
вступительного экзамена в аспирантуру
по ФИЛОСОФИИ
Разработана Академическим советом
Аспирантской школы по философским наукам
Академический директор Аспирантской школы
по философским наукам
____________ A. B. Ястребцева
«___»________________2015 г.
Москва-2015
Entrance Examination in Philosophy for all Graduate Programs
at the National Research University Higher School of Economics
in accordance with the Russian Federation Federal Standard
This document contains the requirements for the entrance examination for all applicants to the graduate programs at the National Research University Higher School of Economics.
All applicants will be examined with regards to their knowledge of topics covered in the standard Russian university course on “General Philosophy,” which includes a special emphasis on the history of philosophy. All applicants are required to grasp fundamental philosophical problems and their historical development, to understand the classical works of European philosophy, and to know the main philosophical schools of the 20th century.
Examination Procedure:
The examination includes the following:
(1) An oral examination in two areas (chosen, at random, from the list of “Areas in which the Applicants may be Examined” at the end of this document). Once the areas have been chosen, applicants will have 40 minutes to prepare a 20 minute presentation in relation to the two areas, followed by questions. If a mark cannot be determined, the examiners may request the applicant respond to a third area from the list of “Areas.”
(2) An unprepared interview based on the applicant’s proposed thesis, specialization and preferences.
The final mark is determined by an assessment of each applicant’s knowledge and understanding of philosophical problems, as well as their ability to argue and think critically.
Expectations:
All applicants are expected to be able to demonstrate knowledge of all of the following:
I. The Subject and Function of Philosophy
Philosophy as a type of worldview.
The main philosophical disciplines.
Philosophy and science.
The problem of the origins of philosophy.
Philosophy and mythology.
II. The History of Philosophy
The beginnings of Eastern philosophy in Ancient China and India. The main philosophical schools and problems of Eastern philosophy (the Vedic tradition, Confucianism, Buddhism).
Western philosophy in Ancient Greece and Rome. The evolution from natural philosophy to the philosophy of the human being. Socrates and the Socratic schools. Plato’s philosophy (theory of ideas, epistemology, cosmology, anthropology, the problem of the state). Aristotle’s physics and metaphysics (representation of the “the unmoved mover” and its influence on Christian philosophy). Ontology and the causes of being. Epistemology. The ground of scientific method (the Organon). Doctrine of categories. Ethics. Social and political philosophy.
The main schools and tendencies of Hellenistic philosophy (Epicureanism, Stoicism, Skepticism, Neoplatonism). The causes of the decline of ancient philosophy.
Christianity as the foundation of Medieval philosophy. The formation of Christian philosophy (apologetics, patristics, scholasticism and its representatives). The main problems of Medieval philosophy.
The philosophy of the Renaissance. Anthropocentrism. Humanism and its inner contradictions. The natural philosophy of the Renaissance as a renewal of an ancient tradition, and as a source of a new science. The political and ethical doctrines of the
Renaissance. The structure of a republic in Machiavelli’s political philosophy.
The main problems of the philosophy of the early modern period. Different approaches to
the formation of science and its methods. Bacon on the aims and possibilities of science. Empiricism and rationalism. Descartes and the principles of rational methodology. Rationalism as a worldview. Spinoza and the problem of liberty.
The problem of the empirical foundation of knowledge. The structure of experience in Locke. Berkeley’s subjective idealism. The problem of causality in Hume.
The socio-political ideas of European philosophers of the 17th and 18th centuries. The political philosophy of Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau: theories of the social contract and the concept of sovereignty. The ideas of the French and German philosophers of the 18th century with regards to historical progress, the importance and function of the Enlightenment and science, and the rational ground of culture (Diderot, d’Holbach, Montesquieu, Herder, Lessing).
German classical philosophy (Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel). The main ideas of Kant’s critical philosophy. The problem of the “difference” between science and metaphysics. The a priori ground of scientific knowledge. Pure and practical reason. The antinomies of “pure reason.” The ethics of duty (the “categorical imperative”). “Ethical theology” and the deduction of religion from the moral nature of a human being. Enlightenment and the Kantian concept of law. Hegel’s “absolute idealism.” The principles of idealistic dialectic. The philosophy of right. Hegel’s concept of civil society and the state.
The critique of “absolute idealism” in the European philosophy of 19th century. Feuerbach’s “anthropological principle.” Schopenhauer’s critique of rationalism. Kierkegaard’s
“existential” philosophy. Nietzsche’s “revaluation of all values.”
The dialectical and historical materialism of Marx and Engels. The concept of alienation. The critique of private property. The role of practice. The concept of a socio-economic order, the doctrine of the state, revolution, class conflict, the historical mission of the proletariat.
Dilthey and the specificity of historical understanding. Bergson’s argument for life as a process of free “creative evolution.” The crisis of the idea of historical progress. Spengler’s understanding of closed cultural cycles. Culture and civilization.
Positivism in the 19th and 20th centuries. The historical conditions and background of the formation of positivism. Positivism as a norm for the “experimental” study of nature. Positivism’s critique of speculative philosophy. The problem of the limits of “scientific rationality.” The methodology of “logical positivism.”
Pragmatism: success as a criterion of rationality in any sphere of human activity. Peirce’s understanding of the function and aim of thinking. The problem of meaning and its pragmatic solution. Dewey’s “instrumentalism.” Classical sociology as social philosophy. The problem of modernity and modern society in Weber, Simmel, and Durkheim.
The philosophy of psychoanalysis (Freud, Jung). The structure of personality. Culture, religion, and social process in the context of psychoanalysis. The collective unconscious, archetypes, and factors in the development of personality. Fromm’s “humanistic psychoanalysis.” Existentialism (Jaspers, Sartre). The theme of the crisis of culture in 20th century Western European philosophy (Ortega y Gasset ).Husserl’s phenomenological transcendentalism. The project of the restoration of rationalism. “The linguistic turn” in philosophy. Language as a source of a worldview (Wittgenstein, Heidegger). Philosophical hermeneutics (Gadamer, Ricœur). The structure of the connections between language and experience.
Contemporary debates on the role of science in culture (“scientism—anti-scientism”). Culture as a diversity of symbolic forms (Cassirer). Postmodernism: man in the “playing field” of culture. Rejection of classical (universalist) philosophy.
The notion of totalitarianism in 20th century political theory. Arendt on totalitarianism. The problem of justice in 20th century political philosophy and the philosophy of law. Rawls’ “theory of justice.” The search for a moral ground in 19th and 20th century Russian philosophy. The dialogue between the “Westernizers” and the “Slavophiles” in the history of Russian thought. Solovyov’s philosophy of absolute unity. The philosophical ideas of Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy. Russian anarchism (Bakunin, Kropotkin). Russian Marxism (Plekhanov, Lenin). Berdyaev’s philosophy of freedom.
III. Ontology and Epistemology
The problem of being. The world as an universal whole. Unity and distinction in the world. Spiritual being. The ideal as a philosophical problem. The scientific understanding of the world—rational models (universal, particular, dynamic, statistical, deterministic) constructed in order to explain phenomena. The philosophical problems and principles of development.
The categories structuring a philosophical understanding of the world: space, time, causality, form, content, regularity, randomness, quality, quantity, measure etc. The principles of the formation of a scientific understanding of the world. The systematic character of a scientific worldview. The concepts of organization and self-organization, and their philosophical significance. Science in the cultural context. The history of science as the development of thinking. The place of humans in the scientific world-picture.
The problem of truth. Truth as revelation, correspondence of knowledge and reality, the condition of successful activity, characteristic of logical reasoning, an ideal of reason. The possibility and limit of knowledge. Knowledge and opinion. The function of doubt incognition. The relation between the absolute and the relative in knowledge. The path to truth. Sense perception, abstract thinking, intuition, imagination. Language as a mediator of knowledge. Cognition as a semiotic activity.
The problem of grounds and principles of knowledge. Fundamentalism and anti-fundamentalism as different approaches to the problem of the justification of knowledge. The problem of the criteria of true knowledge.
The types and forms of knowledge. The genesis and main characteristics of scientific knowledge. The empirical and the theoretical in scientific knowledge. The relative criteria of scientific method. The concept of scientific method and its historical evolution.
The structure and dynamic of scientific theories. The concept and limits of scientific rationality. The relation between scientific and technical knowledge. The culture of the information age. The radical change in the role of information in the life of humankind.
IV. Social Philosophy and Philosophical Anthropology
The problem of anthropogenesis (physiognomy, labour, language, migration). Humans as social creatures. Society as an historically determined form of common activity. Humans as individuals and as elements of society.
The types and systems of social organizations. The most important components of social life (economic, civil, political, spiritual). The social roles and functions of a human being. The problem of alienation. The role of consciousness in human social life.
The problem of “human rights.” Social development as a change in human freedom. Humans and power—political, economic and psychological aspects. Types of power relations. The state and personality. The concept and historical background of a Rechtsstaat and the “rule of law.”
Culture and civilization. The components and types of cultures and civilizations. The foundations of “cultural crisis.” Human beings in the era of cultural crisis. The revival of culture as the result of intellectual and moral labour.
The interaction between different cultures and civilizations in the contemporary world. Philosophy and ecology—the condition of the survival of humanity. The concept of historical time. Regularity and chance in history. The relation between historical processes and philosophical concepts.
“Progressive” and “cyclic” concepts of historical change. The consideration of historical changes in different spheres of human life (production, art, morality, science). Contradictions and conflicts caused by this difference. Historical memory and historical forgetfulness.
Recommended Literature:
Please consult both primary sources and the best secondary sources. The following may also be helpful:
Copelston, Frederik, History of Philosophy (Continuum International Publishing, 2003).
Kenny, Anthony. New History of Western Philosophy (Oxford University Press, 2006-).
Parkinson, G. H.R. and Shanker, Stuart. Routledge History of Philosophy (Routledge, 2003).
Russell, Bertrand. History of Western Philosophy (Routledge, 2004).
Windelband, Wilhelm. A History of Philosophy (Adamant Media, 2001).
Areas in which Applicants may be Examined:
1. Ancient Greek philosophy (the main schools, problems, representatives)
2. Plato’s doctrine of the ideas
3. Plato’s political philosophy
4. Philosophy of Aristotle (doctrine of the causes)
5. Aristotle’s political philosophy
6. Hellenistic philosophy
7. Main problems of Medieval European philosophy
8. Philosophy of the Renaissance (themes, problems, representatives)
9. Political philosophy of Machiavelli
10. Rationalistic metaphysics of the 17th century (Descartes, Spinoza, Leibnitz)
11. Concept of substance in the English empiricism of the 17th century
12. Concept of the social contract in the political philosophy of the 17th-18th centuries.
13. Philosophical ideas of the Enlightenment (Rousseau, Montesquieu, Diderot)
14. Main ideas of Kant’s “critical philosophy”
15. Ethics of Kant
16. Hegel’s philosophy of history
17. Hegel’s idealistic dialectics
18. Kierkegaard’s existentialism
19. Main ideas of Lebensphilosophie (Nietzsche, Dilthey, Bergson)
20. Positivism’s critique of speculative metaphysics
21. Neo-positivist program of the empirical justification of scientific knowledge
22. Pragmatism—the philosophy of the success of human activity
23. Philosophical ideas of psychoanalysis (Freud, Jung, Fromm)
24. European existentialism of the 20th century
25. Theme of the crisis of contemporary culture (Husserl, Ortega y Gasset)
26. Problems of Husserl’s phenomenological philosophy
27. “Linguistic turn” in the philosophy of the 20th century (Wittgenstein, Heidegger)
28. Philosophical hermeneutics (Gadamer, Ricœur)
29. Modernity and society in the classics of the Western sociology (Weber, Simmel, Durkheim)
30. Critique of capitalism in Adorno and Marcuse
31. Concept of totalitarianism in the political philosophy of the 20th century
32. Problem of justice in political philosophy and the philosophy of law in the 20th century
33. Dilemma “scientism vs. anti-scientism” in contemporary European philosophy
34. Main ideas of contemporary “analytic philosophy”
35. Object and the significance of the dispute between the “Westernizers” and the “Slavophiles” in the Russian philosophical and socio-political thought of the 19th century
36. Solovyov’s “philosophy of absolute unity”
37. Tolstoy’s ethical ideas
38. Berdyaev’s philosophy of liberty
39. The problem of “space-time” in contemporary science and philosophy
40. Methodological meaning of the opposition “determinism–indeterminism” in contemporary science
41. Truth as a modern philosophical problem, and the criteria of truth for statements in the natural and social sciences
42. Problems of knowledge and understanding in the natural and cultural sciences
43. Evolution and revolution in science and technology; the principles of a rational reconstruction of the history of science
