University of Hyderabad (UoH) 2010 Entrance Exams Other Entrance Exams Ph.D Programme Entrance - Philosophy - Question Paper
Ph.D Programme Entrance examination - Philosophy
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UNIVERSITY OF HYDERABAD DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY
Ph.D. Entrance Examination, June, 2010
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Hall Ticket No.----------------
Time: 2 hours Max. Marks: 75
The question paper consists of three parts: Part A, Part B and Part C.
Part A of the question paper consists of 25 objective (multiple- choice) type questions of one mark each. There is .a .negative mark of % for every wrong answer. You must answer the questions in the question booklet itself.
Part B consists of 15 objective (multiple choice) type questions of one mark each based on reading and comprehension of a passage. There will be no negative marking for any "wrong answer. You must answer ihe questions in the question booklet itself.
Part C has two sections consisting of short and long essay type questions. (A separate answer book is provided)
1. Of the two principles The Principle of Idenity of Indiscemibles and the Principle of Tndiscemibility of identicals
(A) only the former is valid.
(B) only the latter is valid.
(C) both are valid.
(D) neither is valid. [ ]
2. According to the Correspondence Theory of Truth, truth is
(A) epistemically unconstrained.
(B) epistemically constrained.
(C) epistemically neither constarined nor unconstrained.
(D) none of the above. [ ]
3. According to the Positivists, scientific laws involve
(A) logical necessity.
(B) physical necessity.
(C) no necessity at all.
(D) none of the above. [ ]
4. The 'Is - Ought' controversy owes its origin to
(A) David Hume
(B) Immanuel Kant
(C) Rene Descartes
(D) Ludwig Wittgenstein [
5. According to Kant, only Categorical Imperative is
(A) relevant to morality.
(B) irrelevant to morality.
(C) of some relevance to morality.
(D) entirely non-moral in nature. [
6. Locke held that 'Primary Qualities' of physical objects
(A) exist in the objects.
(B) in the mind of the observer.
(C) (A) + (B)
(D) none of the above . [
7. For the validity of the proposition 'p implies q'
(A) the truth of q is a sufficient condition.
(B) the truth of q is a necessary condition.
(C) the truth of q is both a necessary and a sufficient condition.
(D) the falsity of q is a necessary condition. [
8. The concepts which Kant calls 'ideas of pure reason' are
(A) a posteriori concepts.
(B) mathematical concepts.
(C) concepts of pure understanding.
(D) none of the above. [
9. From the clues given below find out who did not have any egg.
(i) Ram ate double of what Prem did.
(ii) Arun ate double of Sita, and one more.
(iii) If you subtract the eggs eaten by Ram from the total eggs eaten by Prem and Sita, that is what Meera ate.
(iv) If you subtract the eggs eaten by Sita from the total eggs eaten by Prem and Meera, you will get the number of eggs on Jaya's plate.
(A) Prem (B) Jaya (C) Meera (D) Sita
[
10. A butcher trapped some chickens and goats in a cage. There were sixty heads and 160 feet inside the cage. How many chickens and goats did he trap?
(A) 20 chickens and forty goats.
(B) 30 chickens and thirty goats.
(C) 40 chickens and twenty goats.
(D) none of the above. [ ]
Three friends Meena, Reena, and Tina have been saving money in their piggy - banks. Each saves a different amount (Rs. 30, Rs. 60, and Rs. 100) Meena's piggy - bank contans twice the amount in the piggy bank of another. Reena has saved more money than Tina.
11. Can you work out the amount each of them has saved?
(A) Meena Rs. 30; Reena - Rs. 100; Tina Rs. 60
(B) Meena - Rs. 60; Reena - Rs. 100; Tina - Rs. 30
(C) Meena - Rs. 100; Reena Rs. 60; Tina - Rs. 30
(D) none of the above. [ ]
12. A king had a parrot that he used to keep in a golden cage. One day he found the cage empty. Somebody had set the bird free. The king asked his three jesters, Tic, Tac, and Toe. They replied thus:
Tic: Tac set it free. Tac: I did. Toe: I had nothing to do with it.
Later it was found that only one of them had told the truth. Who set it free?
(A) Tic (B) Tac (C) Toe (D) none of the above
There are four friends W, X, Y, Z. They drink two soft drinks, Coke and Pepsi with favourite heroes being Amir and Shah Rukh. They drive a bike and a car.
W drives a bike but not a car, drinks Coke and Pepsi and likes Amir.
X drives both and drinks Pepsi and likes Shah Rukh.
Y drives car and drinks nothing but likes both Amir and Shah Rukh.
Z drives nothing, drinks nothing but likes both Amir and Shah Rukh.
Now answer questions 13-17:
13. W and Z always go together so they watch-------movie and go by------.
(A) Shah Rukh, car. .
(B) Amir and Shah Rukh, bike.
(C) Shah Rukh, bike.
(D) Amir, bike. [ ]
14. If Z has to watch a Shah Rukh movie, and has a bike, who does he go with?
(A) Y (B) W (C)X (D)WorX
15. Which of the following is true?
(i) W drinks coke, because he likes Amir.
(ii) Among the four friends, those who love Shah Rukh drink Pepsi.
(iii) Among the four friends, those who drink Pepsi drive a bike.
(A) (i) (B) (ii) (C) (iii) (D) (i) and (ii)
16. Which of the following is true?
(i) The person driving a car has Pepsi.
(ii) The person who likes Shah Rukh drives a bike.
(A) (i) (B) (ii) (C) Both are true (D) Neither is true.
17. If Y goes for Amir movie on bike, then he goes with:
(A) W (B) X (C)Z (D) W and Z
18. Sound is eternal, because it is caused commit the fallacy of...
(A) Viruddha
(B) Asiddha
(C) Savyabhicara
(D) Prakaranasama [ ]
19. In which stage of astangayoga does the distinction between the knower, the known and the knowledge disappear?
(A) Asamprajnasamadhi
(B) Savitkarasamadhi
(C) Sanandasamadhi
(D) Sasmitasamadhi [ ]
20. According to Samkhya, purusa is
(A) conscious and active. . . / .
(B) unconscious and active.
(C) conscious and inactive.
(D) unconscious and inactive. Manah-paryaya, for the Jaina school is
(A) a kind of mediate knowledge.
(B) a modification of the mind.
(C) a kind of immediate knowledge.
(D) memory knoweldge.
Sarvam khalvidam brahma is a
(A) a great saying.
(B) sutra.
(C) story.
(D) vedic verse.
Tatvamasi is taken from
(A) Mahabharata.
(B) Ramayana.
(C) Chandogya Upanishad.
(D) Kenopanishad.
Vivarta vada is associated with
(A) Vishishtadvaita
(B) Shuddhavaita
(C) Advaita
(D) Sankhya Philosophy
The non-existence of milk in curd is an example of
(A) atyantabhava
(B) pradvamsabhava
(C) annyonyabhava
(D) praghabhava
The passage below is followed by questions based on its content. After reading the passage, choose the best answer to each question. Answer all questions on the basis of what is stated or implied in that passage. Each question is worth one mark.
Our ability to communicate using language is often cited as the element that sets us apart from other animals. Although language is not uniquely human in all aspects dogs and apes, for example, can learn the meaning of many words it almost certainly merits special status. This is because, more than any other attribute, language was probably key to the development of the set of traits that makes human unique.
The evolution of language probably occurred in concert with the evolution of many of the other traits we associate with being human, such as the ability to fashion tools or a strong propensity to learn. If this is true, it suggests that we shouldnt be trying to understand one characteristically human trait in isolation from the others. Moreover, instead of the brain being a collection of separate modules, each dedicated to a specific trait or capacity, humans are likely to have a complex cognitive architecture that is highly interconnected on multiple levels.
Enhanced communication would have aided humans at least as far back as the Late Pleistocene, around 120,000 years ago. By this point, humans were proficient at hunting large game. Indeed, the advantages that groups of hunters would have derived from better communication may have helped drive the evolution of language at first. But language was almost certainly later co-opted for a wide array of activities. The diversity of behaviours that appeared during the Late Pleistocene, including fishing, use of pigments, and tool and weapon making, as well as the rate at which they emerged, suggest that by the time humans acquired the full set, they could also communicate using complex language.
Many of these developments had a clear social context: making spear points or using pigments, for example, must have relied on learning from other group members. Studies of chimpanzees show that without language, the spread of knowledge in basic tool using tasks, such as using a stone hammer and an anvil to crack a nut, is highly inefficient.
In fact, the bulk of our grammatical machinery enables us to engage in the kinds of social interaction on which the efficient spread of these tasks would have depended. We can combine sentences about who did what to whom, who is going to do what to whom, and so on, in a fast, fluent and largely unconscious way. This supports the notion that language evolved in a highly social, potentially cooperative context, involving and requiring at least three attributes: shared attention, shared intentionality and theory of mind. In other words, individuals would have been able to pay attention to the same scene or object as others; be aware that they must act as a group in order to achieve a common goal; and attribute mental states to others as well as to themselves.
The probable emergence of modern language in the context of these other capacities points to the evolution of a uniquely human set of traits. Weve barely begun to probe the architecture of this suite, but there is little to suggest that each capacity evolved one by one, or that they could be lost independently without harming at least some other traits in the set.
Take cooperation. In humans, practices such as staying faithful to one sexual partner and sharing food suppress competition within groups. These can be upheld more easily with language, because language means details can be agreed on and conflicts cleared up. Hunting
in packs is more efficient if hunts can be planned and plans communicated. And both cooperation and communication using language are easier if people can pay attention to the same thing, are aware that others have states of mind that may differ from their own, and realize that they need to act as a group.
Moreover, some of the traits in the suite require very similar types of operation, language is not critical for making tools; the steps involved can be spread by non-verbal teaching and imitation, or learnt through individual experience. But, in the same way as syntax, the action grammar of complex manipulations involves hierarchical processing. When we fashion a tool, just as when we form a sentence, we construct it from simpler units.
Evidence supporting the close-knit evolution of traits comes, for example, from experiments showing that people who struggle with grammar also have difficulties drawing hierarchical structures, such as a layered arrangement of matches.
In addition, recordings of brain activity suggest that the same cognitive structures are involved in linguistic processing and tool making. In a recent study, a group of people was asked to make a specific type of ancient stone axe, which require different types of work to be done is a specific order. Brain images taken during the process revealed activation in a region in the right hemisphere. This is analogous to a region in the left hemisphere called Brocas area that is involved in language. The right hemisphere area is also known to take on language processing duties when the left hemisphere is damaged at an early age.
(excerpted from Language: a social history of words, E. Szathmary and S. Szamado, Nature. 456, 6 Nov., 2008, pp. 40-1)
1. According to the author, the ability to use language is an aspect that is insufficient to set humans apart from other animals because
(A) animals can learn the meaning of many words.
(B) many humans do not use words.
(C) (A) + (B)
(D) none of the above. [ ]
2. The author suggests that importance of language as a marker between humans and other species is to be sought in *
(A) the difference in the languages that humans use and the other species use.
(B) the important role language probably played in developing other key human traits.
(C) how different languages of humans reflect different cultural groups.
(D) none of the above. [ ]
3. Likelihood of the evolution of language being in sync with the evolution of other human traits like making tools allows one to conjecture that
(A) there is still a very high probability that these traits evolved independently and separately.
(B) the evolution of language must have played the most significant causal role in developing a trait like propensity to learn.
(C) the evolution of language and other human traits must be investigated as a group.
(D) none of the above. [ ]
4. The likelihood of several human traits evolving in tandem farther suggests that
(A) in animals some- of these traits evolved independently and separately.
(B) at least in animals the evolution of the language trait had no influence on the evolution of tool making trait.
(C) a human brain is not a collection of independent modules with no significant interaction among these modules.
(D) none of the above. [ ]
5. By the late Pleistocene period
(A) humans had developed enhanced communication as a result of proficiency acquired in hunting large games.
(B) humans had developed proficiency in hunting large games as a result of enhanced communication.
(C) (A) and (B)
(D) none of the above. [ ]
6. During the late Pleistocene period
(A) the development of diversity of human behaviours e.g. tool making or pigment use seems to be correlated with the development of complex language.
(B) the rate of emergence of diversity of human behaviours e.g. fishing or weapon making seems to be correlated with the development of complex language.
(C) (A) and (B)
(D) none of the above. [ ]
7. The development of complex behaviours in humans during the late Pleistocene period
(A) was a result of rare social interactions among humans.
(B) was a result of social behaviour e.g. learning among humans.
(C) was independent of any social interactions among humans.
(D) none of the above [ ]
8. The machinery of language, used by humans, actually
(A) helps in talking to each other expressing what happens around in a social context.
(B) helps in learning from other group members about performing tasks like tool making.
(C) helps in efficient spread of various tasks across groups.
(D) All of the above [ ]
9. The evolution of language, in humans, is predicated upon acquiring
(A) the awareness that a human agent himself or herself has mental states.
(B) the awareness that other humans in the group also possess mental states.
(C) Both (A) and (B)
(D) none of the above. [ ]
10. The social context of the evolution of language, in humans, is to be located in
(A) the ability to share attention to the same scene or object.
(B) the shared intentionality.
(C) Both (A) and (B)
(D) none of the above.
Practices that support cooperation, a strong social behviour, and suppress competition
(A) seem to be a result from the use of language.
(B) seem to be evolutionarily useful.
(C) seem to be an attribute that could have evolved without the attendant evolution of language.
(D) seem to be a purely accidental fact of human evolution. [ ] The similarity between the construction of a sentence and making a tool is that both
12.
(A) need language.
(B) involve generating complexity through hierarchical processing on simpler units.
(C) are uniquely human attributes.
(D) none of the above. [ ] The strong linkage among the various attributes like language or tool making etc.
13.
(A) is further confirmed by the fact that animals also use language and make tools.
(B) is that humans are developing new tools with the help of new languages.
(C) is reflected by the observations that lacunae in the grammatical ability among some humans also are strongly correlated with their inability to handle hierarchical structures.
(D) none of the above. [ ] Brain imaging techniques seem to show that
14.
(A) people can make specific type of ancient tools.
(B) in making tools people follow a specific order.
(C) Brocas area is implicated in tool making.
(D) none of the above holds. [ ] That the same cognitive structure is involved in language processing and tool making
(A) is argued by pointing out that language processing is sometimes taken over by the right hemisphere of the brain which is involved in tool making.
(B) is argued by pointing out that brain is involved in both tasks.
(C) is argued by pointing out that language processing happens in the Brocas area and tool making involves the right hemisphere.
(D) is not confirmed by any of the above. [ ]
Write short notes on any three of the following in 250 words each. All questions carry equal marks.
1. What is the criterion for reality according to the Vaisesika school of thought?
2. What is the criterion for being an apta according to Vatsyayana?
3. Analyze the statement, according to Sankhya, purusa gets liberation.
4. Write an essay on the objections made by Ramanuja against Sankaras concept of Maya.
5. Explain the nature of samanya. How is it known according to Nyaya?
6. Bring out the distinction between prescriptive and descriptive metaphysics.
7. What is the regularity theory of causality? What are the objections against it?
8. Explain Aristotles doctrine of The Golden Mean.
9. Explain the salient feature(s) of the problem of Personal Idenity.
10. What is a mechanical decision procedure? Explain whether and, if so, why there is any mechanical decision procedure to determine the validity of an argument both in sentential logic and predicate logic. If not, why not.
Section 2 Marks 20
Answer any two of the following in 500 words each. All questions cany e<]ual marks.
1. Examine the nature and number ofpramanas in Indian philosophy.
2. Discuss the Buddhist - Nyaya controversy on the concept of substance (dravya).
3. What are the conditions of a valid sentence and how the meaning of a sentence is known according to Nyaya philosophy?
4. Why does Quine think that the notion of analyticity cannot be defined? State and
evaluate his arguments.
5. Discuss Realism as a general metaphysical theory with special reference to its theory
of truth.
6. Discuss and evaluate Wittgensteins private language argument.
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