Mid-Term Exam Questions

Please answer #6, #7, #8, and #14. You may use any resource material in preparing for and writing the exam. I suggest that you do the exam in four separate sittings rather than all at once. You are on your honor and you must keep your writing time to 3 hours.  Questions 7 and 8 count 15 pts each and the 6 and 14 will count 10 pts. each. I will double the points to make a total of 100 points. No late exams will be accepted. Note: Typing time is outside the exam time.  

Note: You will not need to prepare questions that we did not go over in class.

1. Take an Upanishad that you did not choose for your paper and analyze it according to the interpretative aids provided in class lecture and discussion, the various translations, and Herman. If you have been assigned #2, then save those issues for that question.

2. Explain the tension between impersonal monism and personal theism in the texts of the Upanishads. You should include issues such as grace, election, and the nature of ultimate reality. Is there a way for the impersonal monists to read the many references to Purusha and Isha differently? Please refer to as many passages in the texts that you can find on this issue.

3. Using a famous philosophical principle it appears easy to argue that the Sankhya purushas are just one thing rather than many things. What is that principle and can the Sankhya philosophers defend themselves from this devastating criticism?

4. Although Sankhya-Yoga is now seen as a combined system of thought, what are the major differences between them? Please assess the role of Ishvara in the Yoga philosophy.

5. Define and distinguish between pantheism and panentheism. Cite passages in the Upanishads thatt express these positions.

6. What is Tertullian’s objection to reincarnation?(You can find this in Edwards on reserve.) What is the best way to respond to this objection? Does the use of the noumenal/phenomenal soul distinction have its own problems, especially since other explanations of reincarnation depend very much on the experiences of the phenomenal soul? (10 pts.)

7. Discuss the "is of identity" and the "is of predication" in determining the mean of the famous phrase tat tvam asi.

8. Assess the arguments in the Sankhya-karika about the necessity of the existence of purusha, its plurality, and its complete isolation. There is a serious question about the plurality of purusha souls.  What is this problem and can Sankhya philosophy solve it?

9. Discuss both continuities and discontinuities between the Vedas and the Upanishads.

10. Summarize the argument about the dominant faculty in the Kaushitaki Upanishad. Is the argument persuasive to you? Explain.

11. Please show how the Atharva-Veda is transitional from Vedic religion to Upanishadic philosophy.

12. Assess one or two arguments for or against reincarnation that you did not cover in your group or paper.

13. Why is Asura Titanism the weakest form of Titanism?

14. What are the differences between the Vedic Purusha and the Sankhya-Yoga purusha? How do these two concepts merge in later Hinduism?