Don Mariano Marcos Memorial State University

Mid La Union Campus

COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES
Humanities and Social Sciences Department
City of San Fernando, La Union
PHILOSOPHY OF MAN
Philo 102
Midterm Examination
January 20 22, 2016
Student ID No. ___________________________________

BS Psych Section: ________

Direction:
Check with them for details.
The point of the exam is to give you a chance to review and synthesize the material weve
covered in this course. You wont need to know any dates or other historical trivia. You will need
to know what philosophical positions Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Confucius and Christian
Philosophy took, and how they argued for these positions.
The exam will have three parts.
Part I. Quotations. (12% of total)
You will be asked to answer a series of questions about quotations taken from the texts we have
read. Briefly explain about the passage and its meaning.
1. The unexamined life is not worth living. Socrates
2. Happiness is something final and complete in itself, as being the aim and end of all
practical activities whatever Happiness then we define as the active exercise of the
mind in conformity with perfect goodness or virtue. Aristotle
3. "He who conquers others is strong
He who conquers himself is the greatest victor".
4. Man is the apex of earthly Creation
Part II. Short answer questions. (48% of total)
You will be asked to answer four (multi-part) questions, one from each of the following
categories:
1. Socrates
2. Plato

3. Aristotle
4. Plato or Aristotle
Each question may have several related parts. You should answer each part fully but concisely:
sometimes one sentence will do; sometimes several will be required. The questions will be drawn
mostly from the study questions that I have posted.
Questions:
(a) Explain Aristotles distinction between doing a virtuous action and acting virtuously.
(b) Why doesnt Aristotle think that the virtues are capacities to have certain feelings?
(c) True or false? For Aristotle, being virtuous is a matter of being strong enough to overcome
your emotions and feelings when they tempt you to do something inappropriate. Explain.
(d) What does Aristotle mean when he says that virtue is a state consisting in a mean?
(e) What or who determines the mean?
Part III. Essay. (40% of total)
A. Socrates seems to have held the following three theses:
1. Virtue is knowledge.
2. Incontinence is impossible.
3. One cannot have one of the virtues without having them all.
Write a connected essay in which you do the following:
Explain the connection between these three theses in Socrates thought, as best you can
determine it.(That is, how are these theses related? How do they all fit together?)
B. Explain why in philosophy the questions are more important than the answers. In what sense
is philosophy a subversive activity?
End of the Test
GOOD LUCK!!!!
Prepared by:

Noted by:

ARVELLA M. ALBAY
Professor

MA. ATHENA PIMENTEL

Chair, HUMSS Dept

Approved by:
MELCHOR D. SALOM
Dean, CAS