Final Examinations.1
Final Examination. Ideas and Methods 211.
December 9, 1963
1. Specify respects in which Galileo, Newton, and Clerk Maxwell were in agreement in their treatment of motion and respects in which they differed. How are the continuities and changes in their principles, methods, and interpretation reflected in the directions taken and the progress made in physical science? Do Plato and Aristotle agree with the authors you have treated in any respects?
2. Write a commentary on the following passages from the Transcendental Aesthetic of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason:
“Space then is a necessary representation á priori, which serves for the foundation of all external intuitions. We never can imagine or make a representation to ourselves of the non-existence of space, though we may easily enough think that no objects are found in it. It must, therefore, be considered as the condition of the possibility of phaenomena [sic], and by no means as a determination dependent on them, and is a representation á priori, which necessarily supplies the basis for external phaenomena [sic].”
“Time is a necessary representation, lying at the foundation of all our intuitions. With regard to phenomena in general, we cannot think away time from them, and represent them to ourselves as out of and unconnected with time, but we can quite well represent to ourselves time void of phenomena. Time is therefore given á priori. In it alone is all reality of phenomena possible. These may all be annihilated in thought, but time itself, as the universal condition of their possibility, cannot be so annulled.”
In your commentary compare Kant’s exposition of space and time with positions taken by Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Galileo, Newton, and Clerk Maxwell.
(Note: the two questions are of equal importance; one hour should be spent on each of them. Please return the examination questions with your answer book.)
Make-up Examination
27 February 1964
Two hours. Take one hour for each question. The first question is based on readings done in the course. The second question is concerned with the extension of the methods of analysis employed to problems not considered in the course.
1. Expound the conception of motion employed by Galileo, Newton or Clerk Maxwell, specifying the principles, the method, and the interpretation he employed. Contrast this conception of motion with the conception employed by Plato or Aristotle. State briefly how time, space, and cause differ in the two conceptions of motion you have sketched.
2. Bertrand Russell says: “The notion of causality has been greatly modified by the substitution of space-time for space and time. We may define causality in its broadest sense as embracing all laws which connect events at different times, or, to adapt our phraseology to modern needs, events the intervals between which are time-like.” Expound the idea of cause employed in one of the theories of motion that you have studied. Construct a notion of cause “modified” in the manner indicated by Russell, that is, a notion of cause present in laws which connect events at different times. Compare and contrast the two notions of cause.
Please return the question sheet with your examination book.