Paper: IAS Mains Previous Year Paper Philosophy (1997)

Paper-I- Philosophy-1997 (Mains)

SECTION A

1. Explain and comment (in not more than 200 words each) on any three of the following:
(a) The idea of an all-perfect, omnipotent being implies also that it or He exists.
(b) The dialectical method simply consists in challenging every typical attitude or belief by rendering its partisan claims logically ridiculous.
(c) Kant reconciles rationalism with empiricism by superseding them.
(d) I think therefore I am.

2. State, explain and discuss the various theories in traditional European philosophy regarding the relationship of body and mind.

3. Elucidate Bertrand Russell’s theory of descriptions, and examine it with special reference to its criticism by P.F. St Rawson.
Or
Explain the basic concepts of the phenomériology of Edmund Husserl. Is it only a philosophical method or can it be regarded as metaphysics?

4. Discuss the following view with reference to the philosophers whom you have studied. ‘Philosophy takes the conce ptual systems developed by scientists, mathematicians, art critics, moralists, theologians et al, as its subject-matter and seeks o explain and clarify what has to be explained and clarified about such systems in order to render them fully comprehensible.’
Or
Explain the nature of substance and its relation to attributes according to Spinoza.

SECTION B

5. Explain briefly and comment critically on any three of the following in not more than 200 words each:
(a) Svatah-pramanya and paratah-pramanya
(b) Padartha
(c) Mahavakyas of Upanishads
(d) Bodhisattva

6. State and evaluate the various theories of causation in Indian philosophy.

7. Compare and contrast the various views on the nature of the self and its liberation in the various schools of Indian philosophy, both orthodox and heterodox.

8. Explain the nature of prakrti and its evolution according to the Samkya system.

Paper-II- Philosophy-1997 (Mains)

SECTION A

1. Write critical notes on any three of the following in not more than 200 words each:
(a) Liberty
(b) Kautilya on Sovereignty’
(c) Reformative Theory of Punishment
(d) Philosophy of Ecology

2. “Democracy is not merely a form of Government, but a way of life as well.” Discuss.

3. ‘The individual is not meretya constituent, but a significant constituent contributing to the development of the State’. Explain and examine.

4. Compare and contrast Marxism with the ideal of ‘Sarodaya’.

SECTION B

5. Write critical notes on any three of the following in not more than 200 words each:
(a) Personalistic notion of God
(b) Immortality of Soul
(c) The path of Disinterested Action
(d) Religion and Morality

6. State and examine the Cosmological Argument for the existence of God.

7. Can we reconcile evil with benevolence and omnipotence of God? Discuss.

8. Bring out the roles of Reason and Revelation in Religious Knowledge.