UPHESC Assistant Professor Philosophy 2025 PYQs

Concept: The classical (Aristotelian) laws of thought are three.

1. Identity: p ⊃ p (A is A).
2. (Non-)Contradiction: ~(p . ~p) (nothing is both A and not-A).
3. Excluded middle: p ∨ ~p (everything is either A or not-A).

Short trick: I-C-E: Identity, Contradiction, Excluded middle.

Concept: Figure depends on the position of the middle term (M) in the two premises.

1. Fig 1: M-P, S-M; Fig 2: P-M, S-M; Fig 3: M-P, M-S; Fig 4: P-M, M-S.
2. Aristotle recognised three; the fourth (Galenian) figure was added later – so standard logic has 4 figures (and 256 moods, 15/24 valid).

Short trick: Middle term can sit in 2 × 2 = 4 positions → 4 figures.

Concept: AEE-1: All M is P; No S is M; therefore No S is P.

1. Conclusion E distributes P (major term).
2. In the major premise ‘All M is P’ (A), P is the predicate – undistributed.
3. A term distributed in the conclusion but not in its premise → illicit major.
4. Middle M is distributed in the A premise; only one premise is negative, so no other fallacy.

Short trick: Check the major term P: distributed in conclusion, not in premise → illicit major.

Concept: Use the traditional square of opposition.

1. A and E are contraries: A true → E false.
2. A and I are in subalternation: A true → I true.
3. A and O are contradictories: A true → O false.

Short trick: A true → E F, I T, O F.

Concept: Relations in the square: A–E contrary, I–O sub-contrary, A–O and E–I contradictory, A–I and E–O subalternation.

1. Contraries (both universal, differ in quality) cannot both be true but can both be false.

Short trick: Top line A–E = Contrary; bottom line I–O = Sub-contrary.

Concept: The reformative theory treats crime as a disease of the mind and the criminal as a patient.

1. Aim: to reform/cure the offender (education, probation, therapy), not to inflict pain.
2. Retributive: punishment as deserved return for the wrong. Preventive/deterrent: punish to prevent future crime.

Short trick: Cure not punishment → Reformative.

Concept: Sidgwick (The Methods of Ethics) is an ethical (rational, universalistic) hedonist, not a psychological hedonist.

1. (A) is true: for Sidgwick pleasure (desirable consciousness) is the ultimate good, known by rational intuition.
2. (R) states psychological hedonism – that man by nature always seeks pleasure. Sidgwick rejects it (paradox of hedonism; men desire many objects other than pleasure).
3. So, in Sidgwick's view, (R) is false.

Short trick: Sidgwick: pleasure is what we OUGHT to seek, not what we ALWAYS seek.

Concept: T. H. Green (Prolegomena to Ethics) holds that the highest good is self-realisation – perfectionism.

1. Bentham and Mill are hedonists (utilitarians), not rationalist or intuitionist.
2. Kant is a rigorist/rationalist, opposed to hedonism.

Short trick: Green = self-realisation = Perfectionism.

Concept: C. L. Stevenson (Ethics and Language) is an emotivist: the primary meaning of ethical terms is emotive.

1. Ethical judgements express the speaker's attitude/feeling and seek to influence the attitude of others (‘This is good’ = ‘I approve of this; do so as well’).
2. Since they express attitudes rather than state facts, they cannot be proved by logic or facts – reasons only support them psychologically (persuasive method).
3. So the emotive (feeling-expressing) character explains why their validity cannot be logically proved.

Short trick: Emotive meaning → no logical proof, only persuasion.

Concept: Kant's categorical imperative: “Act only on that maxim which you can at the same time will to become a universal law.”

1. The maxim ‘make a false promise when in difficulty’ cannot be universalised – if everyone did so, promising itself would collapse (contradiction).
2. Hence breaking promises is immoral – R gives exactly the reason for A.

Short trick: Universalise the maxim → self-contradiction → immoral.

Concept: Opening line of Rousseau's The Social Contract (1762).

1. Rousseau holds that civilisation and unjust institutions corrupted natural freedom; legitimate authority rests on the general will.
2. Hobbes – Leviathan; Locke – Two Treatises; Machiavelli – The Prince.

Short trick: Social Contract's first line = Rousseau.

Concept: Karl Marx, Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right (1843–44): “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature … It is the opium of the people.”

1. Religion gives illusory comfort and keeps the exploited from changing their real conditions.

Short trick: Opium of the people = Marx (1844).

Concept: This is Mussolini's famous formula of the fascist totalitarian state: “Everything within the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State.”

1. The statement sums up (reflects) the essence of Fascism – the State is absolute, the individual exists for it.
2. Communism aims at the withering away of the State; Rām Rājya is Gandhi's decentralised moral order.

Short trick: Mussolini's slogan → Fascism.

Concept: Legal equality of women in India flows from the Constitution.

1. Art. 14 (equality before law), Art. 15(1) (no discrimination on grounds of sex), Art. 16 (equal opportunity in public employment), Art. 39(a), (d) (equal livelihood, equal pay).
2. Because the Constitution forbids sex-based discrimination, women legally enjoy equal opportunity – R explains A (special provisions under Art. 15(3) favour women, they do not discriminate against them).

Short trick: Constitutional ban on discrimination → legal equality.

Concept: Feminist theory (Simone de Beauvoir: “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman”; Ann Oakley) distinguishes sex from gender.

1. Gender (masculine/feminine roles, norms) is produced by society and culture – A is true.
2. Sex (male/female) is a biological fact – R is true.
3. But biology does not explain why gender is social; the point of the distinction is that gender is NOT derived from sex – so R does not explain A.

Short trick: Sex = biology, Gender = society; two separate truths.

Concept: Multiculturalism (Taylor, Kymlicka, Parekh) asks for equal recognition of different cultures in one society.

1. Its pillars: equality, tolerance, mutual understanding and respect for diversity.
2. Any option containing intolerance, fear, suspicion or lack of understanding contradicts it.

Short trick: Only the all-positive option fits.

Concept: Match religion to scripture.

1. Christianity – Bible.
2. Sikhism – Guru Granth Sahib.
3. Jainism – Āgama sūtras.
4. Zoroastrianism (Parsi) – Avesta.

Short trick: a-III, b-II, c-IV, d-I.

Concept: Vivekananda: “Religion is not in doctrines, in dogmas, nor in intellectual argumentation; it is being and becoming, it is realisation.”

1. For him religion is the manifestation of the divinity already in man – direct experience, not belief or theology.
2. Related sayings: “Religion is realisation”; “Each soul is potentially divine.”

Short trick: Vivekananda: Religion = Realisation.

Concept: In Nyāya a valid hetu (middle term) has five marks: pakṣadharmatā, sapakṣa-sattva, vipakṣa-asattva, abādhita-viṣayatva and asat-pratipakṣatva.

1. (B) Pakṣadharmatā – presence in the subject – is a mark.
2. (C) Sapakṣasattva – presence in homologous instances – is a mark.
3. (A) Bādhitā – being contradicted – is not a mark; it is the fallacy (hetvābhāsa) ‘bādhita’. The mark is a-bādhita.
4. (D) Vipakṣasattva, as printed, means ‘presence in heterologous instances’ – that too is not a mark; the mark is vipakṣa-asattva (absence from the vipakṣa), and presence in the vipakṣa makes the hetu fallacious (savyabhicāra).
5. So, as printed, both (A) and (D) are ‘not characteristics’ – two correct options, so the question is treated as a bonus.

Short trick: Watch the negative prefix – the marks are vipakṣa-a-sattva and a-bādhita.

Concept: Nirvāṇa literally means ‘blowing out’ (like a lamp) – of the fires of craving (tṛṣṇā), hatred and delusion.

1. It is the third noble truth – duḥkha-nirodha (cessation of suffering).
2. It can be attained in this life (Buddha lived 45 years after enlightenment), so it is not death or negation of life.

Short trick: Nirvāṇa = extinguishing craving = cessation of suffering.