UPHESC Assistant Professor Philosophy 2025 PYQs

Concept: Paramahansa Yogananda (Autobiography of a Yogi) spread Kriyā Yoga in the West through the Self-Realization Fellowship (1920).

1. Lineage: Mahāvatār Bābājī → Lāhirī Mahāśaya (Shyama Charan Lahiri) → Sri Yukteswar → Yogananda.

Short trick: Yogananda = Kriyā Yoga = SRF.

Concept: Prāṇāyāma, the fourth limb of Patañjali's aṣṭāṅga yoga, is regulation of breath.

1. Yoga Sūtra 2.49: gati-viccheda of śvāsa and praśvāsa (inhalation and exhalation).
2. Yama – restraints; Niyama – observances; Pratyāhāra – withdrawal of senses.

Short trick: Prāṇa (breath) + āyāma (control).

Concept: Applied ethics discusses concrete moral questions (abortion, euthanasia, environment etc.).

1. Early applied ethics (e.g. Peter Singer) was largely utilitarian; the broader view goes beyond utilitarianism and tentatively accepts non-utilitarian ideals/rules (rights, duties, justice) as working principles to decide practical issues.
2. Metaethics studies the meaning and status of moral terms; normative ethics builds general theories of right and good – neither ‘discusses ethical questions’ with provisional principles in this way.

Short trick: Practical questions + provisionally accepted principles → Applied ethics.

Concept: Aristotle founded the Lyceum in Athens (c. 335 BC); his followers were called Peripatetics.

1. Plato founded the Academy; Pythagoras a brotherhood at Croton; Socrates founded no school.

Short trick: Academy – Plato; Lyceum – Aristotle.

Concept: Zeno of Elea (disciple of Parmenides) argued against motion through paradoxes.

1. The Arrow: at every instant the flying arrow occupies a space equal to itself, so it is at rest; time is made of instants, so it never moves.
2. Others: Achilles and the tortoise, Dichotomy, Stadium.

Short trick: Arrow, Achilles, Dichotomy, Stadium = Zeno.

Concept: Order of early Greek thinkers.

1. Thales (c. 624–546 BC) – water.
2. Anaximander (c. 610–546 BC), his pupil – the Apeiron (boundless).
3. Anaximenes (c. 586–526 BC) – air.
4. Pythagoras (c. 570–495 BC) – number; flourished after the Milesians.

Short trick: Milesians T-A-A (Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes) then Pythagoras.

Concept: A well-known saying of Paramahansa Yogananda: “Everything else can wait, but your search for God cannot wait.”

1. He taught that God-realisation through Kriyā Yoga meditation is the first duty of life.
2. Krishnamurti rejected the search for God through any method or authority.

Short trick: Yogananda – God first.

Concept: Ancient Greek atomism was founded by Leucippus and developed by his pupil Democritus (5th c. BC).

1. Reality = indivisible atoms (atomos) moving in the void; differences in shape, size, position.
2. Thales – water; Pythagoras – number.

Short trick: L & D = atoms + void.

Concept: The ten great precepts (yamas and niyamas of Patañjali, five each) are the ethical basis of yoga.

1. Yamas: ahiṁsā, satya, asteya, brahmacarya, aparigraha.
2. Niyamas: śauca, santoṣa, tapas, svādhyāya, īśvara-praṇidhāna.
3. Truth, non-violence and tapas are among the ten; ‘Niyama’ is the name of a group, not one of the ten precepts.

Short trick: 5 yama + 5 niyama = 10; ‘niyama’ itself is a heading.

Concept: Mīmāṁsā explains how a sacrifice performed now yields fruit later through apūrva – an unseen potency produced by the ritual act.

1. Mīmāṁsā does not need God to dispense the fruits of karma – apūrva links act and result.
2. Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika use adṛṣṭa guided by God for a similar role.

Short trick: Apūrva = unseen force of Vedic ritual (Mīmāṁsā).

Concept: Yoga Sūtra 1.6 lists five vṛttis: pramāṇa, viparyaya, vikalpa, nidrā, smṛti.

1. Kṣipta (restless) is one of the five citta-bhūmis (levels of mind): kṣipta, mūḍha, vikṣipta, ekāgra, niruddha.
2. So kṣipta is a state of mind, not a vṛtti.

Short trick: Vṛttis: PVV-NS; Bhūmis: K-M-V-E-N.

Concept: Sri Aurobindo's evolution has a triple process.

1. Widening – the new principle extends its field.
2. Heightening – ascent to a higher grade of consciousness.
3. Integration – the higher takes up and transforms the lower levels.
4. Deepening is not one of the three.

Short trick: Aurobindo: Widen, Heighten, Integrate (W-H-I).

Concept: Samprajñāta (cognitive) samādhi has four stages (YS 1.17): vitarka, vicāra, ānanda, asmitā.

1. Asamprajñāta samādhi is of two kinds (YS 1.19–20): bhava-pratyaya and upāya-pratyaya.
2. So upāya-pratyaya belongs to asamprajñāta, not samprajñāta.

Short trick: Samprajñāta: Vi-Vi-Ā-A; Asamprajñāta: Bhava/Upāya pratyaya.

Concept: Pratyāhāra, the fifth limb, is withdrawal of the senses from their objects (YS 2.54).

1. The senses follow the inward-turned mind instead of running outward.
2. Dhāraṇā – fixing the mind; Dhyāna – continuous flow of awareness; Prāṇāyāma – breath control.

Short trick: Prati (back) + āhāra (taking in) = turning senses inward.

Concept: Integral Yoga (Pūrṇa Yoga) is Sri Aurobindo's system (The Synthesis of Yoga).

1. It aims not at escape from life but at transformation of the whole being through the Supermind.
2. Lahiri Mahāśaya and Yogananda are associated with Kriyā Yoga; Vivekananda with the four yogas (Rāja, Jñāna, Karma, Bhakti).

Short trick: Integral = Pūrṇa = Aurobindo only.

Concept: Ṛta is the cosmic and moral order of the Ṛgveda, guarded by Varuṇa.

1. It governs the regularity of nature and the moral conduct of men; later it develops into the concepts of dharma and karma.
2. Puruṣārtha, varṇa and saṁnyāsa as systems belong to later (Smṛti) thought.

Short trick: Ṛta → Dharma: the Vedic root of ethics.

Concept: Hastings Rashdall (The Theory of Good and Evil) is an ideal utilitarian: the good is not pleasure alone.

1. His highest good includes virtue (the highest element), knowledge, culture (intellectual and aesthetic), and pleasure.
2. Religion is not listed as a separate component.

Short trick: Rashdall: Virtue + Knowledge + Culture + Pleasure.

Concept: A. J. Ayer (Language, Truth and Logic, ch. 6): ethical statements fail the verification principle.

1. They are neither analytic nor empirically verifiable, so they are factually meaningless pseudo-propositions.
2. They merely express emotions (“Stealing is wrong” = “Stealing!!”), hence are neither true nor false.
3. Moore and Sidgwick are cognitivists (intuitionists).

Short trick: Verification principle + ethics = Ayer's emotivism.

Concept: G. E. Moore (Principia Ethica, 1903): ‘good’ is a simple, non-natural, indefinable quality, like ‘yellow’.

1. Any attempt to define good in natural terms (pleasure, evolution) commits the naturalistic fallacy (open-question argument).
2. Good is known by intuition – Moore is not saying it is meaningless (that is Ayer).

Short trick: Moore: Good = simple, indefinable, non-natural.

Concept: This is the second formulation of Kant's categorical imperative (Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, 1785).

1. Rational beings have dignity (intrinsic worth), not price; so they must never be used merely as instruments.
2. Other formulas: universal law; autonomy; kingdom of ends.

Short trick: End-in-itself formula = Kant.