The PhD Comprehensive Examination is organized by the Director of the Center or his or her appointee.

The PhD Comprehensive consists of two parts: a twelve-hour written examination, divided into two parts: six hours on ancient and medieval philosophy, six hours on early modern, late modern, and recent Thomistic materials. The candidate will take the written examination on two or three different days within two weeks of each other.

For the written examination questions will be solicited from all faculty in the Center. At least two faculty members must grade each question. In consultation with a senior member of the Center, the Director will average the grades on the written test. The student must pass the written test with a minimum grade of “B”, to proceed to the oral examination. If the written exam is failed it may be retaken once, and must be retaken within a period of one year from the date of the original exam.

The oral examination lasts one hour and must be taken within two weeks of the last part of the written examination. The oral examination is set by three faculty examiners chosen by the Director. A grade for the oral examination is determined by the three examiners. If the candidate passes the oral with a minimum grade of “B”, the two grades on written and oral are compared by the three examiners and then, by vote, they determine an overall grade for the PhD Comprehensive Examination. If the oral examination is failed, it must be retaken within one year.

• Plato (2 of whose works must be chosen, the Republic being mandatory), Republic; and Symposium or Parmenides or Timaeus
• Aristotle (3 of whose works must be chosen, a choice between the Nicomachean Ethics and Politics for one of the works being mandatory), Posterior Analytics, Physics, On the Soul, Metaphysics; and Nicomachean Ethics or Politics
• Plotinus, Enneads (selections)
• Proclus, Elements of Theology

Medieval/Latin Philosophy (6 works must be chosen)

• Augustine (1 of whose works must be chosen), Confessions or City of God 
• Aquinas (3 of whose works must be chosen): Metaphysics: De ente et essentia and Summa theologiae Ia, qq. 1-7, 12-13, 44-46; or Commentary on Metaphysics (selections); Person: Summa theologiae Ia, qq.75-87; or Commentary on De anima (selections); Ethics: Summa theologiae Ia-IIae, qq. 1-5, 55-67, 90-100; or Commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics (selections) 
•  (2 works must be chosen from the following menu of options) 
• Bonaventure, Journey of the Mind to God 
• Scotus, Questions on the Prologue to the Ordinatio 
• Ockham, Philosophical Writings 
• Cajetan, The Analogy of Names 
• Suarez, Metaphysical Disputations (selections) 
• Poinsot, Treatise on Signs or De primo cognito

Early Modern Philosophy (5 authors must be chosen, one must be Kant)

• Descartes, Meditations 
• Spinoza, Ethics I,II 
• Leibniz, Monadology or New Essays Concerning Human Understanding 
• Hobbes, Leviathan (selections) 
• Locke, Second Treatise on Government or Essay Concerning Human Understanding (selections)
• Berkeley, Three Dialogues 
• Hume, Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding or Enquiry Concerning The Principles of Morals or Dialogue on Natural Religion 
• Kant, Prolegomenon to Any Future Metaphysics or Grounding of the Metaphysics of Morals or one of the three Critiques

Late Modern Philosophy (4 works must be chosen, 2 from A and 2 from B)

A.

• Hegel, Philosophy of Right or Phenomenology of Spirit 
• Nietzsche, The Genealogy of Morals 
• Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling or Either/Or 
• Heidegger, Basic Problems of Phenomenology or Being and Time or On the Essence of Truth 
• Husserl, Logical Investigations or Cartesian Meditations

B. 

• Peirce, “A New List of Categories” and “A Neglected Argument for the Existence of God” 
• Frege,“Sense and Reference”; Strawson, “On Referring”; and Russell, “The Theory of Descriptions” 
• Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus or Philosophical Investigations, Part I. 
• Kripke, Naming and Necessity and Identity and Necessity

Recent Thomistic Philosophy (3 authors must be chosen, 2 of which must be Maritain and Gilson)

• Maritain, The Degrees of Knowledge or Moral Philosophy or Preface to Metaphysics and Nine Lectures on Ethics and Existence and the Existent 
• Gilson, The Unity of Philosophical Experience or Being and Some Philosophers 
• Lonergan, Insight or Verbum 
• MacIntyre, After Virtue or Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry 
• McInerny, Aquinas on Analogy 
• Rahner, Spirit in the World 
• Simon, The Tradition of Natural Law or Freedom of Choice or The Great Dialogue of Nature and Space 
• Anscombe and Geach, Three Philosophers