Prominent Philosophers’ GRE Essay Prompts

Camus

Earlier today (or maybe yesterday; I can’t be sure), the following appeared in a letter to the editor of the Alger Républicain. “In Paris, streetcars are often used as an efficient means of transportation. However, city officials have become concerned that streetcars are polluting an otherwise clean city with their Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday and Saturday according to the same rhythm. A small group of officials have proposed that, instead of streetcars, citizens walk the paved cities alone, so that the amazed weariness of the world may strike each man in the face with the feeling of absurdity. Others are concerned that without streetcars, people will not be able to reach their destinations on time — but the officials have countered that all time is a destination, and that a determined soul will always manage anyway.”

Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation is likely to have the predicted result. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions determine whether you can live with what you know and with that alone.

Sartre

Hell is other test-takers.

Respond. Your response will exist. It will be there, so there, and so light. And then your test score: it will seem as though it falls through the ceiling. It will move.

Beauvoir

Claim: One is not born a test-taker, but becomes one.

Reason: Everything we are is the result of our choices, our feelings, and our student debt.

Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the claim and the reason on which that claim is based. Remember that everything you write will be rendered an object to the male gaze.

Foucault

There are no instructions, for instructions are the very things that dominate and exploit us.

Plato

(PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE: SOCRATES; MELO; TEST-TAKER. Scene: In a testing center, under the halogen lights.)

SOCRATES: My dear Melo whence come you, and wither are you going?

MELO: I come from Teros the son of Idorus, and I am going to take a walk outside the wall, for I have been sitting the whole morning and it is pleasant to walk awhile.

SOCRATES: There I agree with you.

MELO: Have you traveled far, Socrates?

SOCRATES: For many miles, and for many mornings I have traveled.

MELO: Then you are weary and wish to stop a while?

SOCRATES: I am.

MELO: Then let us sit.

SOCRATES: I’ve a question for you, Melo.

MELO: You know me as well as you know yourself, Socrates, and know that I would be pleased and honored to answer.

SOCRATES: We sit upon the spot where, Orithyia, playing with Pharmacia, was carried off by a northern gust of wind over the neighboring rocks. Thus was the manner of her death. But the wise are doubtful of this story, and I should not be singular if, like them, I too doubted. It seems instead that Orithyia, being alone and of admirable qualities as a woman, was sighted by a young king and borne away with him to other lands. Ponder, Melo, the truth of the story and the truth of similar stories that bear upon them the stain of myth our elders wield to steady the inquiries of the masses.

MELO: I too have noticed this.

SOCRATES: Then write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with this use of truth. In writing your response, consider the nature of truth and whether it is fixed, and whether the use of truth changes the nature of what we see as true.

MELO: By all means, Socrates.

Locke

Claim.

Reason.

Write a response.

Marx

A recent study indicates that production by the proletariat across Europe has increased by 30 percent during the past five years. Moreover, the majority of families across Europe are proletariat families, and an international study has shown that such families are able to eat significantly fewer meals than they did a decade ago but at the same time express more concern about whether a small segment of the population is oppressing the working classes in an effort to exploit their means of production and keep them enslaved such that the upper classes reproduce the pattern of oppression that has kept the working class in chains since the beginnings of capitalism. Therefore, it is high time that Communists should, openly, publish their views, their aims, and their tendencies, and meet the nursery tale of the spectre of Communism with a manifesto of the party itself.

Write a response openly, in the face of the whole world, and discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate this argument, as well as how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.

Nietzsche











Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with this claim.