Your first exam will be a mixture of essays of varying length. To help in preparing for it, I have listed below a collection of topics (roughly one per class) on which the test will focus. The actual questions will not ask about these topics directly. They might instead ask you to discuss a quotation relevant to one of the topics or to answer a question concerning one or more of the topics. However, familiarity with the discussions of the topics in Descartes and Leibniz should prepare you to answer these questions. I have suggested some places especially relevant to each topic, but these are not the only places worth looking at.

Descartes

cogito (‘I think’)—Disc. on Meth., pt. 3; 2nd Med.

humans vs. other animals—Disc. on Meth., pt. 5

stages of doubt—1st Med.

thinking substance—2nd Med.

objective reality, formal reality, and the existence of God—3rd Med.

nature of error—4th Med.

God’s essence implies existence—5th Med.

what nature teaches, the existence of extended substance—6th Med.

Leibniz

windowless monads, pre-established harmony—Disc. on Meta., §§8-9, 14-15; Monad., §§1-13, 51, 56, 61

efficient and final causes—Disc. on Meta., §§10, 22; Monad., §§78-81

nominal definition, confused or suppositive knowledge—Disc. on Meta., §§24-25

freedom of the will—Disc. on Meta., §§13, 30-31

insensible perceptions—New Ess., pref., pp. 53-59; Monad., §§14, 20-24

against occult qualities—New Ess., pref., pp. 61, 65f, 67

principle of sufficient reason—Disc. on Meta., §§5-7; Monad., §§32, 36-39, 53-55

hierarchies of monads—Monad., §§62-73