Philosophy · AQA 7172 · 17 units

Intervention

One page per unit. Place yourself by the level your last two timed answers reached, then work the four moves of your tier: a 12- and 25-mark question answered at four levels side by side, with the difference annotated; a drill for each move; Coach Owl on every written answer; the six-week cycle. Each page links back to its unit page and on to Your Companion, where you re-tick what you understand and write your next move. Nothing you write leaves your device.

Bridge · E–D → CSay it precisely · One point, all the way · Answer the question asked · Always take a side.
Build · C → BDevelop, don't list · Scholars as evidence, not decoration · Counter, then reply · A conclusion that follows.
Summit · B → A / A*Thesis and criterion from line one · The strongest form of both sides · Concede and limit · A verdict that survives its best objection.

Epistemology

4 units · each with a 12- and 25-mark ladder.

Year 12

The definition of knowledge

Explain one of Gettier's original counter examples and explain how the addition of a 'no false lemmas' condition responds to it.

Is there a successful way in which propositional knowledge can be defined?

Bridge · Build · Summit ↗Year 12

Perception as a source of knowledge

Outline how indirect realism leads to scepticism about the existence of mind-independent objects and explain Locke's response based on the involuntary nature of our experience.

How convincing is direct realism?

Bridge · Build · Summit ↗Year 12

Reason as a source of knowledge

Explain Leibniz's innatism and one of Locke's arguments against this position.

To what extent is Descartes' intuition and deduction thesis successful?

Bridge · Build · Summit ↗Year 12

The limits of knowledge

Outline philosophical scepticism and explain how reliabilism responds to it.

Are the claims of philosophical scepticism true?

Bridge · Build · Summit ↗

Moral Philosophy

3 units · each with a 12- and 25-mark ladder.

Year 12

Utilitarianism

Explain Bentham's utilitarianism and explain how Nozick's experience machine challenges this view.

Can utilitarianism be successfully defended?

Bridge · Build · Summit ↗Year 12

Kantian deontological ethics

Explain Kant's first formulation of the categorical imperative and explain the issue that not all universalisable maxims are distinctly moral.

To what extent can Kantian deontological ethics be defended?

Bridge · Build · Summit ↗Year 12

Aristotelian virtue ethics

Explain Aristotle's view on how we develop moral character and how this is challenged by the issue of circularity in his definition of 'virtuous acts'.

Is Aristotelian virtue ethics the correct normative ethical view?

Bridge · Build · Summit ↗

Metaphysics of God

5 units · each with a 12- and 25-mark ladder.

Year 12

The concept and nature of God

Outline what it means to say that God is supremely good (omnibenevolent) and explain how the Euthyphro dilemma challenges this attribute.

Is the concept of 'God' incoherent?

Bridge · Build · Summit ↗Year 12

Arguments for the existence of God

Explain the Kalām argument and explain the issue of the possibility of an infinite series.

Can the ontological argument be successfully defended?

Bridge · Build · Summit ↗

The design argument

Explain the design argument as presented by Hume and his objection that it fails as an argument from a unique case.

How successful is the design argument for the existence of God?

Bridge · Build · Summit ↗Year 12

The problem of evil

Outline the logical problem of evil and explain the Free Will Defence.

Does the existence of evil disprove the existence of God?

Bridge · Build · Summit ↗Year 12

Religious language

Explain Flew's view on religious language and explain how Hare responds to this using the notion of a 'blik'.

Can we talk meaningfully about God?

Bridge · Build · Summit ↗

Metaphysics of Mind

4 units · each with a 12- and 25-mark ladder.

Year 13

What do we mean by 'mind'?

Outline what is meant by intentionality and explain why it is thought to pose a problem for a physicalist account of the mind.

Are mental states nothing more than brain states?

Bridge · Build · Summit ↗Year 13

Dualist theories

Explain the 'knowledge/Mary' argument (for property dualism) and the response that Mary gains acquaintance knowledge rather than propositional knowledge.

Can a dualist account of mental states be successfully defended?

Bridge · Build · Summit ↗Year 13

Physicalist theories

Outline mind-brain type identity theory and explain how the issue of multiple realisability challenges this view.

Is philosophical behaviourism correct?

Bridge · Build · Summit ↗Year 13

Functionalism

Outline functionalism and explain the issue of the possibility of a functional duplicate with inverted qualia.

Does functionalism give a convincing account of mental states?

Bridge · Build · Summit ↗

Moral Philosophy — meta-ethics and applied ethics

1 unit · each with a 12- and 25-mark ladder.

Year 13

Meta-ethics

Explain Ayer's emotivism and the issue that Ayer's emotivism cannot account for how we use moral language.

Is moral anti-realism the correct metaethical view?

Bridge · Build · Summit ↗
On paper. Every unit also has three printed editions of the Philosopher Companion — Bridge, Build and Summit — in the department's 06 Intervention folder on SharePoint (Teaching material › 06 Intervention). Ask your teacher for the edition of your tier.