All about A Level Philosophy – course information

What’s A Level Philosophy about?

A Level Philosophy is an introduction to philosophical thinking.  It covers the same areas as would be covered in a typical first-year undergraduate course, but at a gentler pace, giving a good introduction.

Rather than working its way through the history of philosophy, the A level takes a problem-oriented approach.  In each of the areas it looks at, it identifies a few questions of major importance and considers what answers there might be to them.  Major theories and subsidiary questions are also considered, but only as a natural outgrowth of the main investigation.

Philosophy has three main aspects: Metaphysics—the study of what exists; Moral Philosophy—the study of ethics; Epistemology—the study of knowledge.  The syllabus deals with Epistemology and Moral Philosophy in the first year (which has the same content as an AS in Philosophy), and the two main topics of metaphysics - The Metaphysics of Mind and The Metaphysics of God (i.e, the nature of a possible Absolute being) - in the second year. Have a look at the AQA 's specification for more details. It is the only exam board offering the A level.

In Epistemology we consider how to identify knowledge, by what possible routes it might be obtained, and whether we have anything that can truly be called knowledge at all.  Moral Philosophy looks at the three main approaches to ethical decision-making and asks whether any of them is satisfactory.  The Philosophy of Mind section centres on the single question of the relation between the mind and the body (including the brain).  Philosophy of Religion is more diverse, considering arguments to try to prove, and arguments to try to disprove, the existence of a God, and asking whether traditional language about God is philosophically consistent or meaningful.

The syllabus is firmly within an analytic approach to philosophy. That aims at finding out what is true (or at least how far something can be known to be true) rather than using ideas to transform lives, and works by clarity and precision achieved in detailed analysis not broad sweeps of theory.  Arguably this is the best kind of philosophical training to begin with.

What sort of work is involved?

An A Level Philosophy course works mainly by getting you to do a lot of thinking.  There is learning of material, but you are learning new ideas, and to learn a new idea is not just to become acquainted with it and remember it, but to think about it until you truly understand and can employ it.

This goal-driven thinking will typically happen in four or five different ways.  Getting a grasp on what the ideas are at all and their place in the debate will probably happen through listening to an explanation—perhaps in dialogue—and through reading.  Discussion and debate help you clarify and evaluate your grasp of concepts and of arguments (on both sides).  Even more important is the extended period of thinking on your own, in which you go over and over an idea until you have the sort of complete and lucid insight into it that enables effective use of it.  Finally, writing about an idea clarifies your thinking as well as expressing it, forcing you to think how precision can be achieved, and to come to some conclusions about the issues.

What background do I need?

People enjoy philosophy and do well at it from all sorts of backgrounds and mental approaches: arts, maths, humanities,  sciences.  You may love precision; you may love opening up of the mind to see in a different way; you may love constructive arguing; you may love refusing to accept things just because someone tells you/on authority/just because others do.  Any of these can be your entry point into the subject. The abilities and capacities which will serve you best are things like tenacity and clarity of thought, willingness to listen and to try to understand, concentration and focus.

Because philosophy is not a GCSE subject, and because it is not very much like anything else, everyone starts from scratch, so you do not need any particular GCSEs.  Clear expression is essential to Philosophy, so having done well in an essay subject helps.  The ability to be precise is necessary, so doing well in subjects that required exact learning is a good preparation.

Where can it lead?

No degree courses—including Philosophy—specifically require Philosophy A Level.  This is partly because not all schools offer it, partly because it provides little specific knowledge that might be required for something else.  Philosophy is however a very good preparation and training for many other subjects (such as Law), which is why it is on the ‘preferred’ subject lists for many universities.  If you are going to read Philosophy, having done the A Level you might have about a three month advantage over those who have not.

Similarly, as is true for most Arts subjects, Philosophy at university will not lead straight to a particular career (few people are paid to do philosophy!).  It is however a very good signal to employers that you can think well about almost anything, so it can provide entry into a particularly wide range of occupations.

One year course?

Can A level Philosophy be done in one year?  Yes and no.  Under normal circumstances, no, because it is about development of a rather unusual, non-intuitive skill: thinking very precisely and without bias.  For almost everyone this takes time and philosophical interaction and is difficult to speed up.  On the other hand, there are relatively few ‘facts’ to learn in Philosophy and the sections are not prerequisites for one another.  Thus if you have the dedication and the willingness to commit a substantial fraction of your weeks to thinking things through again and again, and you have the ability and natural inclination, then there is nothing structural preventing you from doing well in Philosophy in one year.

Assessment

The assessment is purely by examination.  There are two papers of three hours each (the AS assessment is merely like the first of these papers, with minor adjustments in the weighting of the questions).  Within each paper there are two non-overlapping sections, each one covering one of the four areas of the syllabus (Paper 1, Epistemology and Moral Philosophy; Paper 2, The Metaphysics of God and The Metaphysics of Mind). Each section has five questions with no choice (so you need to know the whole syllabus), and is a graded series of essay questions.  The first four examine knowledge and understanding, building up from mere definitions (which must however be philosophically precise) to longer explanations of ideas and standard arguments.  Finally there is a major argument and evaluation question, where you must debate and decide a philosophical problem, such as ‘Is there anything that we know for certain?’

The wording of questions in the Philosophy exam is straightforward.  If you know and understand the terminology and the concepts you should have no trouble understanding the thrust of the question.  Philosophy examiners have no need to ask tricky questions in order to make the exam hard enough.

Article written by Michael Peat of Ashbourne Independent College