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A2 OCR Philosophy and Ethics 2016

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Reply 40

De Re Publica

Sounds like you did well?!

Reply 41

Amy A x

Original post by Fibsy

Lovely paper :smile:

I did the miracles question and of course discussed Hume and Wiles + Swinburne's criticisms of both of them.
Also did the soul/body question and contrasted Plato's dualism with Aristotle's hylomorphism. For criticisms I discussed Bertrand Russell, and Plato's Parmenides dialogue of self-criticism.

I did the same 2 questions as you 😊 I was really happy with the questions and my body/ soul essay but a little bit worried about the miracles one. I did mention Wiles and the problem of evil but didn't focus on this alot in the essay. Can I still get a good grade? I wrote on Humes philosophical probability argument and problems raised by the contingency definition of miracles as well as some other points. Does this sound ok?

Reply 42

De Re Publica

For question 4, was it enough just to talk about; Plato, Aristotle, Descartes and Descartes evaluated via Gilbert Ryle with a conclusion?

Reply 43

09AmyApril

Original post by topdot12

I did 1 and 3 and thought it went well. But when I finished and spoke to others I think I've done it wrong. For 1- I spoke about verification principle- Ayer, waismann and Wittgenstein and John hick (as a criticism) and had loads of arguments for an against. Question 3- what a conversion experience is, how it's simply product of the mind, Saul paul conversion and whether that could prove God. Then c s Lewis and criticisms such as Starbuck and Freud etc. Really worried because I need a B and got a B last year

Sounds like you've done well best of luck x

Reply 44

topdot12

Original post by 09AmyApril

Sounds like you've done well best of luck x

Really? I shouldn't have read everyone's comments on here it's worried me. Thank you. You too xx

Reply 45

littlechicklet

Original post by De Re Publica

How did people find that??

I think that the paper was really nice! I chose to answer on religous language which was the best question ever and problems with miracles! Overall, feeling positive!

Reply 46

NOP97

I did 'to what extent were philosophical authors successful in arguing religious language was meaningless'. For this question I talked about strong verification, weak verification, falsification (and Hare/Mitchell's response), and Wittgenstein's language games to counter these points.

I also did the 'philosophical problems in believing in miracles'. For this question, I first talked about the definitions of miracles, Hume, Wiles vs Ward, and a little on Polkinghorn.

I reckon it was a good paper. Let's just hope ethics is as good, or even better.

Reply 47

WittyGonStein

I did religious language for the first question and argued that the Verification principle is successful as it can be defended against certain criticisms. The criticisms I used were W. V. Quine of the analytic/synthetic distinction and argued that it could be defended as if we use Wittgenstein's logic from the 'Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus' we can argue that the relations of elementary propositions within other propositions had a truth value depending on their relation to the logical structure of reality. Therefore, the notion of synonymity changes depending on the relations within a certain proposition meaning we can interchangeably use analytic terms in propositions if the relations allowed it (It made more sense in the exam). Then I argued that analytic terms can be argued to be true as they exist within the logical structure of reality and therefore, metaphysical assertions are meaningless as they are not coherent with this structure. I also used Moore but I can't remember how and then I used Brian Davies' criticism that the verification principle and argued against this that it could be weakly verified if we took the term meaningful to mean 'in relation to objective reality'. I then discussed analogy with various criticisms and what-not and argued that it wasn't successful and had been defeated by philosophers in their attempt to show religious language to be meaningless.

Reply 48

WittyGonStein

For miracles, I argued that the issues with believing in miracles was determining the definition firstly, then the idea that they are implausible and finished with the notion that they are inconsistent with an omnibenevolent God. I began by proposing the definition of Hume and defended it against Ward's criticism and then I discussed the contingency definition and how we cannot verify (in relation to Paul Tillich's assertion) that we cannot know whether or not God had intervened. I then took on Hume's definition and proceeded to outline the lack of probability argument, criticised it with Swinburne but defended it by stating that it us unlikely that quantum physics would render miracles possible as miracles depend on human concepts e.g. Jesus making muchas bread, and that subatomic particles moving randomly would not allow this to occur. Then I moved on to the practical arguments and how Hume makes the ad hominem fallacy with the barbarous nations, but defended him by saying the isolated argument could still be criticised. I argued that the inauspicious conditions were impossible to achieve, but it is true that religions cancel each other out. Following this, I argued that belief in miracles (using Wiles) would render God arbitrary and partisan which is not consistent with the omnibenevolence of God and therefore, miracles cannot be true. I defended this by saying a universe with evil is still possible if we use Moore's principle of organic unities as the sum of the value of a complex does not equal the sum of the value of the parts and therefore, there can still be evil things in the universe with a negative value and yet the universe can still be deemed perfect. I used an analogy of body parts in isolation to prove this idea. I then finalised with a conclusion asserting that belief in miracles is problematic because of......
(I also used Spinoza to defend Hume from a theistic perspective as God's will is synonymous with the laws of nature and therefore, he wouldn't go against it)

Reply 49

Akira madams

Original post by 09AmyApril

I found the questions a bit too broad, so much you could speak about but in Order to get marks the selected material will have to have great a01 as well as a02

With the broad questions do you think marks will be lost for just doing one philosopher (Hume for the miracle question) in a load of detail?

Reply 50

09AmyApril

Original post by Akira madams

With the broad questions do you think marks will be lost for just doing one philosopher (Hume for the miracle question) in a load of detail?

I'm sure as long as you've critiqued him well you'll be fine, such a subjective subject you can gain marks through all sorts, think about the good bits you've included don't dwell on what you haven't 😊

Reply 51

Jamyes

i did the questions about miracles and religious language . For religious language i mentioned via negativa then Aquinas' analogy of attribution and proportion then falsification i evaluated all the points but i think i might have chosen to talk about the wrong people. For miracles i spoke about Hume then countered it with what Swinburne said then talked about wiles in great detail and for this i feel like i spoke about the wrong thing as well. the comments of what people did has scares me :frown:

Reply 52

Akira madams

gahh hope so!! onto ethicssss :')

Reply 53

Student_ER

Original post by Fibsy

I know it's risky but I'm leaving out business ethics, sexual ethics and environmental ethics... :s
Also leaving out revelation through scripture, myth and whether or not a good God should reward or punish, but these are just small snippets compared to the chunks of ethics I'm ignoring.