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Edexcel Unit 4 Implications - Philosophy - Ayer

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Oh also i forgot to say that non-contingency also means that something is a necessary being. Humans are contingent; they are "might-not-have-beens" (does that make sense?)

Yes, Aciassa is right. Youre not saying whether one side is right or not, you can just show that there are two sides of the argument.

Attached is my answer to part a) that I did as practice. It got me 24 marks out of 30. The passage given was Ayer's 6th paragraph (starts "For his part, the mystic.....") It took me 50 mins, including 10 mins of planning. And yes, I know I often repeat myself (sometimes in the same sentence), so it's not perfect.

Paper 4 Part A.doc28.2KB

Reply 81

Limey.

From what Sarah Tyler wrote on my classmate's essay, there's nothing wrong with putting criticisms in A as long as you've got enough to put in B! If you use them all up in A and run out of things to say for B, that's when you'll lose marks.

Reply 82

Lu-x

When edexcel use the term analyse, they do not mean argue for or against. They mean explore, investigate, demonstrating A01 skills of appropriately selecting material and using evidence and examples to clarify what Ayer is saying. You can imply weaknesses, but save it to (b) where you will get marked on your A02 skills for arguing for and against.

Reply 83

marksykid

reading your practise essays, i think i've been taught alot differently to you! for part b) i have been taught to write it
introduction
on the one hand
on the other hand.. then state the implications within those sections..
then conclude (obviously)

is that completely wrong?

Reply 84

Amzzzz

No...thats fine...thats just a simplistic model of what everyone else is doing. But try and put an implication down for every point you make...so if you state an opinion, say what effect it would have on a certain group of ppl or whatever.

Reply 85

GaryCarter

Wow, I came back expecting maybe one or two posts, instead you've all written pages of work or scanned essays. Brilliant work everyone! :biggrin:

Is everyone entirely focussing on this exam tomorrow? If so there's like 6 of us here so we can easily tear through Ayer and Donovan completely if anyone wants to. :smile:

Reply 86

Limey.

GaryCarter

Wow, I came back expecting maybe one or two posts, instead you've all written pages of work or scanned essays. Brilliant work everyone! :biggrin:

Is everyone entirely focussing on this exam tomorrow? If so there's like 6 of us here so we can easily tear through Ayer and Donovan completely if anyone wants to. :smile:

I'll be looking at this entirely. It's my only real exam left, just General Studies on Tuesday otherwise. That sounds brilliant if everybody else will be about!

Reply 87

GaryCarter

Hell yeah I'll be about, I'm getting so worried about this exam I can't really focus on anything else right now. I'm just reading through Biscuit's essay and it seems so advanced. :frown:

I've just realised, everyone's marks for these essays are really high, but does anyone know where they lost their marks?

Reply 88

Waterish

GaryCarter

I've just realised, everyone's marks for these essays are really high, but does anyone know where they lost their marks?

I probably lost marks for not linking my answer to human experience enough, at a guess. Any tips on how to do this?

Well i have work at 6, so from 5:45 onwards or so i wont be here. Until about 10.45-11 that is. Therefore could we make a start on Donovan? He's the one i'm least sure on, since i've got the model answer on Westphal and i did an essay on Ayer. I know that sounds selfish but....

:smile:

Reply 89

GaryCarter

lol I'm perfectly fine to do Donovan, I haven't even read the extract yet so it's not like I'm comfortable with him. :smile:

Reply 90

Limey.

GaryCarter

lol I'm perfectly fine to do Donovan, I haven't even read the extract yet so it's not like I'm comfortable with him. :smile:

Me neither! I tried earlier, got to about page 3 and gave up. I, for one, think I've got enough on Ayer to keep me going from this thread, it's been fantastic. Maybe we should have a good look at Donovan and then briefly go over both of them again once we're done :smile:

Reply 91

abigibl

You guys have done an amazing job. I was wondering if anybody had any more context on the last paragraph, as all i have at the moments is that Ayer is somewhat pushing the topic onto psychoanalysts, as he's more concerned with language, does anyone have how this links into knowledge?

I am a bit 'eek' as i conveniently lost all my notes on unit 4 a couple of weeks ago, and no matter how good a classmates are, they're never the same as your own!

Reply 92

GaryCarter

Well despite what people are saying, I still think that part A isn't all that complicated. For me it really is going to be a case of a short paragraph on what he's saying, then a load of paragraphs on identifying the key terms of the passage and explaining why Ayer uses them. Since he mentions proof or meaningfulness in pretty much every paragraph I'm planning on talking a bit about analytical and synthetic statements, then move to verification, then empiricism (all with examples and why they're relevant). And for religious experience you list the types of them and qualities, move to ineffability and then tie it in briefly with the verification. I'd also talk a bit about transcendence, and what people believe about God. There's no way I'd be able to talk about that all in 30 mins, so as far as I see it must be enough. :smile:

Reply 93

Waterish

abigibl

I think there's quite a lot you could say in the last paragraph. Since he mentions psychoanalysis, an obvious reference to make is that of Freud. Say what he thought about religion and show how it's similar to what Ayer is saying.

You could discuss theories on moral knowledge, eg how it is obtained. There's lots on this, such as Intuitionism, Naturalism and Aquinas' Natural Moral Law, or even Aristotle's Virtue Theory and concept of the Forms. As well as this, Donovan and H.P. Owen talk about intuitive knowledge of God, so you could tie that in.

Russell talked about how "there is no difference between the man who drinks much and sees snakes and the man who eats little and sees God" (that's not the exact phrase, but examiners will be fine if you write that, since it's basically right). This can be linked to the bit where Ayer says how believers deceive themselves if they can't provide empirical evidence, and that he feels it's all in the mind.

At the end Ayer talks about how, if one could empirically prove religion, then it would be a matter of science. This enables you to bring in Dawkins and his ideas (he thinks you should be able to prove religion scientifically, as otherwise it's all just memes, etc)

Lol now that i've written all this, i'm kind of hoping the last paragraph comes up :P That seems unlikely though :frown:

When linking all this to human experience, one could say how Ayer suggests religious experience & language are meaningless, and this means that, if we take him to be correct, we need to find new ways of proving God's existence (i think). Also, mention the implications of this stance on the world of belief, eg how would believers be affected now that their experiences are said to be meaningless, etc. Again, not sure how correct the ideas in this paragraph are :P Can someone tell me if i'm on the right track regarding the implications?

Also, don't forget Ayer was a proponent of emotivism, so this can be included in various places too.

Donovan seemed to spend ages and ages talking, but didn't seem to reach a conclusion. When we finished reading it in class, me and my friend looked at each other and just sort of went "oh." We were expecting a more interesting finalé, but it kind of finishes with a quiet squeak :/

Reply 94

Lu-x

Waterish

When we finished reading it in class, me and my friend looked at each other and just sort of went "oh."

lolz

Reply 95

GaryCarter

Waterish

(Lots and lots and lots of intellectual stuff)

Gah, you're horribly well informed Waterish. If I knew even half of what you've written I wouldn't be bothering to revise this now, that's for sure. Really, if you don't get an A it'll be a cold day in Hell.

Reply 96

Amzzzz

Hey, sorry been gone for a while..but wow good stuff.

Waterish, any chance you could just explain the dawkins memes thing? We havent been taught that but i think Dawkins is great to include in an essay coz he's so controversial and provokes so much debate. Thank you :smile:

Reply 97

abigibl

Did you guys do ethics then? (you seem to know a lot for the last para). Needless to say St Johns gospel doesn't really help for these passages! :s-smilie:

Waterish

We were expecting a more interesting finalé, but it kind of finishes with a quiet squeak :/

I know exactly what you mean. He weighs everything up, provides a really interesting debate (even if i don't quite follow it sometimes), and then backs out of concluding anything.

Reply 98

GaryCarter

I'd add to that, could you breifly explain emotivism? Never heard of that before.

Reply 99

Waterish

GaryCarter

Thank you for the kind words :smile:

But it's not as hard as it sounds, just look for key words in the passages. For instance, like i showed previously, "moral knowledge" has absolutely loads you can write about, and as long as you do things like that and link it all back to Ayer it'll get you lots of marks (hopefully).

Another top tip of mine: use "one" instead of "you" or "i". It sounds too simple, but i think it has a big effect. For instance, "one can observe that x" sounds so much more intellectual than "you can see that x". The formality of it always seems to impress examiners and really makes it sound like you know what you're talking about (even if you don't :P) For instance, in the history exam i just made up a statistic (well, i was very vague about it anyway - i said something like "It can be observed that Witte increased the amount of railway lines from 17,000 miles to over 3 times this amount in just over 10 years. He could have increased it to 100,000 miles in 15 years, but that's over 3 times and over 10 years, right?), but surrounded it in complex-sounding words and "one" in the preceding and following sentences, so hopefully the examiner is more likely to believe me than if i just used more plain language :P The examiner can't know if everything you say is correct, so using "one" and other such words gives an air of authority about your work. As long as you're pretty close when it comes to quoting someone and use good language, you'll be fine.

Yes i did do ethics :P

Dawkins' idea of memes is basically this: he says that ideas such as religious concepts are passed between people by memes, which, he says, are a bit like genes. The main strength of this is that it's observable: quite often parents pass religious ideas on to their children; indeed, that's a key tenet of many religions. Like most of Dawkins' stuff, however, it is fraught with weaknesses. It's a very poor analogy, since genes can't change, but ideas and beliefs do all the time. Memes cannot be scientifically proven either, which, for Dawkins - a scientist - is very poor. Memes are also self-defeating according to Melvin Tinker, since all ideas are memes - even a meme is a meme!

Emotivism will take a bit longer to explain. Read this if you want to know about it in depth. I'll sum it up.

Basically Ayer says that moral judgements can't be verified synthetically or analytically, so we need another way. His way is emotivism, whereby we rely on our emotions to tell us what is right or wrong. If we see something we like, we go "hurrah!", and if we see something we dislike, we go "boo!" Thus it is commonly referred to as the "hurrah/boo" theory. Stevenson refined it, since Ayer had no way of satisfactorily explaining why two people may disagree. Stevenson said it was due to deeply held beliefs.

Now for some strengths and weaknesses :smile:

Ayer's idea means we need solid evidence for moral statements, since all religious ideas pertaining to morality are unprovable. Yet for some (eg Hick (i think)), we can verify certain religious proofs such as miracles or design in nature, yet we can't objectively verify someone else's emotions, and thus the whole basis for emotivism is cast into doubt.

Since emotivism is relatively new, one could argue that is able to replace the religious basis for moral decision-making, which for many is outdated. Many people, however, need objective rules; indeed the justice system relies on this. Emotivism is a relatively simple concept, and for many simply relying on one's emotions for guidance is not enough, whereas the established rules of religion may provide better support.

Emotivists do not, however, have to worry about the baggage that comes with religious morality: a believer may have to refer to various religious books and teachings for guidance, whereas an emotivist can simply follow their emotions. Stevenson proposed that emotive decisions are often based on our up-bringing, but for many this contained a strong element of religion. Thus for followers of Stevenson, it may be inescapable that religion can play a part in emotive decision-making, thus weakening the premise that emotivism is an alternative to religious morality.

Stevenson's theory does, however, provide a more rounded account of how we make decisions than Ayer's proposals. Yet if one is mentally ill, or was brought up badly, according to Stevenson the beliefs gained from such experiences have a large part in forming the decision-making process. This is a very unattractive idea, and may lead some to conclude that emotivism is not applicable to all. Without being universal, it loses much of it's impact.

Ok, after my mini-essay, i hope you understand emotivism a bit better :smile: