AQA A2 Philosophy(old spec) 17th June

Doing Political and Hume =)
No idea on what's going to come up... anything but liberty and necessity for Hume is fine by me. You feeling confident?

Reply 2

Rhoadissimus

OP

1

Not really, I badly underestimated the amount of time a needed to revise. Consequently, I only started doing practice papers about 3 days ago! Arghh! Oh well, I always end up cramming for some reason or another.

I don't think liberty and necessity will come up as it was the extract on last year's paper. God forbid if it does though! I'm equally not too keen on it. Hume should be ok though, it's the Philosophy of mind I'm worried about. Politics looks much more interesting to me! Just can't seem to get my head round functionalism and epiphenomenalism etc. Here's hoping for substance dualism!

Good luck! :smile:

Reply 3

laughingwithpicasso

Political Philosophy and Aristotle.

Reply 4

I'm doing Political Philosophy and Mill.

Reply 5

username233397

Sorry...Alright...Well...

I'm doing Political Philosophy and Mill.

Same... got any tips? LOL!
As in, which topics are you revising on mill? Im hoping for one on his harm principle.

Reply 6

What you guys thinking is going to come up for political? I'm just hoping the b) question is something about the state or an ideology. As long as it's not law.

Reply 7

AlexCisneros

Same... got any tips? LOL!
As in, which topics are you revising on mill? Im hoping for one on his harm principle.

For Mill, I'm going to revise everything as it's pretty straightforward. However, I'm going to have to blag Political Philosophy as I don't know anything...

Reply 8

penny_wishes

Philosophy of Mind and Mill, although I wish I was doing political because of how much we've looked at it this year!
Not a clue how I'm going to revise it all in time... :s-smilie:

Reply 9

Aesop

What you guys thinking is going to come up for political? I'm just hoping the b) question is something about the state or an ideology. As long as it's not law.

Have there ever been any b) questions on ideology? I know they come into it, but I'd love a question stating ideology explicitly. I know that the a) questions usually ask for two features of an ideology, which I would love, but that's not likely seeing as they asked about socialism last year :frown:

Reply 10

Synth

Politics and Ari for me! reasonably stressed and I have lost my best set of notes... ARGH!

Reply 11

Synth

Sorry...Alright...Well...

Have there ever been any b) questions on ideology? I know they come into it, but I'd love a question stating ideology explicitly. I know that the a) questions usually ask for two features of an ideology, which I would love, but that's not likely seeing as they asked about socialism last year :frown:

Assess the view that liberalism attaches too much importance to individual freedom at the expense of other values.

that is the only question ever which has stated a specific ideology according to my list of past exam questions. (AQA that is)

Reply 12

ThatKat!

I'm doing J.S Mill and political philosophy. I think on the Mill paper it will probably be The tyranny of the majority and the Harm principle.
I'm getting more stressed about the political philosophy paper, any ideas what will come up?

Reply 13

overhung

7

It was the harm principle last year so I doubt it.

Punishment could be a possibility for political philosophy though.

Reply 14

overhung

It was the harm principle last year so I doubt it.

Punishment could be a possibility for political philosophy though.

Punishment would be interesting.

I didn't realise about the ideologies not coming up for part b), I really should look at some exam papers. I'm totally hoping to blag this exam with my reading, and blag Hume since it was my synoptic. Come to think of it... doesn't sound like a great strategy.

What would people write about for punishment? Justification in forms of (side constrained) consequentialist and retributivism theory? Do you think it's worth knowing any theories of abolitionism? I have learnt nearly my entire A2 just using stanford's website... lol.

Reply 15

Rainbow_Magpie

Doing Philo of mind and AJ Ayer, think phenomenalism and something on ethics or religion will come up. Not sure about mind, hopefully not property dualism though...

Reply 16

Aesop

What would people write about for punishment? Justification in forms of (side constrained) consequentialist and retributivism theory? Do you think it's worth knowing any theories of abolitionism? I have learnt nearly my entire A2 just using stanford's website... lol.

I don't even understand what you just said.

I think I'll skip punishment :biggrin:

Reply 17

Sorry...Alright...Well...

I don't even understand what you just said.

I think I'll skip punishment :biggrin:

hehe I've just been reading up here: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/legal-punishment/ , this page is quite accessible but some parts went right over my head.

Basically I think I'd argue for some form of side-constrained consequentialist justification of punishment. To me, this means that punishment is justified in terms of it's deterrence, protection, rehibilitation method because of it's consequences (less crime?). Basically, implementing these methods in the form of punishment prevents more crime (hence consequentialist, justified by the consequences). There needs to be side-constraints on the justification to prevent any case of unjust punishment: theoretically, I may punish an innocent and still deter others from doing it, so there's obviously a problem there. So there needs to be some kind of constraint that also implements a sense of justice (I'd perhaps suggest some kind of Rawlsian principle of equal liberties; a liberty to be free of prosecution or w/e). This way we've got a kind of utilitarian justification (less crime = more love) aswell as acknowledging some kind of justice that isn't purely consequentialist.

Don't even know if that made sense.

Reply 18