Edexcel A2 Philosophy and Ethics, UNIT4: Implications

Not sure if you guys have come across this, it's probably been mentioned in your lessons, but I've found this website really useful.

http://intranet.wellingtoncollege.org.uk/philosophy-and-religion/a2-religious-studies/a2-implications-paper

Puts the text in plain english and things you should write about if that paragraph came up in the exam.

Wellington College have been saving my A level this year! :biggrin:

Reply 21

Spectrum~

Original post by jbrown42

Not sure if you guys have come across this, it's probably been mentioned in your lessons, but I've found this website really useful.

http://intranet.wellingtoncollege.org.uk/philosophy-and-religion/a2-religious-studies/a2-implications-paper

Puts the text in plain english and things you should write about if that paragraph came up in the exam.

Hadn't come across this, thank you very much! :smile:

Reply 22

diamonddust

15

Original post by monkeyonthelake

Wellington College have been saving my A level this year! :biggrin:

Haha, I'd say the same but I STILL don't understand how to answer the damn question! It's not even that I don't understand the essays, it's just my teacher keeps telling me to use examples and I don't know how I'm supposed to use an example when I'm defining a phrase!

Reply 23

jbrown42

1

Original post by diamonddust

Haha, I'd say the same but I STILL don't understand how to answer the damn question! It's not even that I don't understand the essays, it's just my teacher keeps telling me to use examples and I don't know how I'm supposed to use an example when I'm defining a phrase!

Which text are you struggling with? Or just all of them. Westphal is slowly starting to make sense, and I'm fine with Ayer and Donovan.

Reply 24

monkeyonthelake

Original post by diamonddust

Haha, I'd say the same but I STILL don't understand how to answer the damn question! It's not even that I don't understand the essays, it's just my teacher keeps telling me to use examples and I don't know how I'm supposed to use an example when I'm defining a phrase!

I came up with this idea of approaching the questions in a different thread and I don't know if it will help but here is the link to the post and a good reply:

http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showpost.php?p=31997632&postcount=44

Any good?

Reply 25

cearajade

Does anyone have sarah tyler as a teacher, i think she's an examiner too? :smile:

Reply 26

cearajade

anyone know whats coming up? in my class we've done ayer, donovan + westphal.

Reply 27

diamonddust

15

Original post by jbrown42

Which text are you struggling with? Or just all of them. Westphal is slowly starting to make sense, and I'm fine with Ayer and Donovan.

It's not really any particular text. I mean, I understand Ayer and Donovan and like you, I'm slowly getting there with Westphal but I just don't know how to answer the question. I understand the arguments and I can explain the key quotes and I understand where Ayer fits into the Development topics. My teacher keeps saying I don't use examples and that's what's going to stop me from getting an A. I don't know what examples I'm supposed to use!

Here's part of my truly atrocious essay that I did in class today. I have a structure my teacher gave me and everything! I just can't do this. :sigh:

This is an excerpt from the middle of the essay which I didn't finish based on Ayer's 2nd paragraph. This is supposed to be clarification but I'm just confused as to what I actually have to do. I apologise for the clumsy wording at times and the repitition. I feel like I'm repeating myself. I hate A01. At least with AO2 you get to evaluate. This is just boring. God is transcendent. His existance cannot be verified in any way, unless God verifies his own existance (Keith Ward) but as this is not the case, any language describing God is meaningless as God is a metaphysical concept and it is pointless to speak of the metaphysical as AGAIN, the metaphysical cannot be proved to exist. Why do we talk about God? Why did Ayer even write this essay? WHY DID I TAKE RS??? Yeah, this essay excerpt is a pile of doo doo and I don't even care!

When Ayer references 'this view of religious assertations', he is referring to the idea in the previous paragraph where he stated 'no sentence which purports to describe the nature of a transcendent god can possess any literal significance'. This view of 'literal significance' is, in other words stating that no statements made about God can have any meaning in everyday language. For example, a person stating that 'God exists' is saying absolutely nothing of significance according to Ayer as, as previously stated, language pertaining to God is meaningless as it cannot be verified. In the same way, the 'religious assertations' Ayer refers to are statements made about religion or God usually made by a thiest. Religious assertations can also be called religious language and though religious language aims to speak of the divine, its equivocal nature means that using everyday words to speak of God is ambiguous at best, and meaningless at worst. For example, Flew gave an example of the man who believes God loves him as a father refuses to say anything other than 'God is good' even after events such as his son getting a life threatening illness occur. This reinforces the idea that religious assertations are meaningless as they are vaccuous- why should we believe 'God is good'? and as the believer refuses to let his statement be countered it becomes meaningless, and more devastatingly, referring to God is not making any statement at all rendering the statement 'God is good' redundant.
Furthermore, Ayer questions whether it is 'characteristic of an agnostic' to believe 'the existance of a God is a possibility in which there is no good reason either to believe or disbelieve.' An agnostic is a person who is open to believing in God with empirical evidence but does not entirely disbelieve in God. As by definition, agnostics believe that 'god is a possibility' and continue to believe in the possibility of God when there is 'no good reason to either believe or disbelieve', we can ascertain that it is'characteristic' of an agnostic.

Where the hell do I put examples? And examples of WHAT? And aren't I supposed to use scholars? I really want to mention Hume's critique of the Ontological Argument. If you can't define something into existence then he's agreeing with Ayer because 'God talk' must be nonsensical then as even speaking about God means you have a concept of his existance. But when do I mention that? In A02, right? And where do I go into religious language? AO1?

I don't understand anything right now! How am I supposed to get an A?? :rolleyes:

Can someone who actually knows what they're doing please help me? I don't even know what I don't understand!

Reply 28

diamonddust

15

Original post by monkeyonthelake

I came up with this idea of approaching the questions in a different thread and I don't know if it will help but here is the link to the post and a good reply:

http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showpost.php?p=31997632&postcount=44

Any good?

Thank you! I just posted a rant/part of an essay.

I'm so scared about this exam, it's not even funny! I have a feeling it's going to kill me/drag my grade down. And I don't even KNOW what I got in AS because I'm doing this stupid subject intensively. And I have English the day after. Screw this. :rant:

Reply 29

jbrown42

1

Original post by cearajade

anyone know whats coming up? in my class we've done ayer, donovan + westphal.

No we don't know. It could be any of the three. Although Westphal came up in the January retake, which may mean it doesnt come up, but who knows, i may be wrong.

thanks

Original post by diamonddust

My teacher keeps saying I don't use examples and that's what's going to stop me from getting an A. I don't know what examples I'm supposed to use!

I don't know if this helps, but one way of incorporating examples into material on Ayer is to give specific quotations of religious language, and explain how / why they are meaningless.

E.G.

For Ayer, the religious claim that "Jesus died on the cross" is clearly not problematic as it is weakly verifiable, in principle, just as any ordinary historical claim would be. So not all claims made by religious people in the context of religion are meaningless. However, the statement "Jesus died on the cross to take away the sins of the world" is necessarily meaningless. "Sin" is not something that can be empirically observed - I can see somebody commit adultery, but I can't see the "sin" itself, just the act of adultery. Also, the claim that the sins of the world have been removed is not observable, as no christian can say how the world would be any observably different if the sins of the world had not been taken away. For this reason, claims about sin, salvation, grace and indeed any metaphysical 'reality' must fail the verification test and so, for Ayer, be no more than food for the pyschiatrist's chair.

Hope that gives you some sort of lead on the sort of thing that can be said. The examiner is keen to see that you know BOTH the theory AND how it can apply to the sorts of important things that religious people might actually say. Just using the vague example about 'God' not being verifiable is not sufficient.

Good luck. :smile:

PS The document here http://www.richmond-philosophy.net/rjp/back_issues/rjp6_cruse.pdf might be helpful, it's pretty clear and thorough in its explanations and evaluations of Ayer

(edited 12 years ago)

Reply 32

diamonddust

15

Original post by sendintheclowns

I don't know if this helps, but one way of incorporating examples into material on Ayer is to give specific quotations of religious language, and explain how / why they are meaningless.

E.G.

For Ayer, the religious claim that "Jesus died on the cross" is clearly not problematic as it is weakly verifiable, in principle, just as any ordinary historical claim would be. So not all claims made by religious people in the context of religion are meaningless. However, the statement "Jesus died on the cross to take away the sins of the world" is necessarily meaningless. "Sin" is not something that can be empirically observed - I can see somebody commit adultery, but I can't see the "sin" itself, just the act of adultery. Also, the claim that the sins of the world have been removed is not observable, as no christian can say how the world would be any observably different if the sins of the world had not been taken away. For this reason, claims about sin, salvation, grace and indeed any metaphysical 'reality' must fail the verification test and so, for Ayer, be no more than food for the pyschiatrist's chair.

Hope that gives you some sort of lead on the sort of thing that can be said. The examiner is keen to see that you know BOTH the theory AND how it can apply to the sorts of important things that religious people might actually say. Just using the vague example about 'God' not being verifiable is not sufficient.

Good luck. :smile:

PS The document here http://www.richmond-philosophy.net/rjp/back_issues/rjp6_cruse.pdf might be helpful, it's pretty clear and thorough in its explanations and evaluations of Ayer

Thank you SO much! That makes sense and is way better than mine haha! Did you write that yourself? And I love your username! Sondheim/A Little Night Music fan?
Edit: Wow, that website is the best resource I've seen!

(edited 12 years ago)

Reply 33

fusion12345

2

Original post by jbrown42

No we don't know. It could be any of the three. Although Westphal came up in the January retake, which may mean it doesnt come up, but who knows, i may be wrong.

there is no january retake!

Reply 34

monkeyonthelake

Original post by fusion12345

there is no january retake!

Yes there are. I have a past paper from Jan 2010 in front of me here.

Reply 35

fusion12345

2

Original post by monkeyonthelake

Yes there are. I have a past paper from Jan 2010 in front of me here.

lol i dont know what to think
3 weeks back i broguht it to my teachers attention that alot of ppl r talking about a jan exam
and i got shot down, so i just presumed they were right

so if Westphal with this jan
does that mean it cant come up next week?
and if it was Donovan before it then Ayer shud this years?

Reply 36

diamonddust

15

Original post by fusion12345

there is no january retake!

People who are on gap years who used to do to my school did retakes in Jan and I've seen the past paper so... :tongue:

Reply 37

monkeyonthelake

Original post by fusion12345

so if Westphal with this jan
does that mean it cant come up next week?
and if it was Donovan before it then Ayer shud this years?

Someone posted this in the other thread:

Original post by georgie-rose

Ok, so it's been...

june 08: Ayer (para.5)
jan 09: ?
june 09: Westphal (?)
jan 10: Ayer (para.8)
june 10: Donovan (?)
jan 11: Westphal (?)

This makes me assume that the missing Jan 09 was Donovan. If so that makes me think Ayer is likely to be next. That along with several teachers saying that Ayer was given most attention at the examiners conference. Fingers Crossed.

Reply 38

cearajade

if i got a raw score of 130 last year and its a C, what do i need percentage wise to keep my C?

Reply 39

sarahlovesleon

i don't understand this paper at all. if we get Ayer, do we go through his whole article in our essay like what he argues in each paragraph? or just the passage given? surely we cant be expected to go on for an hour however many minutes just on one passage? for Westphal we did a timed mock in class and i did intro, bit on the passage given, then went through each scholar he lists, you know hegel and marx and all that and i got an A but im just so confused because surely i wasn't really doing it right because i didnt do what the question asked me?

Edexcel A2 Philosophy and Ethics, UNIT4: Implications

Quick Reply

Related discussions

Latest

Trending

Trending

Articles for you