IB Philosophy SL — All Flashcards

Qualitative = exactly alike. Numerical = one and the same thing. Personal identity is numerical.

What must carry on for a person now to be the same person earlier or later?

What are we? (a body/mind/soul?) and What makes us persist? (what keeps us the same over time?)

Everything about you changes, yet you stay one person — so something must carry on, but it's unclear what.

Usually it means qualitatively different (changed). Numerically it's still you — that's the debate.

Most confusion about identity comes from mixing 'exactly alike' with 'one and the same'.

By memory a person both is and isn't their childhood self — a contradiction for the memory view.

A perfect copy is made and the original destroyed — did you survive or die? Tests each view.

Every plank is replaced — is it the same ship? Pressures the body view.

Explore an issue, argue, weigh different views, and reach a reasoned conclusion — don't just describe.

Use an unseen stimulus + your own knowledge to explore a philosophical issue about being human [25].

You are your living body (or brain); you exist as long as it does.

You are your inner mental life — thoughts, memories, point of view. The body is its home.

Imagine your mind waking in a new body: did YOU move? Tests body vs mind views.

It must say you don't survive a body-swap, and your cells fully replace over time.

It's unclear what a 'mind' is, and we forget large parts of our lives yet still survive.

They answer 'what are we?' — the first identity question, before we ask what makes us persist.

How you stay one person while your body and mind are gradually replaced.

Replace every plank one by one — same ship? Pressures physical/body-based identity.

Scan-destroy-rebuild an exact copy elsewhere: did you travel or die? Tests pattern vs physical survival.

What matters is the pattern of you, not the exact atoms; the copy continues your mental life.

Your original body was destroyed; the copy is only qualitatively identical, not you.

Two perfect copies can't both be numerically you, yet neither has a better claim — so pattern-survival can't be identity.

You are your connected chain of memories/consciousness — not your body.

An unbroken chain of memories and mental states linking you over time.

One man at three ages (boy → soldier → general): by memory the general is the soldier and the soldier the boy, but the general isn't the boy — a contradiction for Locke.

A links to B, B to C, so A and C are the same person even with no direct memory. Saves Locke from Reid.

Buddhist 'no fixed self': only a changing bundle of experiences; 'the self' is a useful label.

Looking inward he found no fixed self — only a bundle of changing perceptions (echoes anattā).

Continuity: a chain of memory carries you. No-self: there's no fixed you to carry. A strong essay weighs both.

Locke (memory) → Reid (objection) → Hume (no-self) → Parfit (overlapping chains; is identity what matters?).

The part of who you are shaped by culture — language, gender, religion, nation.

Being a woman is a social role you're shaped into over time, not just a biological fact.

Debatable: yes (it still shaped who you became) vs no (identity should track what's real).

A lot (we think in its categories) but not entirely (people reject and remake their culture). Argue a degree.

If culture makes me, am I free? Most keep room for choice within culture's materials.

Evidence cuts both ways — 'all' or 'nothing' ignores half of it. Argue where the line sits.

Personal identity may not be what matters — what matters is psychological connectedness and continuity.

If identity isn't what matters, the fear of death softens — our values and effects can continue in others.

Body view · memory (Locke/Reid) · no-self (Vasubandhu/Hume) · Parfit (connectedness).

Use a stimulus + your own knowledge to explore a philosophical issue about being human [25].

Exploring and weighing several views on the stimulus and reaching a reasoned conclusion — not describing.

Identity = being literally the same person. Connectedness = sharing memories, plans, character. Parfit says the second is what we care about.

You can't doubt that thinking is happening, and thinking needs a thinker — so your own existence is certain.

The Buddhist teaching that there is no fixed, separate self — only a changing bundle of experiences (Vasubandhu).

Looking inside, he only ever found particular perceptions — never a 'self' underneath. Echoes anattā.

'Thinking is happening' is certain; 'therefore a separate ME exists' adds an owner the no-self view rejects.

She rejects the lonely, solipsistic self: a self is real but only becomes itself through others.

Treating your own mind as the only thing you can be sure exists.

Descartes (yes, a certain thinker); no-self (only a bundle); De Beauvoir (real, but never separate from others).

A European and an Indian Buddhist thinker reach the same no-self conclusion — showing the idea across traditions.

'I think, therefore I am' — I know myself first, alone, without others.

Thinking uses language, which is learned from others — so the self may never be truly alone.

Explore an issue, weigh views in tension, and reach a reasoned conclusion — don't just describe.

The boundary between 'me' and 'not-me' — and the sharpest 'not-me' is another person, so others help draw the self.

The moment another person's gaze makes you aware of yourself as a self — like being caught peeping at a keyhole.

Lost in watching, there's no 'you' in mind; the instant someone looks, you feel yourself become a person who can be judged.

You fully become a self only when another self recognises you — treats you as a someone, not a something.

Being aware of yourself as a self, not just aware of the world around you.

Both say the self needs the Other; Hegel's recognition can be mutual and lifting, Sartre's Look can pin you down as an object.

To have a sense of 'me' you need a 'not-me' to set it against — the boundary helps make the self.

No other, no self — you come to know and become yourself in the eyes of other people.

The view that only your own mind is certain to exist; every other mind is a guess you can't confirm.

You only ever meet the outside of others — a face, words, behaviour — never their inner feeling, so you can't check.

The moment you love, grieve or apologise, you treat other minds as completely real — so no one truly believes it.

A perfect robot could wince and cry with nothing inside, so behaviour alone never proves a mind is there.

She rejects the sealed-off lonely self it assumes: we don't start alone and prove others; we start among them.

Don't try to prove other minds — show the question is badly framed: you were with others all along.

Unbeatable in theory, impossible in practice, and built on a lonely self that never existed.

Not that others definitely don't exist — only that your own mind is the one thing you can be certain of.

The fact that we share one world of meaning with other minds, rather than each living in a private bubble.

Carefully describing experience from the inside, exactly as it's lived (Husserl, Merleau-Ponty).

Describe experience honestly and you're always already among others — the world comes pre-shared.

We read each other through the body — you feel a friend's sadness in their slumped shoulders before any words.

Meeting another person fully as a 'you' — truly present, one person to another.

Treating another person as a thing — an object you use or size up.

You only become a full self in genuine I–Thou meetings, not by using people as Its.

Not by proving other minds, but by showing you never started alone — you were always in a shared world.

You are partly made of your relationships — not a sealed individual who just happens to meet others.

Biological, social, psychological, spiritual — others shape your body, society, mind and sense of meaning.

You literally came from others — born, fed, kept alive by them; no one is self-made from scratch.

Your language, manners and roles are handed to you by a group — you think in words others taught you.

How you feel about yourself grows from how others treated you — praise, blame, love, neglect.

Meaning, belonging and purpose usually come through others — a faith, a cause, people you'd live for.

You can rebel and remake yourself — but using language and ideas others gave you, so relations run all the way down.

Your freedom isn't cancelled by others; it's exercised THROUGH the language, ideas and groups they gave you.

The view that a self is constituted by its relationships — made by them, not just shaped by them.

You become a self by living your roles and relationships well (child, friend, neighbour), not by escaping them.

The African view 'I am because we are' — a person becomes a full person through other persons, inside a community.

Immersion (dropped into a shared world), participation (joining its practices), coordination (matching others).

That 'me' is itself built up out of the immersing and coordinating — take those away and it isn't there.

Both drop the sealed core: the self is a stream of relating and participation, not a fixed thing underneath.

Is there a self? → the self needs the other → the self is MADE through others (the relational self).

Exploring and weighing several views on the stimulus and reaching a reasoned conclusion — not describing.

The raw 'what-it's-like' feel of an experience — the redness of red, the sting of pain.

There is something it is like to be you, from the inside — an inside feel a rock lacks.

You could know every brain fact about a bat and still not know what it's LIKE to be one — physics leaves out the feel.

Mary knows all the physics of colour but still learns something on first seeing red — so the feel is a fact physics left out.

Complete physical knowledge still leaves out the inside feel — Nagel and Jackson's shared move.

She gains a new ability (to recognise red), not a new fact — so there may be no real gap.

Outside facts (brain, wavelengths) never seem to add up to the first-person feel of the experience.

Third-person = the outside facts anyone can measure. First-person = the inside feel only the experiencer has.

Following rules to output Chinese without understanding it — processing symbols isn't understanding.

Indian view: awareness is the basic 'witness' behind all experience, not something built from matter.

Acting smart (behaviour) is not the same as feeling (experience) — the heart of the debate.

The 'aboutness' of the mind — every experience is OF or ABOUT something beyond itself.

No — it means aboutness: the mind is always directed at something, whether you plan it or not.

The careful study of experience exactly as it is lived, first-person — a world of meaning, not brain-states.

We live in a world (a face, a room, a task), not inside a skull full of nerve signals.

Behind every experience is a pure awareness — the witness — that observes all thoughts and feelings.

Pure awareness that watches all your thoughts and feelings without being any of them.

Consciousness is like an arrow — it always points at something. Advaita turns it round to the awareness that holds the arrow.

One studies what consciousness is OF (looks out); the other points to the awareness it appears IN (looks in) — Western + non-Western range.

Is a person one thing (a body) or two (a body plus a separate mind)?

You are two things: a physical body and a separate, non-physical mind (Descartes).

You are one thing: a physical body; the mind just IS the brain at work.

I can doubt I have a body but not that I'm thinking — so mind and body must be two different things.

If the mind is non-physical, how could it ever move the physical body? Dualism's deepest weakness.

It fits the feeling that thoughts aren't physical — you can't weigh a thought or scan a feeling directly.

It fits brain science: damage the brain and the mind changes, so mind and brain seem tightly linked.

It struggles to explain the inside feel of experience (Nagel's 'what it's like'; see 1.3.1).

How to justify believing anyone else is conscious, when all you see is behaviour, never their inner feel.

You have direct access to exactly one mind — your own. Everyone else you know only from the outside.

In me, behaviour goes with a feel; others are like me; so they probably feel too — they're conscious.

It generalises from ONE case (yourself) — a shaky basis for a rule we'd distrust anywhere else.

An imagined being that behaves exactly like a conscious person but has no inner feel at all.

If a zombie could behave the same with nothing inside, behaviour never guarantees an inner feel.

Doubting all other minds is impossible to actually live — seeing others as conscious may be built into how we perceive people.

The inner feel (qualia) is exactly what you can't observe in others — the private feel is the whole difficulty.

Our everyday, common-sense way of explaining people using beliefs, desires and feelings.

The view that our everyday mind-talk is a flawed old theory mature brain science may replace.

'Beliefs' and 'feelings' may go the way of 'evil spirits' — replaced by better science (germs).

Easy = how the brain sorts info, attends, wakes up. Hard = why any of it FEELS like something.

Explaining WHY there is any inner feel at all, rather than the brain just processing in the dark.

A perfect brain map gives WHAT happens, never WHY it feels like anything — the feel is left out.

Churchland: science will explain/replace the feel. Chalmers: the feel is a new kind of problem no brain map dissolves.

Exploring and weighing several views on the stimulus and reaching a reasoned conclusion — not describing one.

Human being = your biological species. Person = a being with the right mental/moral status (thinks, feels, chooses).

A being with a certain moral and mental status — not just a member of a species.

Consciousness, reasoning, self-awareness, communication, moral agency.

Being able to feel things — pleasure, pain, experience.

Being able to weigh right and wrong and act on it.

It decides who could have full rights — only humans, or any being with the right kind of mind (animals, AI?).

It seems to exclude newborns and people who can't yet reason — though Warren protects them for other reasons.

On Warren's view, no — personhood tracks mental abilities, and those aren't tied to one species.

Either you are a person or not, versus personhood being fuller or thinner over a life.

Infants, great apes, advanced AI, or people in comas — each tests where the line falls.

Weigh competing criteria on the hard cases and reach a reasoned conclusion — don't just describe.

Consciousness = having experiences. Self-consciousness = being aware that YOU are the one having them.

Being aware of yourself as a self — able to think about your own thoughts.

A thinking being that can 'consider itself as itself', the same thinking thing across different times and places.

It lets a being treat itself as one continuous 'me' — owning its past and planning its future.

Ownership of your choices (praise/blame), planning your future, and deciding to change.

Newborns and sleeping adults can't consider themselves right now — Locke replies personhood needs the CAPACITY, not constant use.

Maybe degree — some animals show flickers (mirror self-recognition), which matters for animal/AI personhood.

Chimps and dolphins recognising themselves in a mirror suggests self-awareness may be graded, not simply human-only.

A being that acts for its own reasons — a doer — not just something pushed around by causes.

Doing = you act for a reason of your own. Happening = a cause acts on you, no reason of yours.

A cause pushes you (reflex/shove) vs a reason you hold guides you (goal/want) — only the second is an action.

It builds on self-awareness: a person is a doer who acts for reasons, not just a being things happen to.

Your reasons came from upbringing and brain — so are you really free? A bridge to the freedom topic.

Many say no — it follows programmed causes; the reasons aren't its own, held and understood by it.

Consciousness (feeling) → self-consciousness (knowing yourself) → agency (acting for your own reasons).

An event: it has a cause but no reason of your own, so it isn't an exercise of agency.

Being fairly open to praise or blame for what you do — it needs you to have really done it, for your own reasons.

You can only be responsible for what you actually DID as an agent; no agency, no fair blame.

You were forced (e.g. threatened at knife-point) — the act wasn't your own free choice, so fair blame drops.

You couldn't have done otherwise — you didn't know, couldn't understand, or couldn't control it.

You're responsible when a free, informed agent who could have acted otherwise stood behind the act.

Rational agents have priceless worth, so must be treated as ends in themselves, never mere tools.

Never use a person only as a tool for your goals — respect them as a rational agent with worth beyond price.

Humans who can't reason (infants, some illnesses) seem to lose dignity — Kantians patch this, but it's a real gap.

In principle yes, if personhood tracks abilities, feeling or community rather than species — the debate is whether animals/AI really have those.

Treating one species as more important simply because it's yours — a bias he compares to racism.

If the ability to feel earns moral status, ignoring an animal's suffering just for being non-human is speciesism.

Personhood is earned and graded through community life, not automatic at birth — a matter of degree.

You grow into being a person; a newborn is a full human but not yet a full person (Menkiti). Reframes animal/AI cases.

Western (Warren/Locke): abilities, roughly on/off, in the individual. African (Wiredu/Menkiti): earned, graded, in your relationships.

It can behave like one — say 'I care' — with no inner feeling or real relationship behind it. Behaving ≠ being.

The key gap: producing the outward marks (words, memory) isn't proof there's any inner life or real relationship there.

Exploring and weighing several views on the stimulus and reaching a reasoned conclusion — not describing.

The traits shared by all humans simply for being human — the same in everyone, before culture shapes you.

Everything has a special activity; ours is reasoning; so our nature is to be rational animals and the good life reasons well.

The activity it's meant to do, and do well — an eye to see, a knife to cut, a human to reason.

It assumes nature gives us a 'purpose', but unlike a made knife, nobody obviously built humans for a job.

Some reactions — fear, laughter, needing others — turn up in every human culture.

Humans differ hugely across cultures and history, so little may be truly the same in everyone.

Is there a fixed nature at all? And if so, what is it like?

Aristotle's label for humans: animals, but the ones whose special activity is reasoning.

If we're born good, why is cruelty so common? (He replies: the sprouts wither without care.)

We have inborn traits AND are shaped by upbringing — so the real question is how much is fixed.

Weigh competing views using all the evidence and reach a reasoned conclusion — don't just describe.

Are we born a certain way (nature), or made by our environment and experience (nurture)?

The newborn mind is a blank slate; everything we know is written on it by experience — pure nurture.

Behaviour is shaped by conditioning: reward a behaviour and it grows, punish it and it fades.

Learning to repeat what's rewarded and avoid what's punished.

Identical twins raised apart still end up strikingly alike, which suggests a lot is born in us.

Upbringing clearly shapes us, and rewards/punishments really do change behaviour (Locke, Skinner).

Genes and environment combine: a gene can switch on in certain settings, and inborn traits shape how we're treated.

The evidence cuts both ways, so the real question is how much each matters and how they combine.

Are humans basically rational or basically emotional — is the head or the heart really in charge?

The passions mislead, so reason should rule and keep them in check.

The 'passions' — strong feelings that are useful signals but unreliable rulers.

Reason alone never moves us; only feeling makes things matter, so reason serves our feelings.

With no feeling at all, nothing would matter — even caring about truth is itself a feeling.

If feeling rules, it's hard to criticise cruel desires — and reason can reshape feelings, not just serve them.

Feeling supplies what we care about; reason works out how to get it and can correct feelings built on false beliefs.

Descartes: reason should rule feeling. Hume: feeling rules, and reason is its servant.

A feature found in every known human culture — like language, family, morality or ritual.

The view that beliefs and values are only 'true' relative to a culture, so nothing is fixed across all people.

Language, some form of family, music, telling right from wrong, fear of death, laughter, birth/death rituals.

A feature appearing in every culture despite huge differences is probably built into us.

The outlines are universal (every culture has language, family, morality); the content (which language, which rules) is local.

Each 'universal' looks very different up close — maybe they only seem alike from far away.

If all values are only relative, you can't condemn any cruelty as genuinely wrong.

The shared outlines point to a real human nature; the varying content shows it's a thin frame, not a fixed rulebook.

Blank slate (Locke): the mind starts empty and experience writes it. Fixed nature (Aristotle): we're born with a set shape.

Traditionally yes — but animals plan and machines out-calculate us, so maybe it's a bundle of traits, not one thing.

Basically good: we're born with moral 'sprouts' like compassion (the child at the well) that society should grow.

Basically bad: crude and self-seeking; goodness is trained in, like straightening warped wood.

Mencius: born good. Xunzi: born bad and needs cultivation. Both agree there IS a fixed nature.

Both extremes fail: we're born with tendencies, and nurture largely decides which of them grow.

Use a stimulus + your own knowledge to explore a philosophical issue about being human [25].

Exploring and weighing several views on the stimulus and reaching a reasoned conclusion — not describing.

The genuine power to have done otherwise, with you as the source of the choice.

Rewind to the moment of choice — was another option really open? If yes, the choice was free.

A drugged or manipulated person gets what they want without a real choice being open.

Choosing feels open (the feeling); whether it really was open is a separate question (the fact).

Praise, blame, regret and responsibility all assume you could have chosen differently.

If no one could ever have done otherwise, holding people responsible looks unfair and needs rethinking.

A feeling of freedom isn't proof — a puppet who couldn't feel its strings would still feel free.

With the everyday feeling that a choice (like picking off a menu) is genuinely up to you.

Real freedom is mastery over your own responses, not control of events — a prisoner can be free.

Outer: were my choices uncaused? Inner: am I master of my responses? Two different questions.

Weigh competing views on the evidence and reach a reasoned conclusion — don't just describe.

The view that every event, including every choice, is fully caused by earlier events.

Choices are caused events; caused events are fixed by the past; so only one choice was ever possible.

Determinism is true AND therefore free will is an illusion and no one is truly responsible.

As a gap in your knowledge — you don't see the hidden causes making the choice inevitable.

No — choices happen, but each is fully caused, so given the past only one was ever possible.

If wrongdoers couldn't ultimately do otherwise, treat wrongdoing like a problem to fix, not a sin to punish.

Free will needs the power to have done otherwise; determinism says only one outcome was ever possible.

Like a leaf sure it chose to fall while blind to the wind, we feel free while missing our causes.

The view that free will and determinism can both be true, because 'free' means unforced, not uncaused.

You're free when you act on your own desires without being forced — even if those desires were caused.

Choosing to take goods (caused but yours) vs being dragged out at gunpoint (forced) — that's free vs unfree.

The view that free will and determinism cannot both be true (van Inwagen).

If determinism is true, the past and laws fix everything, so you could never have done otherwise.

A caused desire is still yours; a gunman's order isn't — so causation doesn't remove freedom.

'If you'd wanted to' (Dennett) vs 'with the exact same past' (van Inwagen) — the sides talk past each other.

Hard determinist (no freedom); Dennett (compatible); van Inwagen (incompatible).

The healthy learning of the skills and rules to live with others — visible, questionable, and equipping.

Being moulded to want or believe things without noticing — usually invisible, and it chooses for you.

Your wants may be shaped for you, so a choice can feel free while running on tracks society laid.

Socialization equips you to choose; conditioning does the choosing for you behind your back.

Freedom comes in degrees — you're freer the less the shaping is hidden and unquestioned.

Notice the shaping and ask whether you still endorse it, instead of pretending you're unshaped.

The more you make hidden influences visible and re-examine them, the more your choices become genuinely yours.

It's not physics fixing events — it's people and institutions shaping what you want.

Living as your true self — owning your choices instead of running someone else's script.

Lying to yourself that you have no choice, to escape the responsibility of being free.

Hiding in a role ('just doing the job') or a fixed nature ('it's just how I am') to dodge a choice.

Authenticity owns your freedom; bad faith flees it with an excuse.

Not always — but you always choose your response to it, and that's where authenticity lives.

Freedom is heavy and excuses are a relief; authenticity leaves you owning every choice with no script.

No — a whim can be as unowned as a rule; the authentic act is one you consciously take responsibility for.

Not 'are you free at all?' but 'are you actually using your freedom, or hiding from it?'

No fixed human nature, so you must choose who to be and are fully responsible — you can't escape your freedom.

Because you can never escape freedom — every excuse is bad faith, so the responsibility is always yours.

The dread that comes from realising your choices are entirely your own, with no rulebook to lean on.

Inner freedom — you can't control outer events, but you can always master your own responses to them.

An enslaved person can be inwardly free, while a rich person can be a slave to their own moods.

Both locate freedom in your response, not your circumstances.

On the feel: Sartre's response-freedom is a burden (angst); Epictetus's is a relief (serenity).

Free will vs determinism · compatibilism · social conditioning · existential freedom (Sartre / Epictetus).

Exploring and weighing several views on the stimulus and reaching a reasoned conclusion — not describing one.

A sentence is literally meaningful only if it is analytic (true by definition) or verifiable (checkable by experience).

True just from the meanings of its words (e.g. 'all bachelors are unmarried'); says nothing new about the world.

Meaningful because some possible experience could confirm it or count against it — you could, in principle, check it.

First ask if a sentence is meaningful (says anything at all); only then can it be true or false.

A sentence that passes neither door makes no real claim, so there's nothing there to be true or false.

The view that real knowledge comes only from logic/definition or from testing against experience — nothing else.

A claim is meaningful if some experience makes it more or less likely — not only if it can be conclusively proved.

Hume's split (relations of ideas vs matters of fact) → Vienna Circle → Ayer's single analytic-OR-verifiable test.

Claims about a reality beyond all possible experience — God, the soul, an ultimate reality behind the world.

It's not true by definition and no possible experience could confirm or count against it — so it fits neither door.

A metaphysical sentence makes no checkable claim, so there's nothing there to be true or false in the first place.

No — if 'God exists' is meaningless, so is 'God does not exist'; he's neither believer nor atheist.

Religious sentences state no facts, so they are neither true nor false — the factual debate is empty.

Neither analytic nor verifiable → literally meaningless. The same reasoning applies to every claim about a hidden reality.

He doesn't answer questions like the problem of evil — he says they never get started, because 'God exists' is empty.

It removes the factual CLAIMS; feelings and attitudes may remain, but they state no facts on either side.

The view that moral sentences don't state facts — they express the speaker's feelings and try to influence others.

Expresses disapproval ('stealing — boo!') and nudges the listener to feel the same; it adds no factual content.

No — they state no fact, so there's nothing there to be true or false.

Emotivism says a moral sentence EXPRESSES a feeling (like a wince), not REPORTS it ('I dislike stealing' would be a checkable fact).

Once the facts of an act are listed, no 'wrongness' fact remains to check — so moral talk can't be factual.

No — our attitudes drive how we live; Ayer's narrower claim is only that moral talk has no factual content.

The wider view that value-talk isn't in the business of stating knowable facts; emotivism is one version.

If I say 'boo!' and you 'hooray!', do we even disagree, or just feel differently? Emotivism struggles to keep moral 'mistakes'.

Test the reasoning of a claim — weigh reasons for and against — and reach a reasoned judgement.

The verification principle is itself neither analytic nor verifiable, so by its own rule it comes out meaningless.

Treat the principle as a chosen definition of 'meaningful' — this dodges self-refutation but drains its force to condemn religion or ethics.

Strong (conclusive proof) rejects science too; weak (some experience makes it likelier) leaks and lets metaphysics back in.

The demand that factual claims be testable and the analytic/verifiable distinction largely hold; the sweeping 'meaningless' verdicts wobble.

Open-book, one hour: a two-part question on your text — (a) Explain a concept [10] + (b) Evaluate a claim [15].

Don't copy long quotes — use the text to SUPPORT understanding and argument; do the right job in each part.

Explain the claim, argue for it, raise the objection, weigh them, and conclude with a reason tied to the text.

'The Way' — the nameless source and pattern that everything flows from and follows.

The real Tao can't be captured in words — naming it shrinks the whole into just one labelled thing.

A name cuts one thing off from the rest, but the Tao is the undivided whole every named thing is cut from.

Neither — it's the current, not an object on it; the natural Way things go, empty and prior to named things.

An old Chinese phrase for 'everything' — all of which the Tao gives rise to, like a spring giving rise to a river.

Words can aim your attention at the Tao but aren't the Tao itself — don't mistake the label for the thing.

Words divide the world into boxes ('hot' vs 'cold'); the Tao is what holds the world together before we chop it up.

Some things can be shown or lived but not fully stated — naming that gap is a top-band move.

'Non-action' — acting in harmony with the natural flow instead of forcing against it.

No — it's effortless, well-timed action that works WITH the grain of things, not passivity.

A small, well-timed move along the natural grain does the work that straining and forcing never could.

Water yields and flows round obstacles, yet wears down stone over time — soft outlasts hard.

Bending and giving way isn't weakness; it quietly outlasts rigid force (the reed survives the storm, the stiff tree snaps).

It fights the natural grain, wasting energy and stirring up resistance — like yanking a knot tighter.

Wu wei is dropping needless force (wise), not giving up or laziness (idle) — a distinction that scores.

If the Tao is the Way things naturally go, wu wei is simply going WITH that Way rather than fighting it.

'Self-so' — being naturally what you are, of your own accord, without forcing or pretending.

An image of natural simplicity — a self whole and full of possibility before ambition chisels it into a fixed shape.

Carve it into something clever and you gain one shape but lose the whole — the deep simplicity the Way prizes.

Fewer desires, less chasing — loosening the grip of endless wanting and settling back into the natural Way.

Real wealth is contentment, not endless getting — the person who knows they have enough is already rich.

No — it's the quality of being unforced, doing what you do of your own accord, not scenery.

No — it targets restless craving that's never satisfied, not every purpose; a quieter life can still act.

One idea seen three ways: be natural (ziran), stay whole (uncarved block), want less (return to simplicity).

The wise person who lives by the Tao and, as ruler, governs least — wu wei applied to a whole society.

The finest leader rules so lightly that things run smoothly and people say 'we did it ourselves'.

Worst = feared and hated; better = loved and praised; best = barely noticed, ruling by example.

Endless laws, taxes and meddling stir up the very resistance and disorder they then try to crack down on.

The sage lives out the Tao, wu wei and simplicity in one life — trusting the Way, not forcing, leading by barely leading.

Famine, invasion or injustice may need firm action light rule won't provide — so 'least' works as a default, not an absolute.

Open book, one hour: (a) Explain a concept [10] + (b) Evaluate a claim [15].

Weighing the claim — arguing for and against and reaching a reasoned view, anchored in the text.

We ask 'what is a woman?' but treat 'man' as simply the standard human — why the lopsidedness?

The one treated as the standard, neutral human — the norm everything else is measured against (historically, man).

Whoever is defined only against the Self, as different or secondary — the position women have been placed in.

Woman is treated as derivative and secondary — defined in relation to man, not in her own right.

Women are scattered through every family and class, bound to the men who define them, so it's hard to say 'we'.

Usually 'Other' can flip back; for women it's frozen one-way — man stays Self, woman stays Other.

No — it's about how women have been TREATED and defined, not their true nature.

The Second Sex Vol 1 part 1, Vol 2 part 1 and Vol 2 part 4.

The full social role of 'woman' is shaped by upbringing and culture, not simply fixed at birth.

Female = a biological birth fact; 'a woman' = a social role learned over years, different across cultures.

No — it grants biology but says biology alone doesn't decide the role; society decides what it's made to mean.

The slow process by which countless small lessons shape a person into an expected role until it feels like nature.

Through a thousand small cues — toys, praise, corrections, pictured futures — taken inside until the role feels born.

Socialisation works by hiding itself — done well, the made role comes to feel simply given and inborn.

She INSPIRED it (sex = birth fact, gender = social role) but didn't use those exact words — say 'inspired', not 'coined'.

It captures her whole argument in one sentence: femininity is made, not merely born.

Reaching out into projects, freedom and the future — the human drive to become more than you were.

Being confined to repetition and the given — the same tasks with no growth or reaching beyond.

No — they're two directions ANY life can take; the wrong is women being blocked from transcendence.

Women are steered into endless upkeep, doors to projects closed, then told the confinement is their 'nature'.

Every human wants to reach out into projects; confining someone to repetition frustrates something essential to being human.

First the door to projects is closed, then the closing is blamed on the woman herself as her 'nature'.

No — caring and upkeep are real goods; the wrong is being TRAPPED in repetition with no path to your own projects.

Being cast as the Other (10.11.1) is what makes it possible to push women into immanence.

An idealised, larger-than-life image of 'Woman' that real women are measured against.

The myth of a single, timeless feminine essence supposedly sitting beneath every real woman.

Woman is cast as both pure angel and dangerous temptress — a sign the images are projected, not observed.

No real thing can be two opposite essences, so the myths describe men's hopes and fears, not real women.

It sets an impossible ideal she's bound to fail, and hides the actual individual behind a grand image.

'Mysterious' is what you call someone you refuse to see clearly — the mystery is in the myth, not the woman.

Yes — a pedestal is still a cage: praising Woman as a pure angel still denies real women ordinary freedom.

The myths are how woman-as-Other gets filled in — a grand image stands in place of the real individual.

The concrete circumstances — body, upbringing, laws, expectations — a person's freedom works within.

Freedom that is real but always works within concrete limits, not free of them — de Beauvoir's existentialist view.

'Totally free, so it's their fault' and 'totally trapped, so nothing can change' — she rejects both.

Freedom acts within a situation; a rigged situation defeats most people, so the situation itself must change.

Real access to education, work and economic independence, an end to woman-as-Other, and release from immanence.

Men must stop treating woman as the Other; women must claim transcendence rather than accept the myths.

A real situation that constrains AND a real freedom that can push against it — not 'all choice' or 'all oppression'.

Open book, one hour: (a) Explain a concept [10] + (b) Evaluate a claim [15].

Society may limit an adult's liberty against their will only to prevent harm to others.

Mill says an adult is sovereign over their own body and mind; forcing them for their own benefit treats them like a child.

In matters that mainly concern only you, you have final authority; society may advise but not coerce.

One that mainly affects only the person doing it — Mill says it must be left free.

One that harms other people — the zone where the harm principle allows society to step in.

No — mere offence or disapproval isn't harm; a definite injury or broken duty to a specific person is.

Almost nothing affects only you; Mill answers by distinguishing offence (not harm) from real injury (harm).

Coercing an adult purely for their own good — society may persuade, never force, in self-regarding matters.

To silence an opinion is to assume you can't possibly be wrong — but confident majorities have often been wrong.

The view might be true; might be partly true; and even if false, opposition keeps our own truth alive.

Even one dissenter has no less right to speak than everyone else has to silence them — silencing is never justified.

A true belief held by habit, without understanding why it's true — because it's never been challenged.

A belief you both grasp and can defend, because you've met the objections to it.

Meeting it forces us to understand why our own view is true, keeping it a living truth rather than dead dogma.

No — he defends free speech precisely because truth exists and open debate is how fallible people reach it.

Silencing a view robs all listeners of a possible truth, a half-truth, or the challenge that keeps their truth alive.

Developing your own character and way of living rather than just copying the custom around you.

Trying out unusual ways of life so society can see which ones work and learn from them.

A life you genuinely choose exercises your judgement and makes you a fuller person, unlike a copied one.

The successful experiments teach everyone, so a society that allows difference keeps improving.

Copying custom just because it's custom leaves your own judgement unused, like a machine.

Custom might be right, but following it blindly means you never develop the powers that make a life fully human.

An unchallenged truth rots into dead dogma; an unchallenged life rots into mere custom — both die without difference.

No — it operates inside the harm principle: live your own way only where you don't harm others.

The pressure of majority opinion and custom forcing everyone to conform — a tyranny by the crowd, not the state.

It leaves 'fewer means of escape' and reaches into the details of daily life, so it's harder to dodge than a law.

At the edge of self-regarding conduct — beyond it, using pressure to force conformity is tyranny (the harm principle).

One harm principle, applied to the mind (free speech) and to life (individuality), defended against the crowd.

Unchallenged truth becomes dead dogma; unchallenged life becomes mere custom — both die without difference.

Expressing a view is fine; using collective pressure to force conformity where no one is harmed is the tyranny.

Open-book, one text: part (a) explain a concept [10] + part (b) evaluate a claim [15]; answer ONE question.

Quote a short phrase accurately, then explain it in your own words; don't just copy the text out.

Benevolence / humaneness — a settled, genuine care for others; the central virtue of the Analects.

'Do not do to others what you would not want done to yourself' — how you practise ren day to day.

Ren is the caring character (the aim); shu is the practical test you use to live it out.

The lifelong work of shaping your character toward goodness through small daily acts.

Both — a caring character that shows in conduct, fusing inner attitude and outer action.

Only late in life could he 'follow what my heart desired without overstepping what was right' — goodness had become effortless.

Everything else — ritual, roles, good government — is there to grow and express genuine care for others.

No — it's a reliable character you can count on, even when caring costs you something.

Ritual and propriety — the customs, manners and rites that shape good conduct, from ceremonies to everyday courtesy.

Practising the outward form trains the inner feeling — you become kind by repeatedly acting kind (the bow trains the heart).

Ritual with no real care behind it is a hollow shell — 'what has a person without ren got to do with li?'

Care that never shows in how you treat people is idle; li is how ren gets expressed and passed on.

No — it's the shared forms through which respect and care become visible, a language of good conduct.

Ren is the inner care; li is the outer form. Form without feeling is hollow; feeling without form is idle.

Confucius often reverses feeling and form: repeated good conduct slowly shapes a genuinely good character.

Because repeated good conduct shapes character — small daily courtesies help make you the kind of person you become.

The exemplary 'noble' person — Confucius' moral ideal, noble by cultivated character rather than by birth.

Once junzi meant a nobleman by birth; Confucius makes it noble by character, so it's earned and open to anyone.

The junzi asks 'what is right?'; the small person asks 'what's in it for me?' — steady and fair vs grasping.

Filial piety — deep respect and care for one's parents and elders.

The family is where you first learn to care for someone other than yourself; that care then grows outward to everyone.

From family (xiao) → community → society: learn to love your family well and you've begun learning to love everyone.

No — Confucius takes nobility away from birth and hands it to effort; anyone who cultivates ren and li can become one.

Doing what is right rather than looking good — hard on themselves, slow to blame others.

Leading people by the ruler's own moral example rather than by law and punishment.

Rule by punishment gets obedience but no shame; rule by example builds a real sense of right — grass bends to the wind.

Making sure people truly live up to the roles their titles name — 'let the ruler be a ruler, the parent a parent'.

Duty — a 'ruler' who stops ruling well loses the name; the title is earned by living up to its responsibilities.

Xiao (family) → ren (care) → li (custom) → junzi (exemplary leaders) → a harmonious society, from home to state.

A society held together by care, good custom and trust rather than fear and force — the whole vision working at once.

It assumes rulers become good and people follow good example — with little backup when a leader is bad (a key (b) evaluation point).

Open-book, 1 hour: (a) explain a concept [10] and (b) evaluate a claim [15]; quote the text to support your points.

Deliberately doubting everything that can be doubted, so that whatever survives must be certain.

The senses deceive → the dream argument (can't prove you're awake) → the evil demon (could fake even maths).

Dreams feel just as real as waking, so you can't be certain you're awake — even ordinary beliefs wobble.

An imagined all-powerful deceiver used to doubt even simple truths like 2 + 3 = 5 — the hardest test for certainty.

A belief that cannot possibly be false — not just likely, but immune even to an all-powerful deceiver.

No — he uses doubt as a tool to rebuild knowledge on certain foundations, not to abandon it.

It's a deliberate, pretended doubt used as a filter — not a real loss of belief.

Tip out every apple and only return the sound ones — that's Descartes clearing beliefs to keep only the certain.

'I think, therefore I am' — even a deceived mind must exist to be deceived, so a thinking thing certainly exists.

To doubt it you must think, and to think you must exist — so doubting it proves it.

Only that you are a thinking thing (a mind) — not that you have a body or that the world is real.

A 'thinking thing' — a mind that doubts, believes, wills, imagines and senses.

It's the first belief to survive the evil demon, so all rebuilt knowledge stands on it.

Yes — the act of doubting it is itself thinking, which proves a thinker exists.

It proves existence only in the present moment of thinking — not that you existed yesterday or will tomorrow.

The cogito proves a mind exists; the body is still doubted and only recovered much later.

Mind and body are two really distinct kinds of thing: the mind thinks, the body is extended.

The mind — a thinking, unextended thing (it doesn't take up space).

The body — an extended, physical thing (it takes up space but doesn't think).

Heat the wax and every sensed quality changes, yet you judge it's the same wax — so the mind, not the senses, grasps what it is.

The mind grasps what things truly are, and so is even better known than the body.

I can clearly conceive mind without body and body without mind, so God could make them exist apart — they're two things.

Being able to CONCEIVE them apart may only show they seem separable, not that they really are (Arnauld's worry).

You HAVE a body (extended) but you ARE a mind (thinking) — the mind is what you essentially are.

The cogito proves only his mind; a non-deceiving God is needed to rule out the demon and restore the world.

My idea of a perfect being is too great for imperfect me to have made, so a perfect being (God) must have caused it.

The idea of perfection is stamped in us by our maker, like a craftsman's mark on their work.

A perfect God won't deceive, so my strong natural belief that an external world exists can't be a lie.

Ideas so sharp I can't doubt them while attending to them — a non-deceiving God guarantees they're true.

Deceiving is a defect, and God is all-good, so God is no deceiver — the key premise for the rebuild.

Cogito → God exists → God is no deceiver → clear ideas are true → the external world is real.

He uses clear ideas to prove God, then uses God to guarantee clear ideas — the system's biggest objection.

Test the reasoning of a claim — weigh reasons for and against — and reach a reasoned judgement.

Descartes proves God from clear and distinct ideas, then uses God to guarantee clear ideas — apparent circularity.

Maybe God is only needed to trust MEMORIES of past clear ideas, not present ones — softens but may not remove the circle.

If the mind is unextended and the body physical, how can one move the other? Raised by Princess Elisabeth.

The method of doubt and the cogito largely hold; the God-proofs and the rebuilt world are the weakest links.

Open-book, one hour: a two-part question on your text — (a) Explain a concept [10] + (b) Evaluate a claim [15].

Don't copy long quotes — use the text to SUPPORT understanding and argument; do the right job in each part.

Explain the claim, argue for it, raise the objection, weigh them, and conclude with a reason tied to the text.

Colonialism's deepest damage is psychological — it gets inside the mind and teaches the colonized to feel inferior.

A deep, taught feeling of being worth less than others, installed by colonial society.

A whole society ranks the colonizer's language, skin and culture as superior, and the colonized absorb this from birth.

The colonial system's, not the person's — it's installed from outside, an injury to heal, not a flaw to blame.

He treats the inferiority as a real injury to a real mind — meant literally, to be understood and healed.

Not just 'who rules the land?' but 'what has colonial rule done to the person's own sense of who they are?'

A whole system keeps teaching the opposite; the cause must be named and changed, not just willed away.

A mind colonial society has taught to see itself as inferior.

A whole world — its values and its ranking of people; taking it on is never just learning words.

Colonial society ranks people by how 'well' they speak it, so mastering it seems to promise being accepted as an equal.

Being cut off from your own community and from your true self, through chasing acceptance in the colonizer's terms.

From your community (you speak 'above' them) and from yourself (straining to be someone you're not).

You leave yourself behind to earn it, yet are still kept at the margin — the ladder never reaches the top.

Refuse it and you're locked out; master it and you're alienated and still not let in — either way you lose.

No — it's a world you enter, so speaking the colonizer's language reshapes how you see people, including yourself.

The colonizer's language promises belonging with one hand and takes away the self with the other.

The colonizer's ways the colonized are pressured to wear over their own self, to be accepted — it hides the real person.

A look that reduces a person to a racial object, defined from outside — seeing skin loaded with the colonizer's fears, not a self.

A frightened child fixes him as a feared object; he is looked at as a thing, not seen as a person.

It decides your identity from outside before you speak, treating you as a type rather than a self.

The outside look becomes an inside voice — the colonized begin to see themselves through the colonizer's eyes.

Once you see yourself as the gaze sees you, hiding behind the colonizer's ways feels like the only way to be worth something.

Sartre's Look is neutral and two-way; Fanon's racialising gaze is loaded with society's ranking and lands one-sidedly on the colonized.

A gaze fixes you from outside, becomes an inside voice, and the white mask feels like the only way to belong.

Test the reasoning of a claim — weigh reasons for and against — and reach a reasoned judgement.

A better mask is still a mask — it keeps the colonizer's ranking in place and the colonized still judged by someone else's standard.

Two people meeting as equals, each seeing the other as a free self — which breaks the object-fixing gaze.

A shared human world where no one is ranked above another by race, and each person is free to define themselves.

The wound was being defined from outside; the freedom is being seen as a self — recognition is the exact reverse of the gaze.

The colonizer holds the power and may never grant it, so recognition can look like a hope, not a plan.

Open-book, one hour: a two-part question on your text — (a) Explain a concept [10] + (b) Evaluate a claim [15].

Name the wound (mind, language, mask, gaze), refuse the false cure (imitation), build mutual recognition and a new humanism.

Not 'what is good?' but 'where did our sense of good come from, and does it still serve life?'

Tracing it back to its historical birth — the conditions and needs it grew from — so it can be judged, not just obeyed.

Life-affirming values make people stronger and more alive; life-denying ones shrink people with shame and fear of their own drives.

Does it affirm life (make us stronger) or deny it (make us smaller)?

A lowly origin doesn't by itself make a value false; seeing it was made just lets us reopen whether it still serves us.

Values feel eternal only because we forgot they were made; give them a birthday and you can weigh them.

Ordinary ethics judges actions inside morality; genealogy steps outside and asks where morality itself came from.

Trace the value's origin → see it was made, so reopen it → weigh it: does it affirm or deny life?

The strong's code: 'good' = noble, strong, proud; 'bad' is just a mild afterthought for the weak.

The weak's code: brand the strong 'evil' first, then call one's own meekness and patience 'good' by contrast.

Master morality opposes good to 'bad' (an afterthought); slave morality opposes good to 'evil' (named first, out of resentment).

'Good' comes first (a proud yes to self); 'bad' is only an afterthought for whatever is unlike the noble.

'Evil' comes first (a no to the strong); 'good' is defined as simply not being like them.

Slave morality re-labels weakness as virtue — being unable to take revenge becomes 'forgiveness'; timidity becomes 'humility'.

Nietzsche's central claim: the weak WON — slave morality (meekness as good) became mainstream morality.

It starts from a proud yes to one's own strength, not from bitterness at others.

The powerless taking imaginary revenge by re-labelling the strong 'evil' and themselves 'good' — blocked revenge turned into values.

The weak defeating the strong not by force but by inventing a morality that condemns them.

It needs an enemy to exist, so you define yourself by what you hate instead of living your own life.

The noble says 'I am good' first; ressentiment needs an enemy first — 'I am good because I'm not THEM'.

Ask whether the value needs an enemy to survive — ressentiment collapses without one; real care survives when no one's watching.

Ressentiment is the engine: it's the feeling that secretly invented slave morality's 'good vs evil'.

Inward and imaginary — they can't strike back in the world, so they strike back in values.

No — he makes a testable claim: a value driven by ressentiment always needs an enemy; remove it and the value collapses.

From debt — wrongdoing seen as a debt to be paid off in suffering (the words for 'guilt' and 'debt' share a root).

If a debt went unpaid, the creditor could take payment in the debtor's pain — so wrongdoing became a debt settled in suffering.

The pain of aggression turned back against yourself when your instincts can no longer be discharged outward.

Society's rules block them from going outward, so with no other target the aggression attacks the self.

'All instincts that do not discharge themselves outwardly turn inward' — the source of bad conscience.

It's an 'illness', but a creative one — turning inward gave humans an inner world, self-awareness and depth.

Guilt grows from debt (wrongdoing owed in suffering); bad conscience is blocked aggression biting inward.

It shows conscience isn't a pure inner voice but was built from debt and cruelty turned inward — a made thing with a history.

The ideal that self-denial, poverty and giving up pleasure is the highest good.

It gave suffering a meaning (your guilt, cured by self-denial) — and people can't bear meaningless suffering.

The will would rather aim at 'nothing' (self-denial, another world) than have nothing at all to aim at.

Re-examining our inherited values to ask whether they still serve life, instead of obeying them blindly.

Nietzsche says even ruthless honesty ('I won't deceive myself') is the ascetic ideal's last disguise — so critique can't fully escape it.

1: master vs slave morality (ressentiment). 2: guilt from debt, bad conscience. 3: the ascetic ideal → re-evaluate values.

Open-book, 1 hour: (a) Explain a concept [10] + (b) Evaluate a claim [15] on your prescribed text.

Arguing both sides of the claim, using Nietzsche's own life-test, and reaching a reasoned conclusion tied to the text — not describing.

Judging a society by what each person is actually able to do and be, rather than by its total or average wealth.

An average can rise while many stay poor, sick or unfree — wealth is only a means to a decent life, not the goal.

Every individual's life counts in its own right; you never average a person away for a group total.

Only indirectly — money is a tool; what counts is what people are actually able to do and be with it.

A country's average income can boom while many still can't read, get clean water or feel safe — so the average hides them.

Not 'how rich is this place?' but 'what is each person here actually able to do and to be?'

Kant's — 'treat each person as an end, never merely as a means' — scaled up into a test for a whole society.

One where each individual person is genuinely able to live a decent human life — not just a high average.

Nussbaum's list of ten things a life of dignity needs — from life, health and safety to thought, feeling, belonging and a say over your society.

A floor — everyone should reach a decent minimum of all ten; you can't trade a lot of one for none of another.

Life (a normal lifespan), bodily health (well-fed, sheltered), bodily integrity (safe from violence, free to move).

Being able to learn, think, imagine and create — supported by an education.

Being able to live with and for others, and to be treated with respect and dignity.

Practical reason and affiliation — they run through all the others, letting a person choose and share their life.

Being able to take part in politics, and to hold property and work on an equal footing with others.

So different cultures can fill in the specifics their own way — 'being able to be healthy', not one fixed diet.

The real opportunity or freedom to do or be something — being able to eat, learn, take part, be safe.

Actually doing or being that thing — actually eating, actually voting; the exercise of a capability.

Capability = being ABLE to; functioning = actually DOING it. The approach aims at capability.

To protect freedom — secure the opportunity for everyone, but leave it to each person to choose whether to use it.

Same body-state, opposite situations: one has no capability for food, the other has it and freely chooses not to use it.

The worth every person has simply as a human being; a life below the capabilities threshold is beneath that dignity.

Giving people real opportunities plus the freedom to use them treats them as dignified choosers, not mouths to feed.

For young children some functionings (like being educated) may be required, to protect their future capabilities as adults.

A society owes every member a decent minimum of the ten capabilities — a better measure than wealth or happiness.

A country's average wealth can rise while real individuals stay poor and unfree — GDP hides the people left out.

Happiness uses an average that can hide a suffering minority — and 'happy' people may simply have been taught to expect nothing.

Wanting less because you've been taught to expect less — so a deprived person can report contentment and the injustice hides.

That a Western philosopher writing one list of 'the good life' imposes her culture's values on others who see things differently.

The list is general (each culture fills it in), aims at freedom not forced functioning, and was built by listening across cultures.

It would stop you criticising real injustices like denying girls school — which most people do want to call unjust.

Open-book, 1 hour: (a) explain a concept [10] and (b) evaluate a claim [15]; quote the text to support your points.

A TYPE of person, not a social class; an attitude found in any rank — a duke can be 'mass', a mechanic 'select'.

Self-satisfied, makes no demands on himself, and happy to feel 'just like everybody'.

The mass man enjoys civilization's comforts as if they came free — no gratitude for the effort that built them, no duty to keep them up.

He's pleased with himself exactly as he is — feels he's missing nothing and has nowhere to grow.

He sets himself no discipline or standard to live up to; life just drifts along easily.

Complacency — being so satisfied that he stops questioning, learning and being open to correction.

He's never quite satisfied — he keeps demanding more of himself and stays open to being wrong.

He may just smuggle his own restless, striving values into the definition of a proper human — maybe a calm, contented life is fine.

The mass man taking over the centre of public life and imposing average tastes everywhere, without deferring to anyone.

No — it's a quiet takeover of who sets the tone of a society, not a riot.

The mass man stops deferring to expertise and assumes his own untrained opinion is as good as the expert's.

Willingly accepting the lead of those with greater skill or knowledge — which the mass has abandoned.

Average taste becomes the measure of everything — in politics, art and science alike.

Some questions really do need expertise (you want a trained surgeon, not a vote), and confident ignorance is a real danger.

'Ordinary people should defer' can prop up unfair elites, and distrust of experts is sometimes healthy.

Ortega isn't against voting, but 'the masses should defer' can slide into contempt for equal say — separate his good point from that.

A type (not a class) who demands much of himself, lives by high standards, and serves something beyond himself.

A life of self-demand and service — 'noble' meaning that, NOT birth or title; open to anyone.

Demands much of himself, lives by high standards, and serves something beyond himself.

The select person imposes a hard discipline on himself, freely, to do the thing well — obeying a rule he didn't have to accept.

The mass man asks nothing of himself; the select person is never quite satisfied and always demands more of himself.

No — it's about self-demand and service; a poor person can be 'noble', a lord can be pure 'mass'.

Self-demand and service really are admirable, and the ideal is open to anyone — no birth or wealth required.

Readers quietly place themselves among the 'select' and others among the 'mass' — so the theory feels true while ranking people to suit the ranker.

His fear that when the complacent mass man rules and demands nothing, culture and liberty are left untended and decay.

Culture, science and liberty were built by effort and must be actively kept up — they don't look after themselves.

Confident ignorance, no deference to knowledge, and freedoms taken for granted really can weaken a culture.

Splitting people into 'select' and 'mass' and fearing ordinary people's power can be contempt for equality dressed as concern.

As ordinary people gained a say, many societies got fairer and freer — 'the masses shouldn't rule' has often served the powerful.

Take the warning about complacency and lost standards seriously; drop the contempt for ordinary people's equal say.

On Paper 2 — open-book, 1 hour: (a) Explain a concept [10] and (b) Evaluate a claim [15].

Part (a) Explain [10] = make a concept clear, no judgement; part (b) Evaluate [15] = argue both sides and reach a reasoned conclusion.

Reason (thinks, wants the whole good), spirit (honour, courage, anger) and appetite (food, drink, money, pleasure).

You can want and refuse the same thing at once, and one single thing can't pull two ways at the same moment.

Truth and what's genuinely best for the whole soul — it's the part that can see the whole, so it should rule.

The passionate part — courage, anger, pride, the wish to do what's honourable. Reason's natural ally.

The craving part — food, drink, comfort, money, pleasure. The biggest and neediest part; should obey.

Reason drives; the obedient horse is spirit, the wild horse is appetite that must be held in check.

Reason rules, spirit helps it, and appetite obeys — inner order, not whichever craving is loudest.

One where appetite has grabbed the reins — you're pulled around by whatever you happen to crave.

Each part doing its own proper job, in harmony, without barging into another part's role — inner order.

Justice is easier to see 'written large' in a whole city than in a single, hard-to-read soul.

Rulers (reason), guardians/auxiliaries (spirit), and producers (appetite).

Reason — they decide for the whole because they know what's truly good.

Appetite — they make and supply the food, goods and trade the city needs.

When each class does its own job and doesn't seize another's — exactly like the just soul.

It makes invisible inner justice easy to see, and explains why reason (the class that knows the good) should rule.

A soul and a city are very different, so it may slide from part to whole — and it can justify a rigid caste system.

Behind changing things lies a realm of perfect, unchanging patterns (Forms) that real things imperfectly copy.

A perfect, unchanging pattern — Beauty itself, Justice itself, Circle itself — of which real things are copies.

Every real circle is imperfect, yet we grasp a perfect one — so there must be a perfect Circle itself, more real than its copies.

The highest Form — like the sun, it makes every other Form knowable and worthwhile.

As the sun lets you see and lets things grow, the Good lets you know the Forms and makes them worth knowing.

A ruler who knows the Forms, especially the Good, and so rules for the city's real good, not for applause.

Ruling well means steering toward the good; only the philosopher knows the Good; so only they are fit to rule.

It's anti-democratic — it hands power to a tiny expert elite and trusts they'll never abuse it.

Opinion (doxa) = belief about the changing world, can be wrong; knowledge (epistēmē) = grasp of the unchanging Forms, can't be wrong.

Images/shadows → physical things → mathematical reasoning → the Forms; lower two are opinion, upper two knowledge.

Prisoners see only shadows and think that's reality; one is freed, climbs to the sun (the Good), then returns to mockery.

Mere appearances — the world of opinion the prisoners mistake for reality.

The Form of the Good — seen last and hardest, it makes all other Forms knowable.

A painful turning of the whole soul from appearances up toward the Forms and the Good — then a return to help others.

The freed prisoner's climb IS the Divided Line, and the sun outside IS the Form of the Good.

Is there really a separate realm of Forms to ascend to, or is it a beautiful metaphor with no evidence?

Why be just if you could be unjust with no consequences? It tests whether justice is good in itself or only for reputation.

Timocracy → oligarchy → democracy → tyranny — as reason loses control, each regime rots into a worse one.

Rule by spirit/honour — a warrior society that loves victory and status more than wisdom.

Rule by one lawless appetite — a single craving takes over; the tyrant is the most enslaved of all.

His soul is at war with itself — ruled by endless cravings, never satisfied, never at peace.

Their soul is in harmony, with reason in charge — calm, free and self-controlled, which is what happiness really is.

He may redefine happiness as 'a soul in harmony', so the just person wins by definition rather than by real argument.

On Paper 2 — open-book, 1 hour: (a) Explain a concept [10] and (b) Evaluate a claim [15].

Individualism (freedom that empties meaning), instrumental reason (usefulness crowds out value), soft despotism (drifting into losing freedom).

Freedom to choose our own lives; but with nothing counting as important on its own, choices feel small and life feels pointless.

Judging everything by efficiency and usefulness, even things like friendship or nature that shouldn't be measured that way.

Slowly losing our freedom because we stop caring to use it, retreating into private life and letting a big state take over.

No — he VALUES modern freedom; the malaises are sicknesses to cure, not reasons to abolish the modern world.

Lost meaning (1) pushes us to cold calculation (2) and private retreat, which lets soft despotism grow (3) — one chain.

He names what's gone wrong first, so his defence of authenticity can be offered as the cure.

The freedom to choose your own life and values for yourself, rather than inheriting them.

It's a genuine, valuable moral ideal — being true to your own way of being human — not merely selfishness.

Being true to your own original way of being human, answering a real call rather than copying others.

The ideal answers a call to live your own way well; the selfish 'anything goes' is its shallow distortion, not the ideal itself.

'Whatever I feel like is fine' — making your own wanting the only standard, with nothing mattering outside your wants.

Against cynics who dismiss authenticity AND boosters who cheapen it into 'anything goes' — keep the ideal, live it well.

From 'my life should be my own' (fine) to 'so only my wanting decides what's good' (the shallow mistake).

Ideal: find your own real way, answering a call. Shallow: your wanting is the only measure of worth.

Ignoring your own way and just imitating others misses something that really matters about a human life.

The idea that you form who you are in dialogue with others — you can't define yourself entirely alone.

You get your language, ideas and even your 'true self' through conversation with others, so a sealed-off self was never real.

A background of things that matter — love, justice, nature — whether or not you chose them; your choices mean something against it.

A choice only means something against a backdrop that already counts; pure whim (lining up pencils) answers to nothing, so it feels empty.

Dialogue (the self comes from others) + horizons (choices matter against a backdrop that already counts).

It keeps 'be true to yourself' but shows the self is built with others — so authenticity isn't lonely.

Someone whose 'authentic self' is lining up pencils feels empty because it answers to nothing that matters beyond their whim.

Dialogue: where does the self come from? (others). Horizons: what makes a choice worth making? (a backdrop that matters).

Rescuing the good core of the ideal (live your own way, in dialogue, among things that matter) while arguing against its shallow 'anything goes' version.

It says nothing outside my choice matters, but then my own life can't matter either — it needs a horizon that counts to make choices worth anything.

Three malaises → authenticity as a real ideal → the dialogical self and horizons → rescuing the ideal: one argument.

Boosters cheer 'anything goes'; knockers sneer it's just selfishness. Taylor rejects both and rescues the ideal.

Who decides which version is 'shallow'? He may lean on his own values; horizons from different communities can differ.

Authenticity is a real ideal and the shallow version is self-defeating, so the good core can be pulled free of it.

Open-book, one text: part (a) explain a concept [10] + part (b) evaluate a claim [15]; answer ONE question.

Point to the relevant passage accurately, then put it in your own words; don't just copy the text out.

Premises (reasons) offered to support a conclusion — not a quarrel.

A premise is a reason; the conclusion is the claim the reasons support.

Premises: because, since, for. Conclusions: so, therefore, thus, hence.

Deductive: true premises make the conclusion certain. Inductive: they make it likely.

The conclusion follows logically from the premises — about the form, not the truth.

A valid argument whose premises are also true. Sound arguments are hard to reject.

'All cats can fly; Milo is a cat; so Milo can fly.' Valid form, but a false premise.

An unstated assumption an argument relies on — dragging it into the open lets you test it.

Indian logic: claim, reason, rule+example, apply, conclude — it shows the general rule, not just the conclusion.

State the claim, give real reasons, check the form (valid?), check the truth (sound?).

Show the form is broken (invalid), or show a premise is false (unsound).

Testing how strong it is — showing where it succeeds or fails — not just agreeing or disagreeing.

Deny a premise is true (unsound), or deny the conclusion follows (invalid).

A single clear case that shows a general claim is false — e.g. a penguin against 'all birds fly'.

Attacking a weaker, distorted version of a view instead of what was actually said.

Attacking the person instead of their argument.

Assuming the very thing you're trying to prove — arguing in a circle.

Pretending there are only two options when more exist.

Stating the strongest, fairest version of a view before you object to it.

State your opponent's view fully and fairly first, then reply — steelmanning built into the method.

Steelman the view, locate its weak point (premise or logic), weigh it, and decide.

Description states views; evaluation weighs them and reaches a reasoned judgement — the mark of doing philosophy.

The instruction word (explain, evaluate, discuss...) that tells you what kind of answer to give.

Explain = make an idea clear, no judgement. Evaluate = argue, weigh and reach a judgement.

Explain, describe, outline — make it clear, no judgement.

Evaluate, discuss, to what extent, assess — argue and reach a judgement.

Define the idea, unpack its parts, show the reasoning behind it, and give a clear example.

Set out views in tension, bring objections, weigh them, and reach a reasoned judgement.

How far a claim holds — a measured, reasoned judgement, not a flat yes or no.

Evaluating too early — judgement belongs in part (b) and earns nothing in (a).

Just re-explaining the concept — part (b) marks are only for argument and evaluation.

Two parts on one concept: (a) Explain [10] then (b) Evaluate/Discuss [15].

Underline the command term and name the job — explain or evaluate.

Use an unseen stimulus (text or image) + your own knowledge to explore a philosophical issue about being human [25].

Read the stimulus → name a philosophical issue → argue and evaluate 2–3 views → reach a reasoned conclusion.

AO2 = explain a view clearly; AO3 = argue, evaluate and conclude. AO3 lifts you into the top band.

Find the hidden claim or tension — the thing the stimulus quietly assumes that you can question.

Identity, the self and the other, consciousness, personhood, human nature, freedom.

Describe it → ask what it symbolises → find the tension → name the issue.

Intro (name issue + link stimulus) → 2–3 views each argued and objected to → reasoned conclusion.

No. Any well-argued issue that fits the stimulus can score full marks — the choice is yours.

Retelling the stimulus, or describing views without arguing and evaluating them.

Keep linking your argument explicitly back to the stimulus.

About 5 min to plan, 35 min to write, 5 min to check.

No single feature — beauty, skill, meaning — is shared by all art and only art; Wollheim called it 'one of the most elusive problems of human culture'.

The branch of philosophy about art and beauty.

A deliberately ugly work can still be great art, and a beautiful sunset isn't art — so beauty is neither necessary nor sufficient.

A plain shop-bought object placed in a gallery can count as art with no skill on show.

Art is whatever the artworld (galleries, critics, curators) treats as art — a social status, not a hidden feature.

The community of galleries, critics, curators and artists that grants the status 'art'.

It struggles to call something art where no artworld existed — e.g. a 40,000-year-old cave painting or non-Western creations.

What COUNTS as art? and what MAKES it count? — keep them apart.

Making something genuinely new AND meaningful, shaped by a maker — not just unusual or different.

A live debate: a scribble is new but not creative; a forgery is skilled but not new — so 'creative' needs care as a definition.

It has no maker who intends it — art seems to need someone meaning to create it, not just a beautiful result.

Their outputs can move us, yet we hesitate to call them art — because a maker's intention and judgement seem missing.

Inspiration pictured as coming to the artist from outside — the idea feels 'given' rather than consciously worked out.

Yes — the artist selects, refines and judges what to keep, so authorship survives; creativity is inspiration plus craft.

The human judges and takes responsibility for the work; the machine only outputs — judgement, not who first had the idea.

A human maker shaping and judging something new and meaningful, even when the first spark feels like a gift.

Imitation (copying reality), expression (putting the artist's feeling into a form), creation (making something genuinely new).

Art is a copy of a copy (mimesis), twice removed from truth — suspect, and it can make lies look beautiful.

It imitates reality without understanding it, and by stirring feeling it can mislead us.

Art expresses the artist's inner feeling rather than copying the outside world.

Art is the transmission of feeling: the artist feels something, forms it, and the audience catches the same feeling.

Art brings something genuinely new into the world — a form that copies nothing and isn't just the artist's private feeling.

Each fits some art and misses other art; imitation can't explain music, expression can't explain a cool geometric design.

Plato looks OUTWARD at what art copies; the Romantics look INWARD at what the artist feels.

A means = a tool for a further purpose (message, cause); an end in itself = valuable for its own sake.

Communication → education → propaganda → indoctrination (sharing → teaching → persuading → controlling).

Art is valuable in itself, needing no moral, religious or political message; value lies in the work's beauty and form.

Bending art to a cause can make it preachy, one-sided and dishonest — propaganda may be effective but stops being free, honest art.

Debatable — even a calm still life may quietly carry values, so art is rarely fully neutral.

Judge by direction: a message that SERVES the art deepens it; art that shrinks to serve a message becomes a slogan.

It can be — art needn't carry a message to be valuable — but even 'pure' art may quietly carry values.

The live question isn't 'message or not' but whether the message serves the art or the art shrinks to the message.

What counts as art depends on human society — history, culture, politics, money — not on the object alone.

A skilled quilt is ranked below 'art' though it takes huge skill — a social judgement, not a fact about the object.

'Low' everyday imagery (a soup-can print) treated AS art deliberately blurs the high/low art line — status is chosen, not fixed.

A gallery setting turns objects into 'art' to be contemplated — a fire extinguisher or ritual mask becomes art by being framed.

Many traditions make masks, chants and cloths for ritual and community, not as 'art' to view in isolation — so the Western 'masterpiece' category is itself a construct.

Real skill and depth in the object aren't invented; society chooses which to CROWN as art — value is partly real, partly conferred.

It's an optional theme → Paper 1 Section B: an essay [25] weighing a CLAIM about the theme (no stimulus).

What is art? → what art does (imitation/expression/creation, message or not) → art is largely a social construct.

Not what makes something art, but who counts as an artist and who decides: an inborn gift, a status others grant, or a widespread human drive?

An artist is a rare person born with an inborn creative gift — feeling more deeply and pouring out an inner vision, not made by training.

You're an artist when the art world treats you as one — critics review you, galleries show you, museums keep you. A status granted, not a spark.

Strength: explains why the same object is art in a gallery, junk in a skip. Weakness: makes 'artist' a matter of fashion and gatekeeping.

Powerful art by untrained people outside the art world, made because they must — it challenges both the genius and artworld views.

Many cultures had no special 'artist' role — people wove, carved and sang as part of ordinary life — hinting 'the artist' is a recent Western idea.

If 'the artist' is a spotlight some cultures shine on a few, then making may be an ordinary human drive we all share.

Born genius · art world status · outsider art (neither) · a Western invention (maybe we're all makers).

The whole activity of making a work, from first idea to finished piece — imagining, trying, choosing and realising.

Imagination = the leap to something new; craft = the trained skill to realise it. Neither alone is enough.

Even spontaneous work rests on years of practice that make the spontaneity possible.