Unit 9: HL extension: Philosophy and contemporary issues

Topic 9.3: The nature, function and methodology of philosophy Questions

Practice 20 exam-style questions for IB Philosophy Topic 9.3. Review the question stems below, then unlock the full Question Bank to access markschemes, model answers, and AI grading.

1Choose1 mark
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True or false? Because philosophy rarely settles its questions, it can't be worth doing.
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Which THREE jobs does the micro say philosophy keeps coming back to?
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The micro's honest answer to 'one method or many?' is that there is:
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Saying philosophy aims at 'understanding' rather than just facts means it wants to:
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True or false? Because philosophers write in wildly different forms, there is no shared method underneath.
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Philosophy's distinctive TOOL — what sets it apart from science and religion — is:
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Why is 'philosophy never gives final answers' NOT a fatal objection?
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The 'thinking' picture of philosophy (much of the Western tradition) says doing philosophy is:
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The central question of this micro — 'what is philosophy FOR?' — is really asking:
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The 'practice' picture — e.g. Indian sadhana and the Greek Stoics — says philosophy is:
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Fill the gap: science settles questions by observing, religion answers by faith, and philosophy works by ______.
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Plato wrote in DIALOGUE form mainly because it lets the reader:
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True or false? On the practice picture, an argument you grasp perfectly but never live has still fully succeeded as philosophy.
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14Choose1 mark
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Stripped back, the philosopher's core method is:
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15Choose1 mark
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'Analysis', as a philosophical method, means:
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Nietzsche's APHORISMS — short, sharp bursts — are chosen mainly to:
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Fill the gap: the philosopher's method has two parts — ______, breaking an idea into its parts to see what it means, and argument, giving reasons and testing them.
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The line 'knowing the theory of swimming while drowning' is used to make which point?
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A weakness the micro raises for the practice picture is that:
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The micro's strongest 'both/and' view is that real philosophy is:
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