A Level Philosophy Distance Learning CourseAL613

Course Info

Distance Learning Support

At Start Learning we pride ourselves on our friendly andsupportive tutors. Your tutor support will start as soon as you receive yourcourse and will be valid for 12 months. All our tutors are highly qualifiedwith extensive experience in supporting distance learning students.You contact your tutor via email and they are responsible for markingassignments answering your questions and guiding you through the course.

Home Study Entry Requirements

Basic English reading and writing skills are required. We recommend you have general skills and knowledge associated with a GCSE course or equivalent.

At Start Learning we believe that everyone should have theopportunity to expand their knowledge and study further, so we try to keep ourentry requirements to a minimum.

Recommended Hours of Study

It is recommended that 200 hours of your time should be allocated towards study for the AS and A2 examinations.

Course Contents

 

A Level Philosophy consists of AS Level and A2 Level

AS Level

Unit 1 – PHIL1 – An Introduction to Philosophy 1
• Epistemology: Reason and Experience
• Mind and Metaphysics: Persons
• Politics and Religion: why should I be governed?

Unit 2 – PHIL2 – An Introduction to Philosophy 2
• Epistemology: Knowledge of the External World
• Mind and Metaphysics: Free Will and Determinism
• Politics and Religion: God and the World

A2 Level

Unit 3 – PHIL3 – Key Themes in Philosophy
• Key Themes in Philosophy: Political Philosophy
• Key Themes in Philosophy: Philosophy of Mind

Unit 4 – PHIL4 – Philosophical Problems
• Introducing the Meditations
• The method of doubt and its purpose
• The Cogito
• Clear and distinct ideas
• The first proof of God
• The Cartesian circle
• Removing scepticism
• Mind and body
• Dualistic problems

AS Level + A2 Level = A Level in Philosophy

Recommended Reading

AQA Philosophy AS Student Book by ATHERTON, CLUETT, MCADOO,
RAWLINSON AND SIDOLI (Nelson Thornes 2008) ISBN 9780748798582

AQA An Introduction to Philosophy for AS level (Philosophy in Focus series)
by JONES, HAYWARD AND CARDINAL, (Hodder Education 2008) ISBN
9780340965252
Meditations by DESCARTES, translated by F E Sutcliffe (Penguin Classics
1999) ISBN 0140442065

A Beginner’s Guide to Descartes’ Meditations by GARETH SOUTHWELL (Wiley
Blackwell 2007) ISBN 978-1405158558

Descartes: The Project of Pure Enquiry by BERNARD WILLIAMS (Routledge;
Revised edition 2005) ISBN 978-0415356275

Easy Payment Plan

Full Price is £295

6 Monthly Instalments of £65.83

The first instalment is paid at time of enrolment with a fee for postage and packaging .

For postage costs click here: Postage & Packaging

Call us on 0800 074 1222 if you would like to set up a payment plan.

Learning Objectives

This course has been designed to enable students to gain a thorough grounding in key philosophical concepts, themes, texts and techniques. Students will develop a range of transferable skills which can be applied far beyond the study of Philosophy.

At AS level, the course concentrates on a number of key philosophical themes, intended to provide students with a broad introduction to Philosophy.

At A2, students will specialise further, selecting two themes to study in depth and focusing on philosophical problems through the study of a key text.

This course allows you to study at your own pace, and is suitable to be studied by all students irrespective of age, creed, religion or gender.

Course Content

An outline of what is offered in our A Level Philosophy course:

AS Level

PHIL1

Epistemology: Reason and Experience

Topics include:

• Mind as a tabula rasa

• The limits of a posteriori knowledge

• Ideas without experience

• The extent of a priori knowledge

• Conceptual schemes

In this unit you will learn…

The strengths and weaknesses of empiricism, the view that all our ideas derive from experience

How much knowledge about the world can be grounded in or justified through experience

The strengths and weaknesses of rationalism, the theory that all significant knowledge can be derived from reason alone

The doctrine of innate ideas and its philosophical significance

The view that experience is only intelligible as it is, because it presents sensation through a particular conceptual scheme or framework

The difference between deductive and inductive arguments, necessary and contingent truths, and analytic and synthetic truths

Mind and Metaphysics: Persons

Topics include:

• Persons introduced

• The concept “person”

• The limits of personhood

• Personal identity

• Personal survival

The characteristics associated with personhood and the distinction between humans and persons

The nature of the concept “person” and degrees of personhood; potential persons, ex-persons and diminished persons

The limits of personhood; whether non human animals or complex machines possess any of the characteristics of persons, and to what extent

Whether physical or psychological continuity are necessary or sufficient conditions for personal identity through time

An alternative way of talking about a person’s existence through time; personal survival, and the strengths and weaknesses of this approach

Politics and Religion: why should I be governed?

Topics include:

• The state of nature

• From state of nature to governmental state

• Political obligation and consent

• Power, legitimacy and dissent

• Civil disobedience

In this unit you will learn…

Two different views on what mankind’s condition would be like in a ‘state of nature’, in the absence of a central government

Why it might be rational to submit to a central authority; the distinction between individual and collective rationality, and between positive and negative liberty

The view that political obligation comes from consent, and the concepts of hypothetical and tacit consent

The concepts of power, authority and legitimacy, and whether popular approval is a requirement for a legitimate state

Whether a guaranteed right to dissent is necessary for us to be politically obligated

The aims and requirements of civil disobedience and direct action, and under what circumstances they are justified

PHIL2

Epistemology: Knowledge of the External World

Topics include:

• Perception and the external world

• Representative realism

• Introducing idealism

• Should we be idealists?

• Realism revisited

In this unit you will learn…

The common sense view of how the world is experienced, and sceptical arguments against it

The distinction between primary and secondary qualities

The strengths and weaknesses of the secondary quality thesis and sense data theory

The strength and weaknesses of idealism, the theory that there is no world outside our perception of it

A philosophical reworking of the common sense view, and whether it can overcome the sceptic

Mind and Metaphysics: Free Will and Determinism

• Introducing determinism

• Humans and determinism

• What is free will?

• Could free will and determinism be compatible?

• Implications of determinism

In this unit you will learn…

Arguments in favour of the view that the world is determined by existing sets of conditions and the laws of nature.

How determinism fits with human action, the view that actions are pre-determined by environment and inheritance, and the view that free will is an illusion

The strengths and weaknesses of the view that free will requires indeterminism, and that human consciousness exists outside the natural causal chain

The strengths and weaknesses of the view that free will is compatible with determinism through causally determined voluntary actions

The moral implications of determinism, whether responsibility, praise and blame could make sense in a deterministic world, libertarian and compatibility responses

The difference between reasons and causes; action and bodily movement; actions and events

Politics and Religion: God and the World

Topics include:

• Arguments for design

• Arguments from design

• The problem of evil

• Responses to the problem

• The religious point of view

In this unit you will learn…

The view that the natural world shows evidence of intelligent design in its apparent order and purpose

Arguments in favour of the view that the apparent design of the natural world implies an omnipotent designer; arguments from analogy, probability, cause and effect, and inference to the best explanation

The problem of evil; the view that the presence of evil in the world is inconsistent with the idea of an all powerful, benevolent creator; the distinction between moral and natural evil

Several attempts to deal with the problem of evil, on the basis of; free will, the afterlife, the best of all possible worlds

The idea that the world can accommodate multiple different perspectives, and the religious point of view is just one of them

Whether the religious ‘hypothesis’ can be properly described as such; scientific belief distinguished from religious belief

PHIL 3 

Key Themes in Philosophy: Political Philosophy

• Human nature

• Competing views of the state

• What is liberty?

• Why is liberty valuable?

• What are rights?

• Problems of rights

• What is justice?

• Justice and redistribution

• Nation states

In this unit you will learn…

What a number of different philosophers think about human nature, and the implications of these views on political philosophy

Several different accounts of what the state is for, and arguments for dissolution of the state as we know it

How freedom can be defined both positively and negatively, and how it can be interpreted by competing political ideologies

What makes freedom valuable, ways in which it might be promoted and defended, and the relationship between liberty and the law

How we can be said to have rights, the notions of natural and positive rights, and how human rights can be grounded

Problems with the extent and application of rights, ways in which conflicts between rights and social utility might be resolved, and the relationship between rights, liberty, morality and the law

What constitutes various types of justice, including social, economic and distributive justice

Different accounts of the just distribution of goods in a society, in terms of desert, need and equality, how redistribution might be justified, and the relationship between distributive justice, liberty and rights

How distribution concepts might be applied to nation states, and the relationships between states, and whether distributive justice applies on a global scale

How liberty relates to nationalism and national sentiment, and whether cross-border movement is just

Whether rights apply to groups and nations as a whole, for example, the right to self determination

Key Themes in Philosophy: Philosophy of Mind

• Introducing dualism

• Problems with dualism

• Dualist solutions, and further problems

• Reductive accounts of mind

• Identity theory

• Functionalism

• Can consciousness be eliminated

• Hard problems of consciousness

• Non-reductive materialism

• Dualism returns

In this unit you will learn…

Arguments for and against the Cartesian account of mind and body; substance dualism

The philosophical problems that this theory gives rise to; the problem of other minds and the problem of mind-body interaction

Proposed solutions to these problems, and Wittgenstein’s critique of the Cartesian approach

Four different attempts to reduce consciousness to the physical world; the view that mental statements can be reduced to statements about behaviour; the view that the mind can be ontologically reduced to physical states of the brain; attempts to account for the mind in terms of its functions; attempts to eliminate the mind and ‘folk psychology’ from the intellectual discourse

General arguments in favour of reductionism, including dissolution of the other minds and mind-body problems, and the non-mysteriousness of the mental

General arguments against reductionism, appealing to qualia and intentionality

The ‘hard problem of consciousness’, the possibility of philosophical zombie and the intelligence of artificial intelligence

Non-reductive forms of materialism and John Searle’s biological naturalism

The strengths and weaknesses of property dualism and the difficulty of accounting for psycho-physical causation

PHIL4

• Introducing the Meditations

• The method of doubt and its purpose

• Inducing doubt

• The Cogito

• Clear and distinct ideas

• The first proof of God

• The Cartesian circle

• Essential natures

• Removing scepticism

• Mind and body

• Dualistic problems

In this unit you will learn…

The best way to approach the Meditations, how to read it and its historical background

Several arguments to induce exaggerated doubt about one’s beliefs, and the purpose of the sceptical method

The outcome of the arguments from doubt; total deception and absolute certainty; the Cogito and the implications of this conclusion

The doctrine of clear and distinct ideas and their importance for the Cartesian project

Several proofs of God’s existence, and objections to these proofs; the ontological argument and the Cartesian circle

The doctrine of essential properties, and how it underpins the ontological argument and Cartesian dualism

Descartes’ distinction between intellect and imagination, the proof of material things and how scepticism is ultimately overcome

How Descartes argues for the view that mind and body are distinct substances and objections to these arguments

The question of mind-body interdependence and the ‘intermingling’ thesis 

Qualification

Qualification

AS +A2 = A level in Philosophy. 

Both AS and A2 level courses and examinations must be successfully completed to gain a full A level.

Language of Examination

English

Examination Centre

You can find a full list of private candidate centres here: AQA Private Candidate Centres

Start Learning will provide you with a list of examination centres but it is entirely your responsibility to find a centre which will accept you as an external candidate.
In some cases you should be prepared to travel to another town or city to take your exams.

Start Learning provides expertise support and advice for students in their studies through their comprehensive course packs and tutoring system. However, we do stress that it is the student’s responsibility to find a centre to register and take their exams with. We are aware that sometimes this is difficult or even impossible to arrange.

Now we have come to an arrangement with a centrally located centre where Start Learning students will be able to take their exams. It is the English Maths Science Tuition & Educational Centre, located in Birmingham, right in the centre of England.

We realise this may still involve a good deal of travelling for some students but the long-term benefits of being able to gain A Levels far outweigh the short-term  expense and inconvenience.

For further information, please go to:
http://www.englishandmaths.com/Index.php

or: English Maths Science Tuition Centre Ltd.
40 Showell Green lane
Sparkhill
Birmingham,
B11 4JP
England
United Kingdom

Tel: 0121-771-1298

The contract for sitting exams is between you and the centre and we will provide you with comprehensive instructions on when and how to deal with the examination centre.

Summary of Examinations

AS Level

Unit 1 – PHIL1 – An Introduction to Philosophy 1
Percentage: 50% of AS Level, 25% of A Level
Examination Time: 1 hour 30 minutes written examination
Total Marks: 90 marks
Format: Students must answer the compulsory question on reason and experience and one other question.

Unit 2 – PHIL2 – An Introduction to Philosophy 2
Percentage: 50% of AS Level, 25% of A Level
Examination Time: 1 hour 30 minutes written examination
Total Marks: 90 marks
Format: Students must answer two questions

A2 Level

Unit 3 – PHIL3 – Key Themes in Philosophy
Percentage: 30% of A Level
Examination Time: 2 hours written examination
Total Marks: 100 marks
Format: Students must answer two questions from two different sections

Unit 4 – PHIL4 – Philosophical Problems
Percentage: 20% of A Level
Examination Time: 1 hour 30 minutes written examination
Total Marks: 60 marks
Format: Students must choose one section and answer the compulsory question and one essay question.

FAQ's

Q: What are the qualifications required to enrol onto this course?
A: Basic English reading and writing skills are required.  We recommend you have general skills and knowledge associated with a GCSE course or equivalent. 

Q: Do I have to sit an exam?
A: Yes, to gain your full A Level Qualification, you are required to sit an exam.  Exams are held at test centres which can be found in major towns and cities throughout the UK.  Please contact Start Learning for a list of test centres.  Exams can be taken in January and June, please visit the AQA website for further details and exam timetables.   

Q: How long do I have access to the personal tutor service?
A: The personal tutor service is available for 18 months from when the study materials are received.  At Start Learning we aim help our students to the best of our ability; therefore we are always delighted to answer questions and queries out with the 18 month period.
Q: Do your courses meet the latest syllabus changes?
A: yes, all our course materials meet any changes and will be updated free of charge if further changes are made.

Q: How much are exam fees?
A: These vary from centre to centre so please check with your local centre.

Q: Is this A Level Philosophy course paper based or on-line?
A: Our A Level Philosophy course is paper based and comes in an attractive folder.

Q: I want to take my exams but there are only a few months to study, is this possible?
A: Depending on the time of year, it is sometimes impossible to complete your studies in a short space of time as your work has to be marked and checked. More importantly the examination boards have cut off times which are not flexible. See the AQA website for further information.

Q: Will I receive UCAS points on completion of this course?
A: Yes all of our A Levels carry UCAS points. The number of points awarded will depend on the grade you achieve.

Q: I still have questions? / I would like more information?
A:  If you require more information please do not hesitate to contact Start Learning via email: info@start-learning.co.uk or call us on 0800 074 1222 or 0141 218 4424.

We look forward to hearing from you.