RS a level PHILOSOPHY SPEC

all spec points philosophy paper

nature or attributes of God

omnipotence - divine power and self-imposed limitation

omniscience - divine knowledge and its interaction with temporal existence and free will

benevolence - alongside just judgement, including Boethian view relating this to foreknowledge, eternity, and free will

eternity - relation to action in time, Anselm’s 4D view as an extension of Boethius

Free will - coexistence with other attributes

Scholars - all attributes to be looked as alongside Boethius, Anselm, and Swinburne

religious experience

nature and influence of religious experience: mystical and conversion

views - the conclusions of william james

ways religious experience can be understood - union with a greater power, psychological effect, physiological effect

arguments from reason

ontological argument - Anselm, Gaunilo’s criticisms, Kant’ criticisms

arguments from observation

teleological - Aquinas’ 5th way, Paley

cosmological - Aquinas’ first 3 ways

challenges - Hume’s criticisms, evolution

20th century religious language

logical positivism - the impact of verification principle, Ayer’s approach to verification

falsification symposium - discussing the factual quality of religious language, arguments and parables of Flew, Mitchell, and Hare

Wittgenstein - language games and forms of life, meaningful yet non-cognitive

religious language: negative, analogical, or symbolic

apophatic way - the view that religious language is best approached via negation

cataphatic way - Aquinas’ analogy of attribution and proper proportion

symbol - Tillich’s view that religious language is almost entirely symbolic

soul, mind, and body

the philosophical language of soul, mind, and body in the thinking of Plato and Aristotle - Plato’s view of the soul as the essential and immaterial part of a human, temporarily united with the body. Aristotle’s view of the soul as the form of the body; the way the body behaves and lives; cannot be separated

metaphysics of consciousness, including:

substance dualism - the idea that mind and body are distinct substances, Descartes’ proposal of material and spiritual substances as a solution

materialism - the idea that consciousness can be fully explained by physical/material interactions, the rejection of the soul as a spiritual substance

ancient philosophical influences

the views of Plato in: understanding reality through reason as opposed to the sense, the nature of the forms; the hierarchy of the forms, the analogy of the cave and its purpose in relation to the theory of the forms

the views of Aristotle in: use of teleology, understanding reality, the four causes, the nature of the Prime Mover and its connection to the final cause

problem of evil

different presentation of PofE - logical and evidential

Augustine’s theodicy - original perfection and the fall

Hick’s reworking of the Irenaean theodicy - gives purpose to natural evil, enabling humans to reach divine likeness