Philosophy A/AS Level

This specification 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, the specification concentrates on a number of key philosophical themes intended to provide students with a broad introduction to Philosophy. Typically, the issues covered will be Reason and Experience, Why Should I be Moral? The Idea of God and The Value of Art.

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. The issues addressed will centre on the problem of human nature and political organisation. We will look at competing views of human nature and of the purpose of the state; the classical liberal state, the conservative conception of the state and the Marxist and anarchist views of the state.  The set text is Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil.