AQA A LEVEL PHILOSOPHY Essay Plans - EPISTEMOLOGY
A* Level Essay Plans which are concise and easy to understand.
Written by a student predicted 4A*, with an offer to study Philosophy & Economics at the LSE.
Very helpful to write a top grade essay.
Essay Plan: Idealism.
Introduction:
- Define: immediate objects of perception are mind dependent, there is
nothing which exists in an external world; everything is a bundle of ideas.
- Contrasts realist theories by arguing that there is no ontologically
fundamental physical substance.
- Thesis: Fails due to illusion, hallucination, solipsism, role of God.
Outline:
- Idealism arose from Berkeley’s attack on the distinction between primary
and secondary qualities.
- Also arises from his master argument.
Strengths:
- Avoids scepticism because you know everything about the nature of
reality.
- Whereas indirect realism promotes scepticism; it’s beyond your veil of
perception.
- It can easily deal with the issue of perceptual variation which direct
realism cannot.
Issue 1
Problem of hallucination: For idealism, veridical perception and
hallucinations are indistinguishable because they’re both mind dependent.
Hence idealism allows the counterintuitive (absurd) idea that a
hallucination or illusion can be true in reality.
Response: no immediate way of differentiating however through using
other senses you will find that the hallucination/ illusion doesn’t exist in
reality. E.g., if you hallucinate and try to touch the pink elephant you will
feel nothing.
Evaluation: this solves the problem of distinguishability, but it is counter-
intuitive that one must manually check that something as absurd as a
hallucination is not real. As is explained later, idealism relies on God. If this
is true, the question arises as to why God would place something as
pointless as hallucinations into existence. This questions whether God is
the basis of idealism, and if not (as explained later), idealism fails.
Issue 2
Problem of solipsism: Berkeley insists I can only know something exists if I
perceive it. We only have direct access to our ideas and so can’t be sure
other people even have ideas, which means I cannot be sure other minds
exist. Also, if objects of perception are just my ideas, doesn’t this extend
to other people as well (they are just my ideas?).
Response: minds do exist because they formulate ideas, we receive ideas
separate from our will (e.g., people being unkind to us). Hence if we didn’t
produce the idea another mind must have, so other minds do exist.
Issue 3
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