Innatism - A-Level Philosophy AQA Detailed 25 Mark Essay Plan
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Course
Epistemology
Institution
AQA
An essay plan answering ' Is Innatism Convincing?'
It is designed for the AQA Philosophy A-Level 25 Marks. All essays are Band 5 and above.
The essays largely follow the recommended RICE (Reason, Issue, Counterexample and Evaluation).
Introduction, Statement of Intent and Conclusion are not in...
Is Idealism Convincing?
Statement of Intent: I will be arguing that Idealism is not convincing at all. Firstly I will consider Illusions
and Hallucinations which Idealism does deal well with. Then I will discuss the issue of Solipsism which is
dealt with less effectively and lastly the most crucial problem is the role of God in Idealism and if the idea
of God is unconvincing then the rest of Idealism collapses and is unconvincing.
RICE 1:
R: Idealism is not convincing because of the way it handles illusions and hallucinations. Berkeley says that
we perceive ideas directly are they are. There seems to be a distinction between appearance and reality.
I: This misunderstands Idealism. There is no such appearance and reality distinction because all that there
is are perceivers and ideas. There nothing that an object ‘really is’ other then the way it is perceived. And
so we wouldn’t call it an illusions because illusions are only called an illusion because the perception
deviates from how the object should actually look like but with idealism that isn’t the case because there is
no reality to base the perception of to say it is an illusion. So with the case of a crooked pencil it was
never claimed that the pencil had the property of being bent but rather is looks bent to our perceptions.
C: What about hallucinations? Hallucinations are subjectively indistinguishable from veridical perceptions -
and for Idealism if they both come from our mind than how do we distinguish them.
E: Berkeley has dealt with illusions quite well by showing that there isn’t an appearance vs reality check in
the first place to say illusions occur, we are just merely perceiving it but hallucinations have the distinct
problem in which how we respond to them is weird and causes problems aka the implications
I: Hallucinations are dim, irregular and confused. They are different to perception which are vivid and
clear. Hallucinations are incoherent and lack logical connection with the rest of our perceptual experience
and therefore it is concerned with something else entirely
C: We could push this objection further in whether hallucinations really are incoherent with the rest of our
perceptual experience. Say someone with a fever looked outside a window and saw a person walking
down the street, there seems to be nothing illogical about that. Not all hallucinations are scary monsters
etc. Furthermore, why would God allow for such perceptions to happen in the first place, if God is
benevolent why would he deceive us with hallucinations? - sort of hinders the concept that God is
omnibenevolent.
E: Overall, the solution to hallucinations is sort of dodged, doesn't tell us how we should treat
hallucinations, doesn’t explain why God would allow them to happen if we were to perceive them
considering that we understand God as omnibenevolent.
RICE 2:
R: The idea that Idealism would lead to solipsism the view that only oneself exist. If everything that I
perceive is ideas do I have any reason to think that anything exists apart from my mind.
I: My mind is active whereas ideas are passive. I am aware of myself as capable of this activity and
therefore I am not my ideas but a mind. Being a mind myself means that I have the notion of what a mind
is and therefore it is possible that other minds exist. Perceptions don’t originate in my mind and the
complexity, regularity of my experience of my perceptions indicate that the origins of my perception is
God and if I know God exists (who is a mind), I can infer that other minds exist and so solipsism is not the
case as it is unlikely that there is a world where it is just my mine and Gods.
C: Fundamentally the existence of other minds is a matter of inference which weakens the way it has
solved the problem of solipsism. It is still possible for just the minds of God and I to exist and whilst that
Is Idealism Convincing? 1
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