§-Philosophy syllabus

SA · SACE Board← Philosophy

Philosophy syllabus, dot point by dot point

Every dot point in the SA Philosophy subject outline, in syllabus order, with a focused answer for each. Open any dot point for the answer, exam-style questions and links to related points.

Epistemology

Topic overview →

Where does knowledge come from and can scepticism be answered?

Contrast rationalism and empiricism and evaluate responses to sceptical doubt

What justifies our confidence that the future will resemble the past, and can inductive reasoning be rationally defended?

Explain Hume's problem of induction and evaluate proposed responses including Popper's falsificationism and pragmatic vindication

What does it mean for a belief or statement to be true?

Compare correspondence, coherence and pragmatic theories of truth and evaluate their strengths and difficulties

Does perception give us direct knowledge of mind-independent objects, or only of our own sensory experiences?

Compare direct realism, indirect realism and idealism as theories of perception and evaluate the problem of the external world

What is knowledge and is justified true belief enough to have it?

Analyse the justified true belief account of knowledge and evaluate the Gettier objection

Ethics

Topic overview →

Can we logically derive a conclusion about how things ought to be from premises only about how things are?

Explain Hume's is-ought gap and Moore's naturalistic fallacy and assess whether moral facts can be reduced to natural facts

How should we decide what makes an action right or wrong?

Compare and evaluate consequentialist, deontological and virtue-based theories of normative ethics

How do general moral theories help us reason about concrete life and death cases such as euthanasia, abortion and animal welfare?

Apply normative ethical theories to contested applied issues in bioethics and animal ethics, and evaluate the arguments on each side

Are moral claims objectively true or merely expressions of attitude?

Examine metaethical positions on the status of moral claims and evaluate moral relativism

Metaphysics

Topic overview →

Is the existence of suffering and evil compatible with an all-powerful, all-knowing and wholly good God?

Distinguish the logical and evidential problems of evil and evaluate theodicies offered in response

What is the relationship between the mind and the physical body?

Compare dualist and physicalist theories of mind and evaluate the hard problem of consciousness

What is the nature of causation, and can causal regularity be reconciled with the freedom we attribute to agents?

Explain Humean and necessitarian accounts of causation and evaluate compatibilism about free will and determinism

What makes a person at one time the same person as someone at a later time?

Compare bodily, psychological and further-fact theories of personal identity and evaluate them against puzzle cases

Can the existence of God be established by rational argument, and how strong are the classic proofs?

Explain and evaluate the cosmological, teleological and ontological arguments for the existence of God

Are we free if every event is caused by prior events?

Evaluate the debate between determinism, libertarianism and compatibilism about free will

Philosophy of Mind

Topic overview →

Are mental states defined by what they do rather than what they are made of, and could a machine therefore think?

Explain functionalism about the mind and evaluate it using the Turing test and Searle's Chinese Room argument

Why is there subjective experience at all, and can physical science explain what it is like to undergo a conscious state?

Explain the hard problem of consciousness and evaluate the knowledge argument and the conceivability of zombies

Political Philosophy

Topic overview →

How should the benefits and burdens of social cooperation be distributed across a society?

Compare Rawls's justice as fairness with Nozick's entitlement theory and evaluate patterned versus historical principles of distribution

What is the proper limit of the power society may legitimately exercise over the individual?

Explain Mill's harm principle and the distinction between negative and positive liberty and evaluate limits on individual freedom

What gives the state the right to rule, and do citizens have a genuine moral duty to obey the law?

Evaluate theories of political legitimacy and political obligation including consent, fairness and the challenge of philosophical anarchism

What makes political authority legitimate and a society just?

Evaluate social contract theories and competing conceptions of distributive justice

Reasoning and Argument Analysis

Topic overview →

What is the difference between an argument that guarantees its conclusion and one that only makes it probable?

Distinguish deductive validity from inductive strength and evaluate the main forms of inductive inference

How can the validity of an argument be tested by its logical form alone?

Use categorical syllogisms and propositional truth tables to test arguments for formal validity

How do we tell a good argument from a bad one?

Analyse arguments for validity and soundness and identify common informal fallacies