Lessons
Last Accessed
Recently visited lessons will appear here for quick access.Start exploring your first lesson today!
Epistemology
3.1.1 Knowledge and definition
3.1.1 - Knowledge types and the nature of definitionScope: This lesson covers the distinction between acquaintance knowledge, ability knowledge and propositional knowledge, and the nature of definition as individually necessary and jointly sufficient conditions. It stays within AQA 7172 section 3.1.1 by using Linda Zagzebski's 'What is Knowledge?'...
3.1.1 - The tripartite view - justified true beliefScope: This lesson covers the tripartite account of propositional knowledge as justified true belief. It stays within AQA 7172 3.1.1 by teaching justification, truth, belief, and the claim that these are individually necessary and jointly sufficient conditions; detailed Gettier counterexamples an...
3.1.1 - Gettier and lucky true beliefScope: This lesson covers Edmund Gettier's original challenge to the tripartite view of propositional knowledge. It stays within AQA 7172 3.1.1 by explaining lucky true beliefs, why Gettier-style cases satisfy justified true belief, and why they seem not to be knowledge, without developing the la...
3.1.1 - Post-Gettier analyses of knowledgeScope: This lesson covers the four AQA 7172 3.1.1 post-Gettier responses to the tripartite definition of propositional knowledge: infallibilism, no false lemmas, reliabilism, and virtue epistemology. It stays within AQA 7172 3.1.1 by asking how each repair tries to remove epistemic luck, whether...
3.1.2 Perception as a source of knowledge
3.1.2 - Direct realism and the immediate objects of perceptionScope: This lesson covers direct realism as the view that, in perception, mind-independent objects and their properties are the immediate objects of perception. It stays within AQA 7172 section 3.1.2 by defining the view, explaining its initial plausibility, and introducing the four named pressur...
3.1.2 - Problems for direct realismScope: This lesson covers the AQA 7172 3.1.2 problems for direct realism: illusion, perceptual variation, hallucination, and time lag, together with direct realist responses and residual evaluation. It stays within AQA 7172 3.1.2 by using indirect realism only as a brief contrast when explaining...
3.1.2 - Indirect realism, sense-data and LockeScope: This lesson covers indirect realism in AQA 7172 section 3.1.2: sense-data as the immediate objects of perception, their causal and representational relation to mind-independent objects, and Locke's primary/secondary quality distinction. It stays within EPI07 by teaching only the initial is...
3.1.2 - Indirect realism and scepticism about the external worldScope: This lesson covers the scepticism objection to indirect realism and the specified responses from Locke, Locke/Trotter Cockburn on coherence, and Russell on the external world as the best hypothesis. It stays within AQA 7172 section 3.1.2 by focusing on whether indirect realism can justify...
3.1.2 - Berkeley against indirect realismScope: This lesson covers Berkeley's challenge to indirect realism in AQA 7172 3.1.2: mind-dependent ideas cannot be like mind-independent objects, so indirect realism cannot give knowledge of the nature of those objects. It stays within the perception topic by targeting indirect realism's repres...
3.1.2 - Berkeley idealism and its problemsBerkeley asks you to reconsider what an ordinary object is when every feature you encounter appears in perception. You will trace how his idealism tries to preserve a stable, shared world without matter, then test it against illusion, hallucination, solipsism and the role of God. Indirect realism...
3.1.3 Reason as a source of knowledge
3.1.3 - Innatism - Plato and LeibnizScope: This lesson covers innatism as a claim about reason as a source of knowledge, focusing on Plato's slave-boy argument in the Meno from 81e and Leibniz's argument from necessary truths in New Essays on Human Understanding, Preface and Book 1. It stays within AQA 7172 3.1.3 by reconstructing...
3.1.3 - Empiricist responses to innatismScope: This lesson covers Locke's empiricist attack on innatism, Locke's tabula rasa account, Hume's impressions and ideas, simple and complex concepts, and issues for empiricist responses. It stays within AQA 7172 3.1.3 by evaluating empiricism as a response to innatism without teaching Descarte...
3.1.4 Philosophical scepticism
Moral philosophy
3.2.1 Normative ethical theories
3.2.2 Applied ethics
3.2.3 Meta-ethics
Metaphysics of God
3.3.1 The nature of God
3.3.2 Arguments relating to the existence of God
3.3.3 Religious language
Metaphysics of mind
3.4.1 Features of mental states
3.4.2 Dualist theories
3.4.3 Physicalist theories
3.4.4 Functionalism