PHILOSOPHY
HIGHER LEVEL
PAPER 3 - ALTERNATIVE
SPECIMEN PAPER
1 hour 30 minutes
Unseen text – exploring philosophical activity
Read the text below then write a response to it (of approximately 800
words). In your answer include:
• A concise
description of philosophical activity as presented in the text
• An exploration
of the pertinent issues regarding philosophical activity raised
in the text, relating this to your experience of doing philosophy throughout
the whole course
• Appropriate
references to the text that illustrate your understanding of philosophical
activity
• Your personal
evaluation of the issues regarding philosophical activity raised
in the text
It was characteristic of Wittgenstein not to take sides in pre-existing
philosophical debates, weighing up the pros and cons of the arguments and
siding with the most persuasive. Rather, he strove to uncover the points of
agreement between the disputing parties, the shared presuppositions which were
taken for granted by all, and to challenge these. In the debate about the
nature of philosophy, he questioned the assumption that philosophy is a
cognitive discipline in which new knowledge is discovered, theories are
constructed, and progress is marked by the growth of knowledge and
well-confirmed theory.
Wittgenstein thought that philosophical problems arise primarily out of
misleading features of our language, for our language presents very different
concepts in similar guise. The verb ‘to exist’ looks no different from such
verbs as ‘to eat’ or ‘to drink’, but while it makes sense to ask how many
people in College don't eat meat or drink wine, it makes no sense to ask how
many people in College don't exist. To be red is a property some things have
and other things lack, but is existence a property some
things have and others lack? Things may come into existence and later cease to
be – but does that mean that they acquire a property they initially lacked and
later lose it? According to Wittgenstein in philosophy we are constantly misled
by grammatical similarities which mask profound logical differences. So we ask
questions which are intelligible when asked of certain categories of things,
but which make no sense or a very different sense when asked of things that
belong to a different category. Philosophical questions are frequently not so
much questions in search of an answer as questions in search of a sense.
“Philosophy is a struggle against the bewitchment of our understanding by means
of language” (Philosophical Investigations §109).
Philosophy is categorically different from science. Science constructs
theories, which enable us to predict and explain events. They are testable in
experience, and may only approximate the truth. But in this sense of ‘theory’,
there can be none in philosophy. The task of philosophy is to resolve or
dissolve philosophical problems by clarification of what makes sense. According
to Wittgenstein what is distinctively philosophical is
understanding the purpose which words serve. Describing the use of words
is a method for disentangling conceptual confusions – confusions that arise,
among others, through the unnoticed misuse of words. It serves to
resolve or dissolve philosophical problems. In so far as philosophical
difficulties are produced by our unwitting abuse of our existing concepts, they
cannot be resolved by replacing these with different concepts, since all that
does is to sweep the difficulties under the carpet. It is the business of
philosophy not to resolve a contradiction or paradox by means of a conceptual
innovation, but rather to attain a clear view of the conceptual structure that
troubles us: the state of affairs before the contradiction is resolved. We get
entangled in the rules for the use of our expressions, and the task of
philosophy is to get a clear view of this entanglement, not to mask it. There
can be no discoveries in philosophy, for everything that is relevant to a
philosophical problem lies open to view in our rule-governed use of words. All
the information we need lies in our knowledge of how to use the words we use,
and of this we need only to be reminded.
Philosophy has a double aspect. Negatively, it is a cure for the
diseases of the intellect. Philosophical problems are symptoms of conceptual
entanglement in the web of language. Success lies in disentangling the knots,
making the problem disappear, just as success in treating a disease lies in
making it disappear and restoring the patient to good health. Philosophy
results in the disclosing of one or another piece of plain nonsense, and in the
bumps that the understanding has got by running its head up against the limits
of language. These bumps make us see the value of that disclosure. This
negative aspect may well seem destructive.
More positively, philosophy is a quest for a clear representation of
segments of our language which are a source of conceptual confusion. Our
grammar, the names for the use of our words (syntax and lexicon), is lacking in
surveyability – it cannot be taken in at a glance.
And some segments of language – psychological terms such as ‘mind’, ‘thought’,
‘experience’, etc. – present greater barriers to attaining an overview
than others, such as terms in engineering. For the surface grammar of
expressions – that part that can be taken in at a glance, such as the
distinctions between nouns, verbs and adjectives – is often misleading. The
verb ‘to mean’ in sentences such as ‘I meant him’ looks as if it describes an
act, but it does not; the substantive ‘the mind’ looks as if it is the name of
a substance or thing, like ‘the brain’, but it is not; the possessive ‘have’ in
the sentence ‘I have a pain’ looks as if it signifies possession, as in the
sentence ‘I have a penny’, but it does not. Hence, “The problems are solved,
not by giving new information, but by arranging what we have always known” (Philosophical
Investigations §109). This may appear to trivialize a profound subject,
reducing philosophy to a matter of mere words. But this is deceptive.
[Source: Extracted and adapted from P. M. S. Hacker Wittgenstein. On Human Nature, Phoenix, Great
Britain, 1997, pages 7-11.]
MARKSCHEME:
SPECIMEN PAPER – PHILOSOPHY (Higher Level – Paper 3(ALT1))
Unseen
text – exploring philosophical activity
Read the
text below then write a response to it (of approximately 800 words). In your
answer include:
• A
concise description of philosophical activity as presented in the text
• An
exploration of the pertinent issues regarding philosophical activity raised in the text, relating this to
your
experience of doing philosophy throughout the whole course
• Appropriate
references to the text that illustrate your understanding of philosophical
activity
• Your
personal evaluation of the issues regarding philosophical activity raised in the text
This
paper consists in a response to an unseen text. The purpose of the exercise is
to allow students to reflect upon the nature, function, methodology and meaning
of philosophical activity, relating this to the students’ experience of doing
philosophy throughout the whole course. Students may reflect this in very
different ways in their responses, giving examples which draw from their
experience of the course. The following points – referring to the text extract
– might be included in a response:
Key
Points
• Philosophy
tries to uncover points of agreement and shared presuppositions between
disputing parties
• Philosophical
problems arise primarily out of misleading features of our language
• Philosophical
questions are frequently not so much questions in search of an answer as
questions in search of a sense
• Philosophy
as different from science
• The
task of philosophy is to resolve or dissolve philosophical problems by
clarification of what makes sense
• The
use of words in everyday life and the method of disentangling conceptual
confusions as characteristic of philosophical activity
• Philosophical
problems as symptoms of conceptual entanglement in the web of language
• The
positive side of philosophical activity: a quest for a clear representation of
segments of our language which are a source of conceptual confusion.
Discussion
• Can
this interpretation of philosophical activity be reduced to a matter of mere
words?
• Why
does it not make sense to ask how many people in College don't exist?
• There
can be no discoveries in philosophy. Is this a legitimate claim?
• Does
scientific knowledge play any role in this conception of philosophy? When not,
is it justified?
• It
is clear that we should avoid confusions produced by language, but the method
to avoid them is not as clear
• Which
perspectives open this view of philosophy? Does it offer any advantage to
explore philosophical activity as culturally diverse?
• Comparison
and contrast with other ideas of philosophy.
• How
can we philosophically and legitimately decide what makes sense?