With just over a week to go until the OCR A2 Philosophy exam, I have prepared a list of topics that haven’t appeared for a while in the question papers. Here they are:
Critically assess Hume’s reasons for rejecting miracles.
‘Numinous experience is incapable of supporting belief in God’. Discuss
‘God is most clearly revealed to humanity through scripture’. Discuss
‘Hick’s views of the body/soul distinction are more coherent than Dawkins’. Discuss.
To what extent are A. J. Ayer’s criticisms of religious language successful?
Over the next 9 days I will try and post something each day on these topics, including hopefully essays I have written. More to follow soon…
Philosophy of Religion A Level 
Hi – Thanks for posting these! Do you have any suggestions for the questions or topic areas that might come up in the A2 Ethics exam on the 19th of June?
Hi Freya,
These questions I got from the Philosophical Investigations website:
1. Evaluate Freud’s view that conscience is a product of our upbringing.
2. “Businesses have no ethics because they have no conscience”. Discuss
3. Which ethical theory you have studied has the best approach to issues surrounding contraception?
4. “Virtue ethics is of no practical use in solving moral problems”. Discuss
5. “Only a strong virtue ethic can protect the environment”. Discuss
I can’t comment too much on how likely they are to come up, as I don’t teach A2 Ethics, but from a quick look at the last 4 years of questions it seems Virtue Ethics has come up the least, followed by Conscience, so I guess those seem more likely to appear. I like the Freud question – he certainly has not been in any question on Conscience since 2010.
What are your thoughts on a question surrounding the idea of whether modern people should be expected to believe in miracles?
Chloe I think it is possible as a question, because it is a particular point in the spec, but as it is so closely related to Wiles’ argument, I would be slightly surprised if it came up this summer, as Wiles came up last time. Having said that, there hasn’t been a direct question on that point as far as I’m aware.
Hello,
Thank you for posting your predictions! 🙂 Was just wondering about the possibility of Hume coming up – didn’t he come up in Jan 2011?
Hi!
Thanks a lot for the questions! Please can you do a post on scriptural revelation because there seems not to much to say about it and I am not sure how to link it to other topics.
That is my next topic, so I should have something on that soon.
what are the possibility of omniscience attribute coming up, Its been up twice already, so as the view of god as just, is it possible it might be given again, also analogy, is that a possibility, it hasn’t been up for a while now, neither as myth