A-Level Philosophy Bridging Work

For the first year of this course you need to buy TWO textbooks:

‘AQA A-level Philosophy for A-level Year 1 and AS: Epistemology and Moral Philosophy’ by Hayward,

Jones and Cardinal, ISBN 978-1-5104-0025-2

AND

‘AQA A-level Philosophy for A-level Year 2: Metaphysics of God and Metaphysics of mind’ by

Cardinal, Jones and Hayward, ISBN 978-1-5104-0026-9.

They’re quite big and looks like this:

In your first year you will study Epistemology from the first book with Dr Young and Metaphysics of

God with Dr Beadle. So you’ll need to be very organised when your packing your bag (or get big

shoulders).

Below is a scan of the introductory chapter. It is partly about the philosophical questions we will

study, but more about the way we will study them; what philosophy is, how it works, the structures

and styles of thinking and argument it employs etc. You need to read this carefully, making notes on

any key terms. Use this as an opportunity to check this is definitely the right subject for you!

You will have a baseline assessment on these ideas in your first week (as soon as we have talked you

through the structure of exam questions for this subject).

Please note: the ‘Preparing for the exam’ section towards the back of this book is about the AS

exam, which differs from yours. Ignore it. The info you need is in the 2nd book.