IB Diploma Programme Philosophy HL (current guide). This topic covers the COMPULSORY CORE THEME in full — Being human — the course's spine: what it is to be human, examined through identity, freedom, personhood and mind–body, with the PHILOSOPHICAL CRAFT (argument analysis, the classic skills) taught alongside. Every study of an optional theme returns to this core; every paper rewards the craft it teaches. The worked examples are original.

Must-know for the core theme:

Philosophy 哲学 proceeds by argument 论证: premises offered in support of a conclusion. The craft the papers test: identify the CONCLUSION and the PREMISES; evaluate the INFERENCE (VALID if the conclusion follows necessarily, whatever the premises' truth; SOUND if valid with true premises — validity is about form, soundness adds truth); and recognise the argument forms: deductive (necessity) and inductive 归纳的 (probability from cases). The classic failures each have names: BEGGING THE QUESTION (the conclusion smuggled into a premise), the STRAW MAN (refuting a weakened copy), the FALSE DILEMMA (two options declared the only ones), the APPEAL TO AUTHORITY (a name where a reason belongs). Philosophical writing is this discipline made visible: a CLAIM, a REASON, an OBJECTION answered: the essay's spine in three moves. The second craft is the thought experiment 思想实验 (philosophy’s laboratory): an imagined case (the ship of Theseus, the teleporter) that isolates a concept by stressing it; the paper asks what the case shows and what it assumes.

Worked example. “Every event has a cause, so my choices have causes, so I am not free.” Identify: P1 every event caused; C1 choices caused; C2 not free. Valid? Only with a suppressed premise — that caused choices are not free — and THAT premise is precisely what the compatibilist denies: the argument begs the question against compatibilism. The analysis is the model: name the parts, test the form, find the suppressed premise.

Personal identity 人格同一性 asks what makes you the same person over time, with three classic answers. The body theory 身体理论: numerical continuity of the organism (its strength: it matches how we identify people; its problem: the ship of Theseus — replace every part and identity seems untouched). The memory theory 记忆理论 (Locke): sameness of consciousness — memory connections join the person across time (its problem: Reid's brave officer — the old general remembers the officer, the officer the boy, the general not the boy: memory is not transitive, identity must be). The psychological continuity theory 心理连续性理论 (Parfit): overlapping chains of psychological connections; identity is not what matters, as the teleporter thought experiment suggests survival without identity, so personal identity may be a matter of degree.

Personhood 人格 asks what qualifies as a person — a moral category, not a biological one: humans are biological, persons are beings with rational agency, consciousness, the capacity for relationships (persons may be non-human; some humans, arguendo, may lack personhood). The criteria (self-consciousness, rationality, communication, moral agency) each draw edges — the infant, the severely cognitively impaired, the possible machine — which is why the concept is ethically loaded: abortion, end-of-life and animal ethics all turn on it. The craft applies: a criterion proposed, a counter-case found, the criterion refined.

The free will 自由意志 problem in one line: if every event has a cause, is any choice free? HARD DETERMINISM: no — causation is universal, freedom is an illusion, and moral responsibility needs rethinking. LIBERTARIANISM: yes — agents originate actions; at least some choices are uncaused causings (its burden: how an uncaused event can be controlled, and thus an agent's). COMPATIBILISM: freedom and determinism coexist — a free act is one caused in the right way, by the agent's own desires and reasons without coercion (its burden: if the desires are themselves caused, is the “right way” enough?). The thought experiments stress each: Frankfurt's unwilling addict (he acts on his desire but wants otherwise — unfree even undetermined? second-order desire as the key) and the manipulation case (a agent's desires implanted — desires “his own” by the compatibilist criterion, yet intuitively unfree).

The human condition frames the whole theme: that we are the animal that asks what it is — self-interpreting beings whose identities are partly chosen, partly given; finitude, embodiment and mortality as the conditions philosophy thinks within. And MIND: Dualism 二元论 (mind distinct from body — substance or property) against physicalism 物理主义 (all facts, mental included, are physical): the KNOWLEDGE ARGUMENT (Mary the scientist who knows all the physical facts and learns something new on seeing colour, a physicalist must say what she learns) and the ZOMBIE thought experiment (a being physically identical with no inner life — conceivable? and does conceivability entail possibility?).

• Argument anatomy: premises, conclusion, validity vs soundness, deduction vs induction; the named fallacies; the claim-reason-objection spine; thought experiments read as stress tests (craft).
• Identity: the three theories with their classic counter-cases (Theseus, Reid's officer, the teleporter); Parfit's survival-without-identity claim (identity).
• Personhood: the criteria and their edges; the moral uses of the concept (personhood).
• Freedom: hard determinism, libertarianism, compatibilism with each one's burden; Frankfurt's addict and the manipulation case (freedom).
• Mind: dualism vs physicalism; the knowledge argument and the zombie; what each shows and assumes (mind).
• The worked determinism argument's suppressed premise found and named (craft).

Boundary notes: the papers mark PHILOSOPHICAL SKILL — argument analysis in Section A, developed response in essays — and the core theme's concepts reappear in every optional theme. All worked examples are original; the classic cases cited are the standard canon.

IB Diploma Programme Philosophy HL (current guide). This topic equips the OPTIONAL THEMES and the PRESCRIBED TEXT. Schools choose ONE theme at SL, TWO at HL, from seven: AESTHETICS, EPISTEMOLOGY, ETHICS, PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION, PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE, POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY, SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY — and this handout kits the most-taught ones (ethics and epistemology in depth, the other five compactly) so any school's choice is covered. It then teaches the PRESCRIBED TEXT craft: reading a philosophical classic as philosophers do. All worked examples are original; the canonical positions are the standard syllabus canon.

Must-know for the optional themes and the text:

ETHICS (the most-taught theme): the three classic theories in permanent debate. Consequentialism 结果主义 judges acts by outcomes — utilitarianism (maximise aggregate wellbeing; its power is decision-guidance, its burdens the tyranny-of-the-majority cases and the demand to calculate the uncalculable). Deontology 义务论 judges acts by duty — Kant's categorical imperative (act only on a maxim you could will universal; treat persons as ends) with its burdens the conflict of duties (the inquiring murderer) and rigour's coldness. Virtue ethics 德性伦理学 judges agents (what would the phronimos do?); character is built by habituation; its burden, action-guidance vagueness. The applied debates (euthanasia, lying, capital punishment) are run three ways, which is the paper's favourite shape.

EPISTEMOLOGY: Knowledge 知识 analysed as justified true belief — and Gettier's cases 葛梯尔案例 (the stopped clock: a true belief justified by luck) breaking the definition; responses (no false lemmas, reliabilism, virtue epistemology). The SOURCES of knowledge: Rationalism 唯理论 (some substantive knowledge is a priori — innate or grasped by reason) vs Empiricism 经验论 (all substantive knowledge from experience) with Kant's synthesis (the mind structures experience). SKEPTICISM as the stress-test: the evil demon, the brain in a vat — and what the skeptic forces the theorist to say.

The other five compactly: AESTHETICS — the definition of art (imitation, expression, form; the institutional theory's move) and the aesthetic attitude (disinterested pleasure; Hume's standard of taste against relativism). PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION: the arguments (ontological, cosmological, teleological) each with their classic objections, and the problem of evil (logical and evidential; the free-will and soul-making replies). PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE — induction (Hume's problem), falsification (Popper), the theory-ladenness of observation (Kuhn's paradigms), realism vs anti-realism about science's unobservables. POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY — the state's justification (consent, utility, fairness — the social-contract debate), liberty (negative and positive; Mill's harm principle), justice (Rawls's veil of ignorance against Nozick's entitlement). SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY — the social self (we become selves through others), ideology and alienation (Marx), and oppression lived (Simone de Beauvoir on the second sex: the othering of women as the paradigm).

The text is studied PHILOSOPHICALLY, not literarily: the paper asks for the text's CLAIMS, its ARGUMENTS for them, and the student's CRITIQUE. The fourfold read 四重解读: context (the question the text answers — its historical and dialectical position), CLAIMS (the positions stated, in the text's own terms), ARGUMENTS (the reasoning offered — reconstructed with the core theme's craft: premises, conclusions, suppressed premises), CRITIQUE (objections the student develops and the text's best reply — evaluation, not summary). The classic list runs from Plato's REPUBLIC through Descartes's MEDITATIONS, Hume's ENQUIRIES, Mill's UTILITARIANISM AND LIBERTY, to contemporary prescribed texts — whichever the school chose, the fourfold read is the method.

Worked example. On Descartes's MEDITATION I (if prescribed): the context, defeating skepticism to found knowledge; the claims: sense deception, dreaming, the evil demon as doubt's escalation; the arguments — the deceiver argument reconstructed premise by premise; the critique — the demon hypothesis is not really dubitable (the “hyperbolic doubt” charges science more than common life), and the cogito's reply already assumes what the doubt questions (the “I”). The fourfold read applied once is the pattern for any text.

• Ethics: the three theories stated with their signature burdens; one applied issue run three ways (ethics).
• Epistemology: JTB and Gettier's cases with one response; rationalism vs empiricism with Kant's move; skepticism as stress-test (epistemology).
• Aesthetics: the definition debate and the aesthetic attitude (aesthetics).
• Religion: the three arguments with classic objections; the problem of evil and its replies (religion).
• Science: induction, falsification, paradigms, realism vs anti-realism (science).
• Political: the contract debate; negative and positive liberty with Mill; Rawls vs Nozick (political).
• Social: the social self; Marx's alienation; de Beauvoir's othering (social).
• The fourfold text read — context, claims, arguments, critique — with the worked Meditation I example (text).

Boundary notes: the theme paper asks one essay on the chosen theme (and HL a second); the text paper asks passage-based analysis and evaluation — the fourfold read answers both. All positions cited are the standard canon; the worked analyses are original.

IB Diploma Programme Philosophy HL (current guide). This topic equips the INTERNAL ASSESSMENT — the philosophical analysis 哲学分析: a 2 000-word analysis of a NON-PHILOSOPHICAL STIMULUS (a news photo, an advert, a cartoon, a song lyric — anything not already philosophy), worth 25% at SL and 20% at HL. The paper's other half is examined elsewhere; the IA is the craft of finding the philosophical issue IN the world. This handout walks the marked components and carries one worked stimulus end to end.

Must-know for the analysis:

The stimulus 刺激材料 must be non-philosophical — no textbook extracts, no famous thought experiments lifted whole: the point is to philosophise the world, not summarise the canon. Rich stimuli: a news photograph (a rescue triage), an advertising image (beauty and manipulation), a cartoon (freedom and surveillance), a game's rules (fairness), a lyric (personal identity and change). The issue 问题 is found by asking the core theme's questions OF the stimulus: what does this assume about persons? about freedom? about knowledge? about what matters? The question must be PHILOSOPHICAL (answerable by reasoning, not by polling or measurement) and the student's OWN (not the stimulus's slogan, not a teacher's framing).

The framing sentence is the IA's spine: “This advertisement raises the question of whether treating someone as a means requires intending to use them” — stimulus, concept, question, in one line.

The ANALYSIS (2 000 words) develops the question philosophically: Explain the concept 概念 (deontology's means-ends principle, precisely, with a source attributed), APPLY it to the stimulus (the specific features of the image read through the concept), DEVELOP the argument (the student's reasoning — not a tour of positions but a pursued line), Consider the objection 反对意见 (the strongest counter-view stated and answered), and CONCLUDE (the finding, with its limits owned). The marked criteria reward: philosophical TREATMENT (concepts used correctly and applied, not name-dropped), PERSONAL engagement (the student's own argument, developed and evaluated), and CLARITY (the writing of someone thinking, not performing). The classic failures: the gallery (five philosophers, no argument), the essay-report (all exposition, no position), and the non-philosophical drift (sociology or psychology where the reasoning should be).

Worked stimulus. A photograph: commuters stepping over a rough sleeper outside a luxury shop window. The issue: does the ordinary duty to help survive when the helper's own plans must be sacrificed — the supererogation question, run through the core's craft. Concept: duty vs charity (deontology's imperfect duties; consequentialism's demandingness objection). Application: the window's display (the good life advertised) against the sleeper (the person unseen) — the image's structure IS the demandingness problem. Development: the commuter's duty cannot be read off the image; the question is what a willing of the maxim would require. Objection: the singer's pond case — distance and salience do not change the duty; reply: the image's window does change it (institutional, not individual, responsibility). Conclusion: the photograph indicts the arrangement, not the commuter — and the analysis owns that this is one reading of an image that supports others.

• The stimulus: non-philosophical, specific, the student's own; the framing sentence in one line (stimulus).
• The issue: philosophical (reasoning-answerable) and genuinely drawn from the stimulus (issue).
• Treatment: concept explained with attribution, applied to the stimulus's specific features, argument developed (treatment).
• Objection stated at its strongest and answered; conclusion owning limits (treatment).
• Personal voice: a pursued line of the student's own, not a gallery or a report (personal).
• The worked sleeper stimulus's framing, development and conclusion understood (worked).

Boundary notes: 2 000 words, marked on philosophical treatment, personal engagement and clarity; the stimulus is attached to the submission. The worked stimulus and its development are original.

IB Diploma Programme Philosophy HL (first assessment 2025; current guide). This topic is the COMPULSORY HL EXTENSION — Philosophy and contemporary issues: two contemporary issues studied philosophically, examining the NATURE, FUNCTION, MEANING and METHODOLOGY of philosophical activity itself. The extension has two sides: the issue-content (the contemporary debates, each run with the core's craft) and the meta-questions (what philosophy IS when it does this — its method, its limits, its public role). This handout kits the issues the extension rewards and teaches the meta-craft, with worked framings. All examples are original.

Must-know for the HL extension:

The extension's first question is what philosophy IS when it engages an issue. Three answers shape the course: philosophy as conceptual analysis 概念分析 (the unpacking of the concepts the issue runs on — what is a person? a cause? a right?); philosophy as argument 论证 (the discipline of topic 01: premises, validity, the suppressed premise exposed); philosophy as the a priori 先验 study of what is possible (not what is the case — that is science's business — but what could be, what must be, what is consistent). From these follow the METHOD questions: how does philosophy relate to SCIENCE (does ethics need neuroscience? does philosophy of mind need AI? — the autonomy-of-philosophy debate); what thought experiments 思想实验 are for (intuition-pumping or disguised science fiction?); and what weight intuitions 直觉 carry when they clash (across cultures, across centuries — the experimental-philosophy challenge). The meta-skill the paper marks: doing philosophy ABOUT doing philosophy — naming the method while using it.

Worked meta-framing. On AI and mind: the question “can a machine think?” splits into a conceptual part (what would COUNT as thinking — the personhood criteria of topic 01 applied) and an empirical part (what the system does — science's part); philosophy's function is to keep the split visible, and the contemporary debate confuses itself wherever the parts blur.

Artificial intelligence 人工智能 and technology: machine minds (the Turing test's behaviourism; the Chinese room's reply; the criteria of personhood applied to systems), machine ethics (can a system be a moral AGENT — or only a tool?), and the technology of the self (algorithmic choice and freedom: is a recommendation engine's nudged choice still mine? — compatibilism's “right way” tested by design).

Environment 环境: obligations to future generations (the non-identity problem — our policies determine WHO exists, so whom do we harm?), to NON-HUMANS (sentience as the criterion — animal ethics from personhood's toolkit), and the value questions (is nature intrinsically valuable, or instrumentally? — the aesthetics kit applied to wilderness).

Identity 身份, culture and the public world: the socially constructed self (de Beauvoir's othering in the algorithmic age — which selves do systems amplify?); post-truth and knowledge (testimony, epistemology of the feed: whose justification counts when the sources are chosen for me?); and philosophy's PUBLIC ROLE — applied ethics in institutions (bioethics committees, technology councils): does the philosopher advise, or merely tidy?

Worked issue-framing. Environment, non-identity: a policy choice determines the timing of conception, so the future people affected would not exist otherwise. Harming them seems impossible (no particular person is worse off than they would otherwise have been — there is no otherwise). Yet depletion feels wrong. The analysis runs: the conceptual claim (harm requires a counterfactual), the argument (it makes depletion harmless), the objection (rights of whoever lives: each future person has a right to a liveable world, whoever they turn out to be), and the meta-point — the case shows philosophy doing its distinctive work: the paradox is conceptual, and no data settle it.

• Philosophy as analysis, argument and the a priori; the autonomy debate (does ethics need science?); thought experiments and intuitions; the meta-skill of naming the method while using it (meta).
• AI: the Turing test and the Chinese room; personhood criteria on systems; machine moral agency; algorithmic choice and compatibilism (AI).
• Environment: non-identity; future generations' rights; sentience and non-humans; intrinsic vs instrumental value (environment).
• Identity and public world: algorithmic othering; the epistemology of the feed; philosophy's advisory role (public).
• The worked meta-framing and issue-framing; the paper names method and issue together. All framings original.