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.