TASC Philosophy Level 3 study guide
TASC Philosophy Level 3 · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
TASC Philosophy Level 3 is a multiple-choice credential for candidates who already command the basics of philosophy and want evidence of broader, more integrated command of the discipline. It suits undergraduates building a portfolio beyond coursework, teachers and tutors who want an external benchmark, and independent learners preparing for graduate study or for work that rewards careful argument. The TASC Philosophy Level 3 study guide has 8 sections and about 2,366 words.
01History of Philosophy: Reading the Arc of Ideas
History of Philosophy questions test whether you can place a thinker in a period, match a doctrine to its author, and see how one position provoked the next. Expect coverage of ancient Greek thought (the Presocratics, Socrates, Plato's theory of Forms, Aristotle's four causes and virtue ethics), medieval synthesis (Augustine, Aquinas, and the reason-faith relation), early modern rationalism (Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz) against empiricism (Locke, Berkeley, Hume), Kant's critical turn, and nineteenth-to-twentieth-century movements such as German idealism, existentialism, pragmatism, and analytic philosophy.
309 words, about 2 min02Metaphysics: Existence, Identity, and Modality
Metaphysics examines what exists and what it is to exist. Candidates should command: ontology (categories of being), substance and property, universals versus particulars, identity and persistence through change, causation, free will and determinism, modality (possibility, necessity, possible worlds), and the mind-body problem.
302 words, about 2 min03Epistemology: Knowledge, Justification, and Skepticism
Epistemology studies knowledge, belief, justification, and truth. Expect the classical analysis of knowledge as justified true belief, the Gettier problem, theories of justification (foundationalism, coherentism, reliabilism), internalism versus externalism, sources of knowledge (perception, reason, testimony, memory), and skeptical challenges from Descartes and Hume.
298 words, about 1 min04Ethics: Norms, Duties, and Consequences
Moral philosophy asks what makes actions right, what makes lives good, and what moral language means. Candidates should master normative theories-consequentialism (utilitarianism), deontology (Kant's categorical imperative), virtue ethics (Aristotle's eudaimonia and the mean)-plus metaethics (realism, emotivism, error theory) and applied reasoning (trolley problems, duties to aid).
305 words, about 2 min05Logic: Validity, Form, and Fallacies
Logic tests formal reasoning and argument appraisal. Expect deductive validity versus inductive strength, soundness, truth tables, categorical syllogisms, propositional forms (modus ponens, modus tollens), quantifiers, and informal fallacies.
284 words, about 1 min06Political and Social Philosophy: Authority, Justice, Liberty
This domain examines the justification of political authority and the design of just institutions. Candidates should know social contract theory (Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau), liberty and its limits (Mill's harm principle), justice (Rawls' veil of ignorance and difference principle; Nozick's entitlement theory), equality, rights, and the relation between state and individual.
304 words, about 2 min07Aesthetics: Art, Beauty, and Interpretation
Aesthetics asks what art is, what makes something beautiful, and how we interpret and evaluate works. Expect definitions of art (representational, expressionist, formalist, institutional), the aesthetic attitude and disinterestedness (Kant), the intentional fallacy, and debates over objective versus subjective taste.
278 words, about 1 min08Philosophy of Religion: Reason, Faith, and the Divine
This domain examines arguments for and against the existence of God, the nature of religious language, faith and reason, and the problem of evil. Candidates should know the ontological, cosmological, and teleological arguments, the problem of evil and theodicies, and critiques of religious belief.
286 words, about 1 min