Balearic Islands PAU History of Philosophy study plan

Map the four Domain 1 authors (Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas) onto a one-page timeline, placing each within his own period and naming the central problem each addresses.

Define in writing 20 core vocabulary terms from ancient and medieval philosophy (e.g. eidos, hylomorphism, potency and act, original sin, natural law), giving for each a one-sentence definition and the author most associated with it.

Reconstruct Plato's theory of Forms and the allegory of the cave from memory in a 200-word summary, then check it against your notes and correct every gap.

Explain in writing why Aristotle's four causes and his distinction between potency and act are responses to problems left open by Plato.

Practise the mechanics of the PAU text-commentary format by annotating one short Platonic passage: identify thesis, structure, key terms and historical context in four labelled boxes.

Compare Augustine and Aquinas in writing on three axes: the relation of faith to reason, the source of moral obligation, and the nature of the human person.

Summarise Descartes' project in the Discourse and the Meditations: doubt, the cogito, the criterion of clarity and distinctness, and the proofs of God's existence, in a structured outline.

Distinguish in writing Cartesian dualism from Aristotelian hylomorphism, naming what each theory explains better and what each makes harder to explain.

Draft a full-length commentary (introduction, textual analysis, contextualisation, personal assessment) on a Cartesian passage, timed at 60 minutes.

Self-mark the draft against a checklist of five criteria and list the three weakest points to repair in week 3.

Reconstruct Hume's fork (relations of ideas versus matters of fact) and his analysis of causation in writing, stating precisely which step he thinks experience cannot supply.

Explain in writing how Hume derives the idea of necessary connection from custom and habit, and evaluate whether the explanation is circular.

Contrast rationalist innate ideas with Hume's copy principle, giving two concrete examples of ideas and testing each against the principle.

Write a 400-word reasoned essay answering whether Hume's scepticism undermines science or merely corrects an overconfident picture of it.

Answer six short-answer questions on Descartes and Hume under timed conditions (25 minutes) and mark them against model answers you write yourself.

Explain in writing Kant's Copernican turn: what it means to say the conditions of possible experience are supplied by the subject, and what follows for metaphysics.

Distinguish analytic from synthetic judgments and a priori from a posteriori, and state in writing why synthetic a priori judgments are the central question of the first Critique.

Reconstruct the categorical imperative in at least two formulations and apply each to one concrete moral dilemma.

Trace in writing the line from Descartes' rationalism and Hume's empiricism to Kant's critical project, naming the specific problem each predecessor bequeathed to him.

Produce a comparison table across five authors (Descartes, Hume, Kant, Rousseau, Plato) on the axes of knowledge, human nature and ethics.

Summarise in writing Rousseau's account of the state of nature, the general will and the social contract, and identify the tension between forcing someone to be free and individual liberty.

Explain in writing Hegel's dialectic (the movement of contradiction and sublation) using one worked example, and state what distinguishes it from a simple thesis-antithesis-synthesis formula.

Compare Rousseau and Hegel in writing on whether freedom is achieved individually or through institutions and history.

Draft a full commentary on a Kant or Rousseau passage in 60 minutes and revise it once against your week 2 checklist.

Answer ten short-answer questions on Domain 3 and record your score to track progress against week 3.

Reconstruct in writing Marx's concepts of alienation, historical materialism, base and superstructure, and surplus value, giving a concrete example of each.

Explain in writing Nietzsche's critique of morality, the will to power and eternal recurrence, and distinguish his position from mere moral scepticism.

State in writing Ortega y Gasset's thesis that the self is self and circumstance, and connect it to his account of perspective as a component of truth.

Compare Marx and Nietzsche in writing on religion and ideology: what each thinks religion does and what should replace it.

Draft one commentary on a Marx or Nietzsche passage and one on an Ortega passage, each within 45 minutes.

Situate existentialism in writing: identify the shared commitments of Kierkegaard, Sartre and Heidegger and the main differences among them, without conflating them.

Write three full reasoned essays (500 words each) on cross-author prompts, each with a clear thesis, argument, counter-argument and conclusion.

Practise the personal reasoned essay format: state a position, anticipate the strongest objection, and respond to it, in 25 minutes without notes.

Build a one-page comparison grid linking six authors across the axes of knowledge, reality, human nature, ethics and history.

Identify in writing the three authors you know least well and schedule targeted review slots for week 8.

Sit two full mock exams under real conditions (timed, no notes, full commentary plus essay) and score each against the official weighting of the six domains.

Rework every error from both mocks into corrected written answers, so that each mistake becomes a short model paragraph.

Review your glossary and comparison grid, adding any term or author you could not recall unprompted during the mocks.

Rehearse the weakest three authors identified in week 7 by writing one commentary each in 40 minutes.

Write a final one-page checklist of your own recurring errors and the three habits that fix them, to be read before the exam.