Philosophy: problematisation, argument and the commentary
Philosophy in the European Baccalaureate is examined by a written paper that typically offers a choice between an essay on a question and a commentary on a short text extract, sometimes with both options on the same paper. The exam does not test how many doctrines you can name; it tests whether you can construct a philosophical argument, use concepts and authors precisely, and treat the question as a genuine problem rather than a prompt for opinion.
Core moves
- Problematisation: show why the question is difficult. Identify its presuppositions, define its ambiguous terms, distinguish senses of the key word.
- Conceptual work: use distinctions explicitly - negative and positive liberty, fact and value, a priori and a posteriori, descriptive and normative.
- Authors as arguments: attribute a precise thesis to a philosopher and examine it, rather than listing names.
- Structure: an introduction stating the problem and the line to be followed; two or three parts, each with an argument and an objection; a conclusion that answers the question.
Worked example
Question: Are we free when we do what we want?
Reasoning: unpack 'do what we want'. Do the wants belong to us, or are they manufactured? Consider the addict, the manipulated consumer, the person whose desires were shaped by an upbringing they did not choose. Introduce the distinction between freedom as the absence of external constraint and freedom as self-determination; raise the objection that the second conception makes freedom unobservable and possibly illusory; consider a resolution in which freedom is reflective endorsement of one's desires, and note its own difficulty - which self is doing the endorsing? Conclude with a defended position, not a survey of opinions.
Traps
- Doxography: 'Plato said..., Descartes said..., Kant said...' with no argument connecting them to the question.
- Paraphrasing the text in a commentary instead of explaining its moves and evaluating them.
- Ignoring the counter-argument, or refuting a caricature no one holds.
- Using technical terms without defining them, so the argument becomes a slogan.
- A conclusion that repeats the introduction and refuses to take a position.