Érettségi Philosophy common mistakes
Érettségi Philosophy · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
When asked to compare two thinkers, the candidate writes two separate mini-essays one after the other and never actually puts the two positions into a relation (no shared question, no point of divergence).
Exam drills often train single-author summaries, so the candidate reproduces memorised blocks and trusts that juxtaposition equals comparison; under time pressure the safe move feels like dumping everything known about each name.
What to do instead
Before writing, state the shared problem in one sentence (e.g. 'what grounds the certainty of knowledge?'), then build the answer as two or three explicit axes of agreement and disagreement, each axis naming both thinkers in the same sentence. Practise by drafting comparison tables with the axes as row headings before turning them into prose.
The candidate defines philosophy by contrast with a caricature of science or religion ('philosophy has no answers', 'philosophy is just opinion') instead of naming its distinctive method and branches.
Introductory lessons are skimmed as 'common sense' material, and popular slogans about philosophy are more memorable than the actual distinctions between metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, logic and aesthetics.
What to do instead
Memorise a one-line definition plus a method claim: philosophy poses universal questions and argues for answers using conceptual analysis, logical argument and critique of presuppositions. Be ready to place any named problem into a branch and to give one example problem per branch.
Presocratic thinkers are lumped together as 'they looked for the arche', and the candidate cannot distinguish Thales' water, Anaximander's apeiron, Heraclitus' logos and flux, Parmenides' being, or the atomists' void and atoms.
Textbooks introduce them as a sequence under one heading, so the shared label is remembered and the individual positions blur; the fragmentary source material makes candidates avoid specifics.
What to do instead
Build a four-column card set per thinker: arche/principle, key concept, argument or image used, and the problem it leaves open. Learn one short original formulation per thinker (e.g. Parmenides: change is an illusion because non-being cannot be thought) so each name triggers a distinct content, not just a category.
Plato's theory of ideas is described only as 'there are perfect ideas in another world', with no account of the cave, the divided line, anamnesis, or the role of the idea of the good; Aristotle is then reduced to 'he was Plato's student who disagreed'.
The imagery is vivid and easy to recall, so the candidate stops at the metaphor and never learns the epistemological and ethical work the theory is supposed to do.
What to do instead
For Plato, practise explaining the theory as an answer to two questions: how can knowledge be stable, and how can the good ground right action. Link cave, anamnesis and the divided line to those questions. For Aristotle, state the specific criticisms (separation, third-man problem) and the replacement (form in the thing, four causes, hylomorphism).
Hellenistic schools are treated as one 'philosophy of tranquillity', and Epicureanism, Stoicism and Scepticism are not distinguished by their physics, their account of the good life, or their therapy of the passions.
The schools share vocabulary (ataraxia, apatheia) and the exam often asks about 'the Hellenistic ideal', so the candidate merges them and loses the contrasts that carry the marks.
What to do instead
Learn one contrast sentence per pair: Epicurus grounds pleasure as absence of pain in an atomist physics; the Stoics ground virtue in logos and cosmic order; the Sceptics suspend judgement to reach tranquillity. Attach each school to one practical technique (Epicurean friendship and simple living, Stoic dichotomy of control, Sceptical equipollence of arguments).
Medieval philosophy is reduced to 'faith versus reason' and 'Aquinas Christianised Aristotle', with no mention of Augustine, Anselm's ontological argument, the problem of universals, or the specific role of reason in articulating faith.
The period is presented as a bridge between antiquity and modernity, so candidates memorise the bridge label and skip the arguments, which feel remote from contemporary concerns.
What to do instead
Learn two or three actual arguments: Anselm's ontological argument with its standard objection, Aquinas' distinction between reason and revelation and his five ways in outline, and the realist/nominalist dispute over universals. Practise stating why each argument mattered for the relation between philosophical argument and religious doctrine.
Renaissance philosophy is answered with 'humanism and a return to antiquity' and the candidate cannot name a thinker or a specific shift, such as Machiavelli's separation of political analysis from moral ideal, or the new cosmology.
The period is thin in most syllabi and the candidate relies on a single textbook sentence, so no concrete content is retrievable under exam pressure.
What to do instead
Prepare three named anchors with one claim each: Machiavelli on how power is actually acquired and kept versus how it ought to be; Renaissance Platonism and the dignity of the human being; the cosmological shift that decentres the Earth. Show how each breaks with a medieval assumption.
Rationalism and empiricism are contrasted as 'reason versus senses' without explaining what the dispute is about (the origin and justification of knowledge) and without connecting Descartes' method of doubt, Hume's analysis of causation, or Kant's attempted synthesis.
The slogan is compact and sounds complete, so the candidate never asks what claim each side is actually defending, and then cannot answer a question that asks for the argument rather than the label.
What to do instead
Write the dispute as a question: what justifies a knowledge claim? Then give each side's strongest argument (innate ideas and clear and distinct perception; the copy principle and the problem of induction). Add one sentence on Kant's response: synthetic a priori judgements reconcile the two by distinguishing what is given in experience from what the mind contributes.
Ethical theories are matched to slogans ('Kant = duty', 'utilitarianism = the greatest happiness') and the candidate cannot apply a theory to a concrete dilemma or state its main objection.
Revision cards stop at the label because labels are easy to test, but exam tasks ask for application and critique; the candidate has never rehearsed moving from principle to case.
What to do instead
For each theory, prepare a three-step template: the core principle, a worked example, and the strongest objection with a possible reply. Practise Kant's formula of humanity on a case of deception, and rule utilitarianism versus act utilitarianism on a case of promise-keeping, until the application runs without notes.
Political philosophy answers list thinkers chronologically (Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Marx) without stating the problem each is solving, so the candidate cannot explain why the state of nature, the social contract or the critique of ideology are introduced at all.
Survey-style revision favours dates and ordering, and the candidate mistakes sequence for understanding; the underlying questions about legitimacy, freedom and power are never made explicit.
What to do instead
Reorganise notes around questions: what makes political authority legitimate, what is freedom, what justifies property, what is the relation of the individual to the collective. Under each, place two or three thinkers with their answer and their disagreement. Rehearse explaining one thinker's position as a response to the previous one.