RBSE SS Philosophy study plan

Tabulate all nine darśanas under āstika/nāstika headings, giving for each the root text, chief exponent, central ontological claim and one stock objection.

Reconstruct Cārvāka's perceptualist epistemology and its rejection of anumāna as a pramāṇa, then state two classical refutations of that rejection.

Distinguish Nyāya's four pramāṇas and lay out the five-membered syllogism (pratijñā, hetu, udāharaṇa, upanaya, nigamana) on a worked sound example.

Outline Sāṃkhya's puruṣa–prakṛti dualism, the three guṇas and satkāryavāda, and show how Yoga's aṣṭāṅga presupposes that metaphysics.

State Advaita's account of māyā and Brahman–Ātman identity, and set out Viśiṣṭādvaita's three objections to it.

Formalise the satkāryavāda versus asatkāryavāda dispute (Sāṃkhya against Nyāya–Vaiśeṣika) as numbered premises with an explicit conclusion and one counter-premise each side.

Explain Śaṅkara's three levels of reality (pāramārthika, vyāvahārika, prātibhāsika) and use them to resolve two standard contradictions raised against Advaita.

Compare jñāna, karma and bhakti mārga as competing soteriologies, naming one textual anchor and one philosophical cost for each.

Write out the Buddhist anātman and kṣaṇikavāda arguments and Jaina anekāntavāda/syādvāda, then assess whether syādvāda escapes contradiction or courts scepticism.

Answer two 15-mark Domain 1 questions closed-book within 25 minutes each.

Summarise in one line each how Thales, Heraclitus, Parmenides and Democritus answer the one-and-the-many problem, and name the problem each answer leaves open.

Reconstruct Plato's theory of Forms from the theory of recollection and the divided line, then state the third-man argument and Plato's best reply.

Set out Aristotle's four causes, hylomorphism and the function argument, and specify exactly where he breaks with Plato.

Reconstruct Descartes' cogito, the clear-and-distinct rule, and the Cartesian-circle objection with one defensible rejoinder.

Contrast Spinoza's substance monism with Leibniz's monadology on necessity, individuality and the problem of interaction.

Distinguish Locke's primary and secondary qualities and tabula rasa from Berkeley's esse est percipi, and state Berkeley's argument against abstract general ideas.

Analyse Hume's fork, his analysis of causation and his bundle theory of the self, then test each against one counter-example.

Explain Kant's Copernican revolution, the synthetic a priori, and the phenomena–noumena distinction, and show what it does to Humean scepticism.

Set determinism, libertarianism and compatibilism side by side on the free-will problem and defend one position in a paragraph.

Compare Locke's memory criterion of personal identity with the bundle and ātman views, using one fission or amnesia case.

Separate validity from truth and test ten supplied arguments for validity and soundness, marking each as valid/invalid and sound/unsound with a reason.

Translate eight ordinary-language arguments into standard categorical form, name figure and mood, and test them by Venn diagram and by the rules of distribution.

Explain the problem of induction and distinguish Mill's five methods, applying the method of difference and concomitant variation to given cases.

Compare the hypothetico-deductive model with Popper's falsificationism and Kuhn's paradigm shift on what counts as scientific progress.

Identify five fallacies (petitio principii, post hoc, false dilemma, ad hominem, composition) embedded in short passages.

State Bentham's and Mill's utilitarianism, distinguish act from rule utility, and set out the no-rest objection, the proof of utility and Mill's quality/quantity distinction.

Formulate both versions of Kant's categorical imperative, derive two duties from them, and state the objections of rigorism and empty formalism.

Explain Aristotle's eudaimonia, the function argument, the doctrine of the mean, phronesis and habituation, and contrast virtue ethics with rule-based and outcome-based theories.

Articulate Indian ethical concepts - ṛṇa, sva-dharma, niṣkāma karma (Gītā 2.47) and the four puruṣārthas - and show how they bear on the duty–consequence divide.

Distinguish cognitivism from non-cognitivism and explain Moore's naturalistic fallacy and the fact–value gap.

Define propositional knowledge as justified true belief, state the Gettier counter-example and two attempted repairs (reliabilism, defeasibility).

Compare correspondence, coherence and pragmatic theories of truth on one worked proposition, and contrast Hume's and Kant's accounts of causal necessity.

Contrast the bundle, Cartesian ego and ātman views of the self and adjudicate between them on one memory case.

Lay out the ontological, cosmological, teleological and moral arguments for God's existence with the strongest objection and a possible reply to each, and state the problem of evil in logical and evidential form.

Distinguish fideism (Kierkegaard) from the Thomistic harmony of faith and reason, and explain verificationist, falsificationist, analogical and mythological accounts of religious language.

Take a two-sentence position and one objection on four applied issues (euthanasia, capital punishment, animal welfare, environmental duty), citing the theory each position rests on.

Explain Rawls's original position and difference principle alongside one Indian debate on justice, secularism or affirmative action, and identify the value conflict in each.

Re-drill the ten weakest items from earlier weeks until each is answered correctly twice from memory.

Sit two full-length three-hour mock papers under exam conditions, allocating time per domain in proportion to marks.