Aim: to understand how to get the highest marks by using content and argument correctly

In most specifications and mark schemes, you will be assessed on your use of factual knowledge, and on your use of argument and analysis. Content generally counts for up to 40% of your mark, and argument for over 60%

So, you must focus 40% of your effort on the facts, and 60% on what you do with those facts.

As a very rough guide, the majority of your content will come from your evidence (and some will come from the facts you use in your critique), and the majority of your argument will come from your analysis, critique, and evaluation. If you follow the PEACE structure, you should quite naturally get the right balance.

However, the trick is always to think first about what you are arguing, then adding facts in to support it…rather than writing facts and trying to stick them together with an argument.

Stage 1: Read the two example paragraphs on the following question: “Plato’s belief in the World of Forms is absurd”. Discuss (40)

• Read both answers. Which do you instinctively prefer?
• Highlight any content knowledge in each answer, in any part of the paragraph. Key terminology, philosophers, and statements about what someone thinks is the case are all content knowledge.
• Highlight any argument in each answer, in any part of the paragraph. This is any discussion of the content knowledge, and why it is useful, convincing, and strong; or why it is unhelpful, unconvincing, and weak.
• Which answer do you think got better content marks? Why?
• Which answer do you think got better argument marks? Why?

Stage 2: Take the best bits of these paragraphs, and write out a PEACE plan (5 bullet points) for an improved paragraph on this question

Stage 3: Write your own paragraph on your own question

Follow up: go over your previous essays, and identify where the content and the argument are within them. How would you improve the essay?

Then: watch the video (https://youtu.be/nMbE6m83cio), pick some past questions, and create arguments for them, using no more than 3 factual statements and 2 sources per paragraph.

Examples

1. Plato uses the simile of the divided line to explain his theory further. The divided line separates the two worlds. Above the divided line is the world of Forms and underneath is the world of appearances (in the ratio 2:1). Plato shows through his simile: the source of perception in both worlds, the things perceived in both, the modes of perception in both and classes of perception in both worlds. In the world of Forms the source of perception is the good, the things perceived are Forms (goodness, beauty, reality and truth) and mathematical objects, the modes of perception are reason and understanding and the class of perception is knowledge. In our world of appearances, the source of perception is the sun, the things perceived are physical objects and images of those physical objects. The modes of perception in the world of appearances are belief and imagination and the class of perception is opinion. Various philosophers have objected to this idea of a divided line due to the Form of the good. Some find it hard to believe there is a good Form of everything for example a good or a perfect disease. Other philosophers question this idea as it suggests that there’s a perfect version of everything. Although this simile offers reasonable understanding there is no evidence or proof provided to back it up and therefore it is a weak argument.

• Plato’s Simile of the Divided Line is used to help us visualise the ‘Four Stages of Cognition’. In a 2:1 ratio, Knowledge is separated from Opinion, before each part is again subdivided in the same ratio. The upper half represents the World of Forms and the lower half represents the World of Appearances, with both being divided into ‘things perceived’ and ‘modes of perfection’. Plato uses ratio, inspired by Pythagoras, to portray how the World of Appearances is like a scale model of the World of Forms and can be used to draw conclusions about the forms. In the Simile, the ‘Good’ is the source of intelligible order that illuminates knowledge in the World of Forms, whereas in our world, the Sun is the source of visible order and opinion. This supports Plato’s idea of using rational thought, as it is based on mathematical truths than can be proven a priori. However, it could be argued as being contradictory, as one must use observation to look at the World of Appearances in order to deductively work out the World of Forms. This employs a posteriori knowledge rather than pure reason, which Plato argues cannot be trusted. Plato also makes an inductive leap (a logical fallacy), assuming the 2:1 ratio without any real evidence. Moreover, unlike Aristotle who suggests that fulfilling a telos equates to being ‘good’, Plato offers no example of what his ultimate Form of Good is. Overall, although it seems to logically fit together, the Two-World theory seems somewhat weak and unjustified.

Stuck? Go to https://youtu.be/nMbE6m83cio