Philosophy Set Texts
These are the twelve selected extracts for Advanced Level Philosophy, Paper II. In the exam you are given a passage from one of them, so read all twelve alongside the guides in your KPC Philosophy Note Pack.
References such as 514a (Plato) or II.viii.9 (Locke) are the standard ones and work in any edition.
Read the set texts
Each link opens the text in the same translation the KPC guide follows.
| Set text | The set passage | Read it |
|---|---|---|
| Plato, Republic (Jowett translation) | 509d to 521b: the Divided Line and the Allegory of the Cave (end of Book VI into Book VII) | Project Gutenberg |
| Aristotle, Politics (Jowett translation) | Book I | Wikisource |
| Rousseau, The Social Contract (Tozer translation) | Book I, chapters 1 to 6 | Internet Archive |
| Voltaire, Candide, or Optimism | Chapters 1 to 5 | Project Gutenberg |
| Descartes, Meditations (Veitch translation) | Meditations I and II | Wikisource |
| Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding | I.ii.1; II.i.1 to 5; II.ii.1 to 3; II.viii.7 to 15; II.xii.1 to 2 | Internet Archive (Fraser edition, vol. 1) |
| Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature | Book 1, Part 1, Section 1 | Hume Texts Online |
| Thomas Nagel, What Does It All Mean? | Chapter 6, Free Will | Read (PDF) |
| Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus (O'Brien translation) | The closing essay, "The Myth of Sisyphus" | Penguin ebook |
| John Searle, "The Mind-Body Problem" | Chapter 1 of Minds, Brains and Science (scroll to "ONE: THE MIND-BODY PROBLEM") | Read online, or the BBC Reith Lecture 1 transcript (same ground, slightly different wording) |
| John Searle, "What Is a Speech Act?" | The whole essay | Read (PDF) |
| H. P. Grice, "Logic and Conversation" | The whole essay | Read (PDF) |
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