Philosophical analysis IA · From stimulus to philosophical inquiry

IB Diploma Programme Philosophy SL (the guide first assessed in 2024). The internal assessment is the philosophical analysis 哲学分析: a piece of writing of up to 2,000 words in which you analyse a non-philosophical stimulus 非哲学材料, something from everyday life that is not itself philosophy. It is worth 25% at SL and 20% at HL, and the course gives about 20 hours to it.

Imagine an advertisement for an AI companion app. A smiling young person sits alone at night, talking to a phone. The slogan says: "Always there. Always understands you." The advert is not philosophy, but it hides philosophical questions. Can a machine understand anything? Can a relationship with a program be friendship? Is it wrong to sell lonely people the feeling of being understood? The IA asks you to find one such question in an ordinary object and to think it through carefully.

Must-know for the philosophical analysis:

The stimulus 材料 must not already be philosophy: no textbook extract, no famous thought experiment. Good stimuli are specific and rich: a news photograph, an advertisement, a cartoon, a scene from a film, the rules of a game.

Find the issue 问题 by asking core-theme questions about it: what does it assume about persons, freedom, knowledge or what matters? A philosophical question is answered by reasoning, not by surveys or experiments.

Write a framing sentence 框架句 that joins the stimulus, a concept and the question: "This advertisement raises the question of whether friendship requires two beings who can both understand each other."

1. Explain the concept 概念 precisely, with a source (for example, Aristotle's three kinds of friendship: for usefulness, for pleasure, and for the other person's own sake).
2. Apply it to the specific details of the stimulus (the slogan "always understands you"; the person alone at night).
3. Develop your own argument step by step, not a list of philosophers.
4. Answer the strongest objection 反对意见.
5. Conclude with a clear answer and its limits.

• Stimulus: the AI companion advert above.
• Issue: can a relationship with an AI be a real friendship?
• Concept: Aristotle's highest friendship needs two people who each wish good for the other for the other's own sake.
• Application: the app can give pleasure and usefulness (company, advice), the two lower kinds; the slogan claims more, "understanding".
• Argument: if the program does not have wishes of its own, it cannot wish good for the user for the user's sake, so the highest friendship is impossible; the advert sells the feeling of it.
• Objection: we cannot see inside other humans either; we judge friends by their behaviour, and the AI behaves like a friend (a functionalist reply).
• Reply: with humans we have strong reasons to believe there is someone inside; with the app, we know how it was built, and it was built to keep us using it, which is a reason for doubt.
• Conclusion: the relationship may be valuable as a lower kind of friendship, but the advert's promise of being "understood" is misleading; the conclusion depends on the open question of machine minds (topic 01).

Common mistakes: the "gallery" (five philosophers, no argument of your own); the report (all explanation, no position); drifting into psychology or sociology instead of reasoning.

• The format: up to 2,000 words; 25% SL, 20% HL; stimulus attached.
• A non-philosophical, specific stimulus; a philosophical question; a framing sentence.
• The five moves: concept, application, argument, objection, conclusion.
• The worked AI-companion analysis.
• Your own voice; avoid the gallery, the report and the drift.