AQA an Introduction to Philosophy for AS Level

View other editions of AQA an Introduction to Philosophy for AS Level.
View books by Jeremy Hayward , Dan Cardinal, Gerald Jones .

Good, but not great - Rated
As with the other titles available in the Philosophy in Focus series, this companion book for the new AQA AS specification that is to be taught from September 2008 is very student friendly and includes plenty of relevant material.

The book explains potentially difficult content well and the use of pictures is especially useful for allowing students to conceptualise tricky marterial. The use of key quotes allows students to get a feel for the language that Philosophy is often written in, whilst the activities and summaries will support teachers and students alike. As a book aimed at students coming to Philosophy for the first time, or with little prior experience, it has many positives.

Given all of these positives, why not 5 stars? Sadly the book does not cover all the units on the AS specification: there are no chapters on 'Why should I be goverened?', 'Why should I be tolerant?' and 'The value of art'. As a teacher who intends to cover two of these three topics from September, this book does not meet the needs of my students for an easy to understand and comprehensive textbook that they can use. However, if your course is covered by the topics in this book, it may well be an excellent course text.

When Nelson Thornes have published their AS Philosophy book in June, as well as the planned publication of Michael Lacewing's book later this year, it looks as though there will be a quality selection of textbooks to choose from for the new AS specification.