After the written specialty tests in mid-May, the bac philo test remains the one and only final written test of the bac (for the general and techno series). Candidates must deal with one of the proposed topics from among two essay topics and an explanation of text. And without being disturbed by the heat, which complicates the conditions of these events.
Exam of Wednesday, June 15, 2022
Duration of the philosophy test: 4 hours (from 8 to 12 hours)
The candidate treats only one subject of his choice.
– Do artistic practices transform the world?
– Is it up to the state to decide what is fair?
Explain the following text:
For an observation to be qualified as scientific, it must be capable of being made and repeated in circumstances which involve an exact definition, so that at each repetition of the same circumstances one can always ascertain the identity results, at least within the limits of error which inevitably affects our empirical determinations1. It is necessary, moreover, that, in the circumstances defined, and between the limits of error which have just been indicated, the results are independent of the constitution of the observer; or that, if there are exceptions, they are due to an anomaly of constitution, which manifestly renders such an individual unfit for such a kind of observation, without shaking our confidence in the constancy and in the intrinsic truth of the observed fact. But nothing similar is found in the conditions of inner observation on which one would like to found a scientific psychology; on the one hand, it is a question of fleeting phenomena, elusive in their perpetual metamorphoses and in their continuous modifications; on the other hand, these phenomena are essentially variable with the individuals in whom the role of observer and that of subject of observation merge; they change, often altogether, in consequence of the varieties of constitution which have the most mobility and inconsistency, the least characteristic value or importance in the general plan of the works of nature. What do I care about the discoveries that a philosopher has made or thinks he has made in the depths of his consciousness, if I don’t read the same thing in mine or if I read something completely different there? Can this be compared to the discoveries of an astronomer, a physicist, a naturalist2 who invites me to see what he has seen, to feel what he has felt, and who, if I don’t I don’t have a good enough eye or a delicate enough tact, will address so many other people better gifted than I am, and who will see or feel the same thing so exactly, that I will have to go to the truth of an observation to which testify all those in whom the qualities of the witness are found?
COURNOT, Essay on the foundations of our knowledge and on the characteristics of philosophical criticism (1851)
1 “empirical”: derived from experience.
2 “naturalist”: one who studies nature, in particular living beings.