Introduction to Philosophy

Maybe instead of self-teaching, you could do an online course like this one? Philosophy is very large and it's immensely helpful to take a course to get a general idea of the various subjects, methods, and language before personal research. Attempting to navigate it alone will very easily lead to confusion and misunderstanding, even for or even especially for bright individuals.

And there's always /r/askphilosophy. If you have any questions about philosophy, including this one, I really suggest asking in that subreddit, where you may get a number of quality suggestions.

> only those that make a minimum of sense, darling. No philosopher bothers discussion people who think Ayn Rand is philosphy.

Took me 5 minutes to find a University of Edinburgh lecture on objectivism. Whoops, I guess they would.

Radical skepticism and the nature of reality

I was watching a video that's part of the Introduction to Philosophy course on Coursera. At minute 7:30, prof. Duncan Pritchard addresses a possible objection to radical skepticism. The objection is:

> Maybe we are brains in vats, maybe not. We can't tell the difference, so who cares?

And his answer is:

> I think [this argument] is a bit suspect if you start to think about it. If you are a brain in a vat, then none of this is real. Your friends aren't your friends; your family aren't your family; the things that you're working hard to achieve are actually pointless, because they're not real. So the idea that "it kind of doesn't matter" doesn't bear scrutiny, really. It can seem superficially plausible, but I don't think it stands up to closer scrutiny.

It seems to me that a lot hinges on what one means by "being real". If I think of my family as the thing-in-itself that exists out there independently from my experience of it, then yes, my being a BIV would mean that my family isn't real. If, on the other hand, I think of my family as merely the sum total of my experience of it (and since my experience would be by definition the same if I'm a BIV) then wouldn't my family be real (for me) whether I'm a BIV or not?

Based on this train of thoughts, I have the following questions for you:

• What does "being real" entail? Does it entail being a thing-in-itself? Does it entail merely being a possible object of my experience? Does it entail something else?

• Is there an objective and definitive way of determining what is real (for all humans) or is the nature of reality always subject to debate and ultimately dependent on one's approach or point of view?

• Do BIV arguments hinge on the definition of what's real, or am I mistaken? Can one formulate BIV arguments — or objections to those arguments — without stating or assuming a particular definition of what it means to be real?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

Tem muitos cursos bons no Coursera, edX, etc. De filosofia, eu recomendo especialmente o curso de introdução da Universidade de Edimburgo.

https://www.coursera.org/learn/skepticism?=

https://www.coursera.org/learn/philosophy

Has anyone taken Coursera's Intro to Philosophy class?

I'm looking at this self paced Intro to Philosophy from the University of Edinburgh, but was wondering if anyone here has taken it already. The "curriculum" includes:

• Epistemology, where we’ll consider what our knowledge of the world and ourselves consists in, and how we come to have it;

• Philosophy of science, where we’ll investigate foundational conceptual issues in scientific research and practice;

• Philosophy of Mind, where we’ll ask questions about what it means for something to have a mind, and how minds should be understood and explained;

• Moral Philosophy, where we’ll attempt to understand the nature of our moral judgements and reactions – whether they aim at some objective moral truth, or are mere personal or cultural preferences, and;

• Metaphysics, where we’ll think through some fundamental conceptual questions about the nature of reality.

This is well worth a look: https://www.coursera.org/learn/philosophy

Tips from someone who scored 81 in S1.

EDIT: I'm not saying this will work for everyone, I'm just passing on what worked for me.

Hi all,

A few people have asked me for tips on how to do well in S1. It's hard for me to answer since I did a whole Arts degree, which really helped. My degree pretty much meant I was focussing on analysing text and language and learning the techniques how to analyse literature and poetry. We also did a lot of essay writing obviously. I managed to score an 81 and 73 respectively, and I think it's thanks to everything I learned in my Arts degree.

I thought I would share some free online courses that might be helpful for people preparing for the GAMSAT. They are similar to classes that I took in my Arts degree that I think really helped me do well on the GAMSAT. I also want to highlight that you don't need to pay for expensive courses, I used only free materials and library books for my S3 prep last year.

​

1. Poetry. I took a poetry class as an elective and it REALLY helped me learn how to analyse poetry in S1. I think it will also help with your literature analysis skills.
2. https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/how-to-read-a-poem-york
3. https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/what-is-poetry
4. Politics/ethics. This will help with your S2 writing.
5. https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/global-ethics
6. Philosophy. This will help you learn how to interpret the philosophy texts as well as give you some ideas for S2.
7. https://www.coursera.org/learn/philosophy
8. General essay writing/philosophy/literature/logic/critical thinking courses
9. https://www.coursera.org/learn/understanding-arguments?specialization=logic-critical-thinking-duke
10. https://www.coursera.org/learn/logical-fallacies?specialization=logic-critical-thinking-duke

These are all just examples, there's lots of courses out there that will help you improve on S1 and S2. I currently work as a tutor and my students have found some of these courses really helpful.

I also recommend making sure you read books and are exposed to new ideas. I have a habit of reading the news every morning, this has really helped give me ideas for S2.

Also, for people who are looking to improve their S3, these are the two courses I did that helped me improve my S3 by 15 points:

• https://www.coursera.org/learn/basic-chemistry
• https://www.coursera.org/learn/intro-chemistry

I also used the book 3000 Solved problems in Chemistry to practice my biochemistry and organic chem.

Last thing I want to say is DON'T GIVE UP. You can do it! It might not happen straight away, but you will get there one day.

3 years ago I had a 5.8 GPA and a 61 GAMSAT. I now have a 6.8 GPA and a 75 GAMSAT. I just got an offer from USyd. It doesn't matter how slow you go, as long as you do not stop <3 Don't give up!!

(PS I really hope this doesn't come off as bragging, that's not my intention, I just want to show you that with hard work and dedication you can eventually succeed).

I followed your advice and man, that's a dark hole to vanish for hours for sure. Thanks for the hint!

Also, here's Introduction to Philosophy: https://www.coursera.org/learn/philosophy

https://www.coursera.org/learn/philosophy

I'm not familiar with audiobooks unfortunately. However, maybe this intro to philosophy - which should cover a bit more than only epistemology - might interest you: https://www.coursera.org/learn/philosophy

You deleted you comment before I pushed send, but I’m posting my reply regardless.

You can’t limit yourself based on your type. Especially since Jung himself posited our functions are Fi-Ni-Se-Te, more similar to INTJs than anyone else. You absolutely must not allow silly stereotypes to limit your choices. Your capabilities around being able to understand abstract theory are entirely your own, and certainly you’ll never improve on those skills if you don’t engage with abstract material.

Courses like this are free and an excellent way to test the waters to see how you might go with philosophy academically. If nothing else, you will definitely learn something new.

Hi!

I think it would be helpful for you to read in a way that closely resembles the structure that you'd find in many intro to philosophy classes. You can search for "open access philosophy 101" materials or look at the following.

W. Russ Payne: https://s.bellevuecollege.edu/com/sites/125/2017/04/Intro-to-Phil-full-text.pdf

There's also this course: https://www.coursera.org/learn/philosophy#

I think you will get a lot out of reading philosophy on your own. You will miss out on the sort of engagement that's possible due to being in a formal setting but you can always change that! ...Like by joining a philosophy department! haha!

Coursera offers free courses for the pandemic, including a free Introduction to Philosophy course from the University of Edinburgh (link). It was one of the most popular courses on the platform.

High school philosopher resource: here (also linked by u/robeschi)

Sample Syllabus: here

A concern with some of the above course outlines/readings would be that... well they're pretty ambitious, especially for someone with no familiarity with the material.

You might start with any one of the recommended anthologies and an introductory philosophy MOOC, to get a feel for what interests you and what your options are. See here & here for intro MOOCs.

The 2nd MOOC above, 'Reason and Persuasion', has a beautiful, fun, easy book available for free here. The book contains new translations of three dialogues written by Plato. These translations are very colloquial. And it fits the style--they're dialogues after all. The translation and the book as a whole have gotten good reviews. There is simply no way you're not going to leave important people/ideas out, so taking a deeper dive into Plato, the father of western philosophy, might be right for you.

Is it better to start with the "mechanics" of philosophy, or to study the works of philosophers?

I've recently started Coursera's course Intro to Philosophy. The outline of the course seems to briefly introduce students to the core contentions (free will, morality, etc) within philosophy and the main points of view that follow (Kant, Hume, etc).

But today I discovered edX's META101 course, which seems to demonstrate more of the mechanics at work in philosophy. I urge you to take a look to see what I mean by this.

Which should I put more of my focus into? I'm inclined to say the latter since I had to spend \~3-4 hours just to begin to understand the differences between inductive/deductive/abductive reasoning when the former two were mentioned in Coursera's coursee (I didn't really like the way they presented the definitions of them, so I had to find other sources [including this sub!] to attempt to understand them). It's not that I'm uninterested in the works of philosophers, I very much am, but due to the ways in which I learn (often slow, need tremendous clarification and have to think very deeply for hours, sometimes days, just to barely get things that are rudimentary), I wonder if I should have a better grasp of the mechanics/language/structure of philosophy before I delve into understanding free will arguments.

I hope to eventually get a degree in philosophy when I am older, but I have to take the time to learn philosophy before I go back to school so I can perform better in it, as the rigid nature of school goes against the rate at which I learn.

Some anti-realists might try to argue, for example, that an observable/unobservable distinction can be made, where the sun is sufficiently directly observable to assume that it is undeniably an existing object in the world, whereas "the electron theory" is "only" empirically adequate, but we can't be sure whether it's True(tm). (This is most probably not very close to any actual argument that is given.)

Here's a book by the father of Constructive Empiricism.

Here's a short video of a MILF trying to give an intro to this subject in 7 minutes which is clearly not possible.

Also bonus meme from page 16. of the book: > In Sextus Empiricus, we find the argument that incest is not immoral, for touching your mother's big toe with your little finger is not immoral, and all the rest differs only by degree.

Destiny BTFO'd by a literal sceptic.

Ciao, se cerchi qualcosa in formato libro, Severino ha scritto tre libri/volumi "La filosofia dai Greci al nostro tempo" interessanti. Altrimenti mi ricordo di una collana di Repubblica "Capire la filosofia", ma non so se si possa ancora comprare da qualche parte... Online (dopo una breve ricerca) ho trovato Introduction to Philosophy e qualche corso su edX tra cui uno in Italiano "Comprendere la filosofia".

If you are highly motivated to study philosophy and/or psychology then go for it. One of the good things about the Foreign Service is the diversity of professional and academic backgrounds people have. If you have the inclination you can check out intro philosophy and psych classes, etc. on Coursera to see if you want to commit 4 years to those topics.

https://www.coursera.org/learn/philosophy

Let me get this straight: you seriously think selling a digital housing plot for digital currency is morally equivalent to murder? Have you ever crossed the middle of a street? Cheated on a test no matter how insignificant? Lied to someone? Violating a video game ToS is closer morally to any of those things than it is to literally killing a person.

If you want, Coursera has an intro philosophy course and a more focused course on morality if you need to brush up on your moral philosophy.

Not a book, but coursera has a free philosophy class from the University of Edinburgh. I haven’t taken it so cannot comment on quality. Definitely suggest a class. I remember starting with the Ancient Greek philosophers and working forwards to Locke and Nietzsche. It’s really helpful to discuss as you learn.

That being said, I think Herodotus is the place to start. His works are discussed by later philosophers.

https://www.coursera.org/learn/philosophy here is a class that is free and begins today. Other than that feel free to add me as a friend. I would be happy to help tutor you and give you extra resources if you'd like. Honestly, in most intro courses you are going to get readings from multiple sources. It is hard to find one philosophy text book that will explain everything.

I would start with an introductory textbook like this. You can also look for eastern philosophy texts. An introductory text will give you a introduction to different areas of philosophy. This will give you something to base your future exploration on.

Then you can look up particular areas of philosophy in the Stanford Encylcopedia of Philosophy. From Here you can look into individual philosophers based on your interests.

Or you can take an online introductory course.

You could try coursera. They provide free online courses offered by various universities. They are well organized and easy to access. They usually offer some materials and might require or suggest you buy a few books. I'd stick with the required to stuff to save money.

I would also try to not get carried away as it can become an addiction trying to consume as much information as possible. Do one or two courses at a time, max, depending on the amount of free time you have available.

As far as topics? Just start exploring. They have tons. But I'd suggest getting a good variety. For example, a course on Buddhism and then a course on argumentation. A course on history and then one on personal finance. Here are some of their offerings:

https://www.coursera.org/learn/leading-the-life-you-want

https://www.coursera.org/learn/science-of-meditation?

https://www.coursera.org/learn/modern-world

https://www.coursera.org/learn/the-science-of-well-being

https://www.coursera.org/learn/understanding-arguments

https://www.coursera.org/learn/philosophy

> It seems more like a tree to me, and I've no idea which branch to climb first.

This is a good analogy, especially vs your mathematical ladder one. When I was in high school I was interested in philosophy too so I randomly picked up a collected works of Cicero and proceeded to not understand any of it and think philosophy was not for me. Somehow I ended up majoring in it as a mature student and three degrees later I'm a philosophy professor.

I'd recommend looking up introduction to philosophy courses at different universities and see if their syllabus is posted online. Then pick up the books and work through them. For a bonus you could look up videos posted by profs on the weekly topics on YouTube.

Better yet, if you want something more structures there's a free intro on coursera through the University of Edinburgh. I haven't taken it and it seems more like a primer to philosophy than am intro, but what I like about it at first glance is that it focuses each week around questions, which is a great way to facilitate philosophical thinking.

If you really want to dive into it solo, which is totally fine too, take a look at this (non-exhaustive) list of the branches of philosophy and see if there's one that seems suited to your interests. From there look it up on SEP using the search function. Read through some articles on the topic and then chase down some original sources (or don't read the article and go to the original source first, personally I always like the challenge of trying to figure out what a philosopher was trying to say on my own first then looking at secondary sources, but its time consuming to meticulously read some philosophers)

Beaucoup de mooc philo sur coursera avec des sous titre fr.

- https://www.coursera.org/learn/philosophy

- https://www.coursera.org/learn/kierkegaard

- https://www.coursera.org/learn/plato

- https://www.coursera.org/learn/moralities

- https://www.coursera.org/learn/ethique

You deny the fact that the Kochs fund climate denial science and refuse to do research on the topic. Stop lying to yourself, and stop being willfully ignorant. I am sure you are a "physicist", study some philosophy of science so you can understand what you are talking about.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy https://www.coursera.org/learn/philosophy https://www.coursera.org/learn/philosophy-physical-sciences

Hello.

Caution: you don't want to get into postmodernism yet. Not at least before you find some firm footing in basics of philosophy. Reading Foucault has become a fancy, but you can wait for a while.

It is always good to begin philosophy with crash courses that can give you an overview of happenings in philosophy. That way, you might get interested in a particular branch of philosophy and take your interest forward from there. For example, philosophy of mind is an exciting field to explore. However, I'll leave that to you. Philosophy is a practice as well. So, pay attention, and you might benefit from taking notes. Do not rush. Take your time. https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUHoo4L8qXthO958RfdrAL8XAHvk5xuu9

This course is an introduction to philosophy, and it starts with the fundamental question: What is philosophy? So, you might be interested in starting with this course before moving on to higher terrains.  https://www.coursera.org/learn/philosophy

Suppose you are particularly interested in logic, reasoning, and arguments. It does you well if you can start and finish off these four courses. Refer back to the crash course playlist to get an idea of logic and argumentation in philosophy. https://www.coursera.org/specializations/logic-critical-thinking-duke

This course is the best course you might come across in your life. Justice by Michael Sanders is an epic course. Once again, to understand what justice is, you might want to refer to the crash course and some of the resources I am providing below under the name 'Websites for Philosophy.' He has written a book by the same name.  https://www.edx.org/course/justice-2

Websites for Philosophy

https://iep.utm.edu/ (Using this website to know about a philosopher or a concept is an excellent way to begin)

https://plato.stanford.edu/ (Very advanced. Hold on to it. Nevertheless an indispensable resource to have).

Wikipedia is fine but does not just rely on that alone.

People to Avoid

Slavoj Zizek Ayn Rand Jordan Peterson

These are dangerous philosophers (I'm not sure if they are philosophers at all) - potent enough to brainwash anyone.

Youtube Channels

These youtube channels you can refer to if you are interested in the content. Interestingly, most of these channels provide sources below. It is always a good idea to read the material provided (Of course, not everything for now, but something that interests you).

https://www.youtube.com/c/thephilosophytube

https://www.youtube.com/c/carneadesofcyrene

Avoid anything by 'School of Life.' It is the worst channel I have come across