Об этом курсе: What is philosophy? How does it differ from science, religion, and other modes of human discourse? This course traces the origins of philosophy in the Western tradition in the thinkers of Ancient Greece. We begin with the Presocratic natural philosophers who were active in Ionia in the 6th century BCE and are also credited with being the first scientists. Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximines made bold proposals about the ultimate constituents of reality, while Heraclitus insisted that there is an underlying order to the changing world. Parmenides of Elea formulated a powerful objection to all these proposals, while later Greek theorists (such as Anaxagoras and the atomist Democritus) attempted to answer that objection. In fifth-century Athens, Socrates insisted on the importance of the fundamental ethical question—“How shall I live?”—and his pupil, Plato, and Plato’s pupil, Aristotle, developed elaborate philosophical systems to explain the nature of reality, knowledge, and human happiness. After the death of Aristotle, in the Hellenistic period, Epicureans and Stoics developed and transformed that earlier tradition. We will study the major doctrines of all these thinkers. Part I will cover Plato and his predecessors. Part II will cover Aristotle and his successors.
Really good overview. Information is presented in a very clearly and concisely. The pace is good, and the topics are all very interesting.
The only things I didn't like had to do with format issues: I did not find the periodic "quizzes" that interrupt the videos to be helpful. They were more frustrating than anything since they broke up the flow of the videos and didn't add anything to my understanding of the topics. And while the intro sequences to each video are high-quality, it's unnecessary to have 25 seconds dedicated to the into for *each* and *every* video. This was repetitive and frustrating, especially since the volume on the intro sequences was much louder than the rest of the video, meaning I had to either manually skip the into or adjust the volume each time. These are technical details, so I don't want them to reflect poorly on the content of the course, which is excellent. It's more a suggestion to re-edit the course videos at some point.