I thoroughly enjoyed this course and find that it encouragingly sets some directions, and of course, raises my excitement for further study into some of the different fields of philosophy. Thank you.
Great explanations that is broken down with examples for understanding. Quizzes test for your understanding of the topic rather than just the textbook explanations. Challenging and thought revoking.
автор: Robert O M T
•Es un curso dinámico que te brinda una variedad de temas a lo largo de cada semana de clases, de los cuales el estudiante puede elegir libremente el tema de su mayor interés; además, considero que los profesores están capacitados para dictar cada clase. Sugiero y agradeceré puedan continuar con una segunda parte del curso, enfocándose en temas más relacionados entre ellos.
автор: María P M
•Excelente curso. Plantea varias situaciones en donde el pensamiento filosófico ha demostrado ser sumamente importante de una manera simple y entretenida. Los profesores hablan muy claro y muestran un conjunto de puntos de vistas completos que te van haciendo pensar sobre diversos temas, y te abren la mente a ideas nuevas e interesantes.
автор: May B
•I had never taken a philosophy course before until now, as someone in my 30s. I found the course to be fascinating, and the lecturers were all great. I especially found the lecture on free will really thought-provoking. The course has really opened my mind up to new ways of thinking. Thank you!
автор: Lorie M N E
•I highly recommend this course for those individuals who would like to challenge themselves intellectually in every aspect and subject matter. This course gave me a lot of knowledge. Thank you Coursera and Thank you to the University of Edinburgh.
автор: Sahara Z F
•It is an excellent course for anyone who is interested in knowing more about philosophy and philosophical questions. The lectures are short and very informative! I would highly recommend this course.
автор: Aylet G S
•It is a worthwhile course that makes you reflect, it is full of complementary information and bibliography. Highly recommended.
автор: Riana G
•Truly brilliant professors that make the course easy and engaging.
автор: Darshna R
•Loved the course structure. They are thought-provoking and give an idea of how to approach questions from a philosophical point of view. The most important thing was that there is no right or wrong answer, but to question and even look back to the reason behind our question.
One thing which was not right was that some of the links in open access sections gave "404:Not Found". Please make sure all the links at least take us to the given study material. But nonetheless, the content is amazing.
автор: José L C
•Es una manera muy interesante de adentrarse al terreno filosófico puesto que se revisan temáticas vinculadas con la ética, moral, filosofía política, historia de la filosofía, epistemología, etc. Para un primer acercamiento es recomendable; la desventaja es el idioma de los artículos y el doblaje de sólo algunos temas.
автор: Phoebe W
•The course itself was extremely interesting and I have walked out of it with a solid understanding of basic philosophy. I found the iPhone app to be riddled with glitches and had multiple issues where quizzes were not logged as completed which was quite frustrating.
автор: GOH J Y
•Well. It really covers the basic and foundation of Philosophy. I myself, love quotes about life and all. As such, when it comes deep down to these, I didn't really enjoyed the course as much as I thought I'd. Nevertheless, this is a decent introductory course if you are looking to know a slice of Philosophy. Do take note that a lot of reference with regards to the past philosophers are introduced as well. You are basically fed with all their beliefs. But do take them as a pinch of salt. What matters the most are your thoughts and views. Keep them open!
автор: Robert C
•Not that bad of a course for anyone who wants a brief overview of just some of the topics of the discipline of philosophy; the professors, for the most part, were engaging throughout the video lectures although I felt that they definitely could've done a better job with summarizing certain concepts (not dragging on the lectures with more examples/scenarios), especially for the quizzes at the end of each lesson/module. Some of the concepts are a bit hard to grasp, but then again...it's philosophy.
автор: logan j
•I felt as though this class was rather superficial although I loved the content. I felt that the women in the last few weeks were really competent and explained their material very well. Dr. Matthew Chrisman I thought was like many who study philosophy, pretty much like a sophist, can sound super intelligent but I feel that he lacks the ability to explain properly. The questions after his section I felt were out of left field.
автор: louise c
•The course content is very superficial. The pass mark is very high for a course I had taken because of a mild interest. You have to get 80% to pass. One unit in particular was very confusing. It took me 7 attempts to pass it as I had no idea what the first question was about and there was no guidance as to what I was doing wrong.
автор: Kaavya M
•This course outlined topics in many separate categories, but its clarity of ideas was not well communicated. Diagrams and images within videos would have been extremely useful as well. My only other critique is that Week 1 contains lessons that are extremely unnecessary and obvious. Otherwise, interesting course!
автор: Gabriel B
•Content doesn't include any of the interesting aspects about philosophy and starts off in a droll. If this were my first introduction and I didn't know philosophy otherwise, instant interest kill.
автор: Héctor O
•During lessons you don`t receive enough information to be able to pass the exams
автор: Alex S
•I feel so lucky to be living in an age that learning like this is available for free.
I thought that the course was great, the topics were interesting and all the lecturers did a good job (especially as this isn't how they normally teach, so a lot of this must have been new to them too).
There are only two things I'd improve if this was possible- and neither of them should detract from my rating but I hope it will be useful for the course organisers.
The first is that sometimes I felt that the quizzes weren't that related to what the lecturer had been telling us- some of the questions seemed to discuss slightly different concepts to what had been taught. I don't think this is a major problem and most things could be worked out, but I think the correlation between the lessons and the quizzes should be reviewed.
The second is that I think the lecturers should consider, if they update the course, that many of the people who take it will not have English as a first language. Although all the lecturers spoke well, one spoke a bit too fast in my view and another had an accent that made it hard for me to understand all of the concepts they were introducing, especially the concepts that were new to me. As I am a native speaker, if it is hard for me it might be hard for some other people too- and some of the discussion comments etc bear this out.
Overall however, I just wanted to recommend the course and to thank everyone involved. It was a dream of mine to one day do a philosophy course like this, so I feel I've been given a real gift.
автор: Kevin R
•I decided to take this course because I've been interested in philosophy for a long time, yet studied computing and online and distance education academically. Meanwhile, I've read a lot of books on philosophy, theology and psychology over the years and always thought these would be subjects I'd study in my retirement years. So, when this current pandemic came to disrupt my usual schedule, I began by reading some books that I thought would keep me mentally active throughout this period of time. But then, I thought, wow; I've actually got the perfect opportunity to do a MOOC on some of these subjects and gain a verifiable certificate. Excellent.
You don't need to have studied Philosophy at all before doing this course; it's very well presented and I've found it very clear and easy to follow. It's given me a sense of achieving something whilst I've not been able to go to work, so that has also made it absolutely worthwhile doing. I'm now feeling like I can actually fit in a more courses throughout the remaining time I have on this planet. Thank you to everyone who put this course together, I've loved it.
автор: Hui J H
•When I enrolled for this course, I was really just looking for a definition for the word 'philosophy'. Boy did I get more than what I bargained for!
Instead of going down the usual historical path and looking at the philosophers in just chronological order, the lecturers at the University of Edinburgh have divided the topic into broad strokes, covering the big ideas (and their related writers) that have driven philosophical debate till today. They made sure every topic linked up, so we could understand materialism as the opposite of dualism, rather than in isolation from other avenues of thought. If I want to, I could definitely take my studies in philosophy much further, knowing now where to look!
My only minor gripe would be the strong focus on Western philosophers and little mention of other cultural views, however, it would be unrealistic to ask for short online lectures to cover all of human thought endeavours. Hopefully other courses exist so all students can take a global approach to philosophy!
автор: Mindy H
•The content in this course was nice and well thought out, though I would recommend a general knowledge of history and philosophy in order to fully engage in the course (ie being able to place the questions in the relevant time and consider the implications and possible factors that contributed to the ideas made the content much more intelligible) The course covers some intriguing topics like time travel and free will and I would recommend this course to anyone who wants to refresh their memory and have pleasant mornings with food for thought. This course has a balanced workload, and I never found the combination of lecture, tests, and quizzes overbearing, since I took this course as entertainment in lieu of a book maybe. Fits the description, though it is not a good introduction to Philosophy since it covers a plethora of concepts and contains convoluted academic lingo and loaded terms. TLDR: Not a good introduction to philosophy, but it is nice for refreshing memory.
автор: Constantino C
•I joined this Introduction because my wife recommended it after the experience she had several years ago. Well, I started and got strongly committed. The videos, reading materials, quizzes, optional reading, and internet support were great. It was challenging my feeling of arriving to an Introduction which offered a very rich field of sources and thoughts.
I managed to get the text "Philosophy for everyone" and it became important reference material for the course. Perhaps the main difficulty that I had was going into the Forum and trying to contribute or to present ideas. At the same time, it was great to grasp the multi-diversity of people interacting.
I have a project which I would like to develop. How could I share it with Coursera, in order to get your advice to implement it? Thanks a lot to Coursera and to the University of Edinburgh for this Introduction that I will continue to develop.
автор: Steffen J
•I liked everything in this course. It is from my Kantianism point of personal view the very best at present. Especially the sections about time travel offering a professional collection of perspective made clear the university level philosophy is still guiding to proven and accepted and in most cases verified standpoints. There is a range or region of variation that can be used to logical falsification and other types of accepted processes. I approved my English and deepened and cleared many of my positions in philosophy. Thank You very much for the fruitful guidance. I have thanks to the course structure plenty of reasons to deepen my structure and dispute competences to make a strengthening of my philosophical professions and confessions. I am the opinion that Philosophy has still great potential and should be taught and studies to and from many more people.
автор: Lesley H
•The course is both interesting and well-presented. The handouts given by some lecturers are useful for revising the concepts introduced. The lecturers are all good at presenting their material although some use visual aids such as on-screen summaries better than others. The in-lesson quizzes (where used) are useful to point up areas of uncertainty and the practice quizzes and review assignments are well-written and thought-provoking. I like that the answers are explained, rather than just indicating which answer was correct. The choice of modules was very good and I felt that my choices linked together coherently, to give me a good overview of and introduction to key philosophical concepts. As an Edinburgh graduate, I knew that I could trust the quality of the course and I have no hesitation in awarding it five stars.
автор: Michael S
•Succinct introduction to a number of key subjects in philosophy. Good range of topics, from fundamental issues (knowledge, morality, dualism versus monism, free will, nature of science etc) to the more speculative (time travel). Nice segues into opinions of leading philosophers (e.g., Kant, Hume) without drowning in their works. Plenty of modern day references. Huge amount of followup material for the so inclined. Speakers uniformly good and clear. Some of the multiple choice questions in the quizzes seemed to contain ambiguities which was a bit frustrating (I ended up answering what they wanted, not what I believed to be correct, which is not a good sign). Also, a few review questionnaires did not fully cover the material presented. Overall, however, an excellent 'first course' in philosophy.