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.

This is an excellent course, but done in a frustrating way: the option of having to complete only one out of the two modules per week seems like a good idea, but I was confused about how it will work when the student decideds to go for both. I wasn't sure how the grades will be worked out and, to be honest, I was dissapointed to see that although I did 100 on all, there was absolutely no reason for me to try to achive such outcome. I felt that the grading system was unfair, because many qestions demanded multiple correct answers yet only ONE point was given for each question. This means that if any one of the multiple possible correct answers was not marked OR if one answer was wrong but others were correct, the point for that question was not given, even if it was partially correct. Although the quizes can be done many times, when an answer is wrong, there is no explanation to why, and what would have been the correct answer so there was no way to learn from the mistakes. In order to correct them, one must either go back and listen to the whole thing over and over again OR start a quessing/eliminating game, which does not teach anything else but how to beat the system. Some of the lecturers accent and presentation style makes it very hard to understand the material.

Very informative and interesting overall, I can certainly recommend it. Yet, the absence of loci to discuss ideas, asking questions, and sending feedback is a bit irritating. For example, I found an error in the tie-in book written for this course, yet found nowhere to report it. It was only through cross-checking the material that I was able to confirm it. I appreciated the selection of topics for this introduction, with the exception of the metaphysics lesson. Apparently, the time-travel thing was supposed to be a background idea to discuss metaphysical issues. However, it seems to have occupied almost the entirety of the discussion (fascinating as it may be). In that sense, it was a bit dislocated in the midst of the other lessons, which were broad outlines of major areas of contemporary philosophy. These are the two points that displeased me. I am not one for hot-headed discussions, but having nowhere to discuss complex ideas, in order to better understand them, made the experience poorer for me.

This could have been a very enjoyable and intriguing course. However, the difference in teaching styles between the weekly modules makes it hard to understand some of the topics. For example, I found the first week to be very engaging but cannot say the same about Week 3 (Should You Believe What You Hear?)

All the instructors are very enthusiastic and knowledgeable, but some talk too fast and could have explained some of the harder to understand topics better. Also, the forums don't seem to be visited by the instructors any longer. The modules themselves also seem to be have been reorganized from a previous version so some modules in the 4th week for example refer to the wrong week.

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!

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.

Good course for someone who is beginner and someone who is there to explore different perspectives on some of the most thought provoking ideas of human and it's existence. However there isn't much you can do apart from watching an instructor and taking multiple choice quizzes (which often don't challenge you much) in this course. As I said it's a good course if you have no idea or insight about the topics.

I enjoyed the course, but, I was expecting a course about the giants of philosophy like Socrates, Plato. It would have been better if the course was worded better rather than stating it as Introduction to Philosophy. The course focussed mainly on the works of modern philosophers in particular David Hume.

Disappointing. It's almost an Introduction to the History of Philosophy rather than to Philosophy. We're asked to learn about the different currents & who said what, rather than to think about the topics.

Sorry but he puts me to sleep. No emotion.

It's a really bad course. It start really great with asking what is Philosophy ? Which is basically seeing the big picture and having a critical mind about everything. And then, I don't know how, they talk about some smoking weed stuff, am I a brain in a vat ? can I teleport myself into the future ? if I take the bus do I obey the state? and some crazy stuff like that. I finished the course but learned absolutely nothing it was a total waste of time

Do not pay for a certificate. You will not get one and there is no refund. Do not do the peer review assignment. No one will read it. You will not receive any communication from the University. Other courses have figured out how to issue a certificate and engage students. This is not one of them. I advise students to take it for free and be satisfied with the video content.

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.

The morality chapter is incredibly complicated and the lecturer makes it confusing. Wasted my money.

During lessons you don`t receive enough information to be able to pass the exams

Boring. I want to drop this course.

Thank you.

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.

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.

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!

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.

Studied philosophy in my Ukrainian university. The problem with it is that it was more like "History of philosophy". 8/10 (or 6/8) lectures were dedicated to non-contemporary philosophy. In addition, even those two lectures hardly talked about contemporary trends and problems in philosophy at all, but were again history. Even though I knew about time travel from pop culture, but I didn't know that it's an actual problem in metaphysics and people write papers on it. The seminars were not bad, because they forced you to think about the problems, but they still fell short of the questions that required critical thinking. The only problem I see with this course is that it was prepared by too many lecturers, and they did not coordinate any system among themselves. Because of this, some videos look much more interesting than others. Some videos test knowledge with questions, while others do not. Tests have the same problem of disproportionate difficulty.

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.

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.

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.

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.