7 episodes
Philosophy for Beginners Oxford University
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- Education
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4.0 • 25 Ratings
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Philosophy has been studied for thousands of years. It involves the use of reason and argument to search for the truth about reality - about the nature of things, ethics, aesthetics, language, the mind, God and everything else. This series of five introductory lectures, aimed at students new to philosophy, presented by Marianne Talbot, Department for Continuing Education, University of Oxford, will test you on some famous thought experiments and introduce you to some central philosophical issues and to the thoughts of some key philosophers.
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Further reading and more... (Slides)
So you've finished this series of podcasts. Find out where to go from here... Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales; http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/
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Reading List (Slides)
Reading list for the Philosophy for Beginners series of podcasts. Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales; http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/
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Philosophy of language and mind
Language and Mind: What is rationality? What is consciousness? How do we manage to express our thoughts and experiences in language? Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales; http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/
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Metaphysics and Epistemology
Metaphysics and Epistemology: what exists, what is its nature and how can we acquire knowledge of it? Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales; http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/
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Ethics and politics
Moral and Political Philosophy: how should we live? What constitutes a just state? Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales; http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/
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The philosophical method - logic and argument
Logic and Argument: the joys of symbolic and philosophical logic. Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales; http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/
Customer Reviews
A wonderful peek into the world of philosophy
Marianne Talbot's lectures are engaging, accessible and entertaining, striking the right balance between challenging the listener to make cognitive leaps and leaving them lost without hope of grasping the key concepts. She is clearly a very gifted teacher, not only because of her obvious enthusiasm for philosophy, but also because she is very mindful of her students' perspective, allowing her to guide them through the thought experiments step by step, making sure they truly grasp the topic at hand.
She clearly defines specialist vocabulary and concepts allowing the listener to follow without difficulty. Even without the aid of the diagrams she draws for her audience, very little is lost through the audio format as she explicates and reiterates her arguments so well. She has thoughtfully made videos and slides of the lectures avaiable to complement the audio tracks, so it's easy to keep track throughout.
These lectures have been a wonderful introduction to philosophy and have genuinely inspired me to learn far more about this fascinating subject. I hope that more become available soon, I will be sure to listen to them if they do!