Philosophy for Beginners - podcast cover

Philosophy for Beginners

Oxford University•podcasts.ox.ac.uk
Education
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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Episodes

Philosophy of language and mind

The lecture begins by examining the philosophy of language, probing what meaning is and how words refer, discussing theories like truth conditions versus use theory, and the crucial distinction between mentioning and using language. It then transitions to the philosophy of mind, contrasting mental and physical states, exploring the nature of rationality and consciousness, and scrutinizing the mind-body problem through arguments like the exclusion principle and the causal efficacy of beliefs.

Jan 09, 2009•1 hr 28 min

Metaphysics and Epistemology

Metaphysics and Epistemology: what exists, what is its nature and how can we acquire knowledge of it?

Jan 09, 2009•1 hr 31 min

Ethics and politics

Moral and Political Philosophy: how should we live? What constitutes a just state?

Jan 09, 2009•1 hr 33 min

The philosophical method - logic and argument

The speaker introduces logic and argument as the core methodology of philosophy, contrasting it with scientific experimentation by highlighting "thought experiments." The discussion covers various argument types, including deductive, inductive, deontic, modal, and conditional logic, illustrating how to identify and evaluate arguments for validity and premise truth. The episode concludes by examining philosophical logic's central questions, particularly "What is truth?" and the paradoxes that challenge our understanding of logical entailment.

Jan 09, 2009•1 hr 34 min
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