Skarp
Introduction to Philosophy: Big Questions and Key Thinkers
Explore philosophy’s biggest questions about reality, knowledge, ethics, politics, and the mind. You’ll meet major thinkers from ancient to modern times and practice reading, analyzing, and constructing clear arguments about everyday and timeless problems.
Course Content
8 modules · 1h 45m total
What Is Philosophy? Big Questions and Ways of Thinking
Introduce philosophy as a discipline, its central questions, and how it differs from science and religion. Learn what makes a question ‘philosophical’ and why philosophy matters for everyday life.
How Philosophical Arguments Work
Learn the basic tools of philosophical reasoning: what an argument is, how premises support conclusions, and how to spot good and bad arguments in everyday life.
Meeting the Ancients: Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle
Explore how classical Greek philosophers shaped the way we still think about reasoning, ethics, politics, and knowledge today.
Ethics: How Should We Live?
Examine major approaches to moral questions, such as consequences, duties, and character, and apply them to simple real-life dilemmas.
Metaphysics: What Is Real?
Explore questions about existence, time, free will, and personal identity. Consider how these questions show up in stories, films, and everyday thinking.
Epistemology: What Can We Know?
Investigate how we form beliefs, what it means to ‘know’ something, and how skepticism challenges our confidence in what we think we know.
Political Philosophy: Justice, Rights, and Society
Consider what makes a society fair, how power should be organized, and what rights individuals should have. Connect classic ideas to current social and political debates.
Philosophy of Mind: Minds, Brains, and Consciousness
Explore questions about what minds are, how they relate to brains, and what consciousness might be. Reflect on personal experience and modern examples from technology and psychology.
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Philosophy is the careful thinking we do about the biggest and most basic questions in life.
A simple way to say it:
**Philosophy = thinking hard about big questions using reasons.**