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A series of lectures delivered by Peter Millican to first-year philosophy students at the University of Oxford. The lectures comprise of the 8-week General Philosophy course, delivered to first year undergraduates. These lectures aim to provide a thorough introduction to many philosophical topics and to get students and others interested in thinking about key areas of philosophy. Taking a chronological view of the history of philosophy, each lecture is split into 3 or 4 sections which outline a particular philosophical problem and how different philosophers have attempted to resolve the issue. Individuals interested in the 'big' questions about life such as how we perceive the world, who we are in the world and whether we are free to act will find this series informative, comprehensive and accessible.Themes and summary (AI-generated based on podcaster-provided show and episode descriptions):
➤ Intro philosophy lectures • early modern philosophy and science • scepticism, induction, knowledge (justification, Gettier, internalism/externalism) • perception (primary/secondary qualities, idealism, realism) • mind–body, free will, moral responsibility • personal identity, memoryThis podcast presents a structured set of Oxford introductory philosophy lectures that survey major problems in early modern and contemporary philosophy, often moving chronologically from the Scientific Revolution to later debates. It begins by setting out philosophical method and the historical shift from an Aristotelian worldview to a mechanistic, science-oriented picture associated with figures such as Galileo, Boyle, Newton, and Descartes, then follows key empiricist and rationalist currents through thinkers including Hobbes, Locke, Berkeley, Malebranche, Hume, and Kant.
Across the series, core epistemological questions recur: what knowledge is, how beliefs might be justified, and how sceptical challenges arise—especially doubts about the external world and the limits of reason. The lectures examine classic analyses of knowledge and complications introduced by counterexamples, as well as debates about whether justification depends primarily on what is internally accessible to the subject or on external factors.
A major theme is perception and the relationship between mind and world, including distinctions between primary and secondary qualities, theories of resemblance, idealism, and contemporary contrasts between sense-data approaches and direct realism. Related to this are discussions of mind–body relations, focusing on dualism and responses that question whether mental life requires a separate substance.
The later parts treat agency and the self: how free will can be reconciled (or not) with determinism, what moral responsibility requires, and what makes someone the same person over time. Personal identity is explored through accounts that emphasize consciousness and memory, alongside objections involving forgetting and false memories, and broader questions about whether persons are best understood in relation to bodies, brains, or psychological continuity.