Site • RSS • Apple PodcastsDescription (podcaster-provided):
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 history: Aristotle–Galileo–Descartes–Kant • knowledge, justification, Gettier • scepticism, induction • perception: primary/secondary qualities, idealism, realism • mind–body dualism • free will, determinism, responsibility • personal identity, memory, brain/person distinctionsThis podcast presents a structured set of introductory philosophy lectures aimed at first-year university students, organized as an eight-week course that moves broadly from early modern intellectual history into central problems in contemporary philosophy. It takes a largely chronological approach, using major figures in the early modern period to frame enduring questions about knowledge, perception, mind, freedom, and the self, and it repeatedly contrasts competing theories while highlighting the arguments and objections that shape each debate.
A significant thread concerns how we know anything about the world. The lectures introduce classical sceptical challenges about the external world and examine different responses, including attempts to secure everyday knowledge against radical doubt. This epistemological focus is extended through discussion of what knowledge is supposed to amount to—commonly analysed in terms of belief, truth, and justification—and complications that arise from counterexamples and debates about whether justification must be entirely “internal” to the subject’s perspective or can depend on external factors. The role of scepticism returns as a live pressure on philosophical accounts of knowledge and belief.
Another major theme is perception and the relation between experience and reality. The course explores distinctions such as primary versus secondary qualities, disputes about whether perceived qualities resemble mind-independent objects, and approaches that treat perception as mediated by mental items versus views that defend direct awareness of objects.
The podcast also covers the mind–body problem, starting from Cartesian dualism and moving to later criticisms and alternative models, connecting these issues to questions about what a person is. Building on this, it examines personal identity over time, especially theories that emphasize consciousness and memory, along with challenges involving forgetting and false memory, and questions about whether persons are best understood in relation to bodies or brains.
Finally, the lectures address free will, determinism, and moral responsibility, comparing different concepts of freedom and engaging with compatibilist and libertarian-leaning perspectives, including the relationship between causal necessity, choice, and accountability.