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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):
➤ Introductory Oxford philosophy lectures • early modern philosophy history • knowledge and scepticism • induction • perception and primary/secondary qualities • mind–body dualism • free will, determinism, moral responsibility • personal identity, memory, consciousnessThis podcast presents an introductory philosophy course in lecture form, aimed at first-year university students and other listeners interested in major problems in the Western philosophical tradition. It takes a broadly chronological route from ancient and medieval background through early modern thinkers and the rise of mechanistic science, tracing how changes in physics and astronomy helped reshape philosophical questions about knowledge, mind, and reality. Along the way it introduces key figures such as Galileo, Descartes, Hobbes, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and Kant, using their views to frame recurring disputes between rationalism and empiricism, and between common-sense views of the world and more sceptical alternatives.
A central thread concerns epistemology: what it is to know something, how belief might be justified, and how sceptical challenges arise. The lectures examine classic issues like induction, the analysis of knowledge, Gettier-style complications, and debates between internalist and externalist accounts of justification, alongside reflections on how standards of knowledge vary by context and why knowledge matters in practical life.
Another set of episodes focuses on perception and the external world, including the distinction between primary and secondary qualities, questions about whether perceived qualities resemble objects, and contrasts between idealism, phenomenalism, and direct realism. The series also treats metaphysics of mind and agency, including Cartesian dualism and later responses to the mind–body problem, debates about free will, determinism, and moral responsibility, and accounts of personal identity that emphasize consciousness and memory while testing those views against problems like forgetting and false memories.