Coursera Plus Annual is 40% Off — Ends July 13.

Class Central is learner-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.

The Great Courses Plus

The Great Ideas of Philosophy, 2nd Edition

via The Great Courses Plus

Go to class Write review
DataCamp Ad

Power BI Fundamentals - Create visualizations and dashboards from scratch

Learn More → Babbel Ad

You’re only 3 weeks away from a new language

Learn More →

Overview

Google, IBM & Meta Certificates – 40% Off
One plan covers every Professional Certificate on Coursera.
Unlock All Certificates
Take a comprehensive look at history's greatest theological debates and explore ideas such as natural law and moral reality, the collision between the inherently social understanding of meaning, and the concept of reality itself.

Syllabus

  • 01: From the Upanishads to Homer
  • 02: Philosophy—Did the Greeks Invent It?
  • 03: Pythagoras and the Divinity of Number
  • 04: What Is There?
  • 05: The Greek Tragedians on Man’s Fate
  • 06: Herodotus and the Lamp of History
  • 07: Socrates on the Examined Life
  • 08: Plato's Search For Truth
  • 09: Can Virtue Be Taught?
  • 10: Plato's Republic—Man Writ Large
  • 11: Hippocrates and the Science of Life
  • 12: Aristotle on the Knowable
  • 13: Aristotle on Friendship
  • 14: Aristotle on the Perfect Life
  • 15: Rome, the Stoics, and the Rule of Law
  • 16: The Stoic Bridge to Christianity
  • 17: Roman Law—Making a City of the Once-Wide World
  • 18: The Light Within—Augustine on Human Nature
  • 19: Islam
  • 20: Secular Knowledge—The Idea of University
  • 21: The Reappearance of Experimental Science
  • 22: Scholasticism and the Theory of Natural Law
  • 23: The Renaissance—Was There One?
  • 24: Let Us Burn the Witches to Save Them
  • 25: Francis Bacon and the Authority of Experience
  • 26: Descartes and the Authority of Reason
  • 27: Newton—The Saint of Science
  • 28: Hobbes and the Social Machine
  • 29: Locke’s Newtonian Science of the Mind
  • 30: No matter? The Challenge of Materialism
  • 31: Hume and the Pursuit of Happiness
  • 32: Thomas Reid and the Scottish School
  • 33: France and the Philosophes
  • 34: The Federalist Papers and the Great Experiment
  • 35: What Is Enlightenment? Kant on Freedom
  • 36: Moral Science and the Natural World
  • 37: Phrenology—A Science of the Mind
  • 38: The Idea of Freedom
  • 39: The Hegelians and History
  • 40: The Aesthetic Movement—Genius
  • 41: Nietzsche at the Twilight
  • 42: The Liberal Tradition—J. S. Mill
  • 43: Darwin and Nature’s “Purposes”
  • 44: Marxism—Dead But Not Forgotten
  • 45: The Freudian World
  • 46: The Radical William James
  • 47: William James's Pragmatism
  • 48: Wittgenstein and the Discursive Turn
  • 49: Alan Turing in the Forest of Wisdom
  • 50: Four Theories of the Good Life
  • 51: Ontology—What There “Really” Is
  • 52: Philosophy of Science—The Last Word?
  • 53: Philosophy of Psychology and Related Confusions
  • 54: Philosophy of Mind, If There Is One
  • 55: What makes a Problem “Moral”
  • 56: Medicine and the Value of Life
  • 57: On the Nature of Law
  • 58: Justice and Just Wars
  • 59: Aesthetics—Beauty Without Observers
  • 60: God—Really?
  • By This Professor

Taught by

Daniel N. Robinson, Ph.D.

Reviews

4.3 rating at The Great Courses Plus based on 208 ratings

Start your review of The Great Ideas of Philosophy, 2nd Edition

Go to class

Never Stop Learning.

Get personalized course recommendations, track subjects and courses with reminders, and more.

Sign up for free
Someone learning on their laptop while sitting on the floor.