Free online courseGeneral Philosophy: From Descartes to Hume, Knowledge, Perception and Free Will
Duration of the online course: 6 hours and 53 minutes
New
Free Oxford online course on early modern philosophy: knowledge, scepticism, perception, mind-body debates, free will and personal identity.
In this free course, learn about
Foundations of Early Modern Philosophy
Mechanism, Science, and Early Modern Thinkers
Hume and the Challenge of Induction
Mind, World, and Dualism
What Is Knowledge? From JTB to Externalism
Perception: Primary and Secondary Qualities
Free Will, Determinism, and Moral Responsibility
Personal Identity Over Time
Course Description
Explore the foundations of early modern philosophy in this free online course from the University of Oxford, designed for learners who want a clear path through major debates about knowledge, perception, personal identity and free will.
Begin with the shift from ancient and medieval thought to the scientific revolution, tracing how new methods in physics and natural philosophy reshaped questions about reality and how we can know it. Follow the development of modern philosophy through key arguments about materialism, corpuscles, instrumentalism and idealism, and see why scepticism became such a powerful challenge to everyday assumptions about the external world.
Move deeper into epistemology by examining what knowledge is, why the traditional definition runs into trouble, and how later puzzles complicate the idea of justified belief. Along the way, you will confront competing views on mind and body, including dualism and modern responses that aim to explain consciousness and mental causation without mystery.
The course also clarifies classic disputes in the philosophy of perception, from primary and secondary qualities to resemblance, abstraction and the attempt to make sense of experience. It concludes with practical and enduring questions about freedom, determinism and moral responsibility, as well as what makes someone the same person over time.
Ideal for students and curious readers alike, this course offers a structured introduction to some of the most influential ideas that continue to shape contemporary philosophical discussion.
Course content
Video class: 1.1 An Introduction to General Philosophy05m
Exercise: Why does the course use early modern (17th–18th century) texts to introduce most topics in epistemology and metaphysics?
Video class: 1.2 The Birth of Modern Philosophy15m
Exercise: What is the ancient sceptical “problem of the criterion” meant to show?
Video class: 1.3 From Aristotle to Galileo18m
Exercise: What key shift in scientific explanation is highlighted when moving from Aristotelian science to Galileo’s approach?
Video class: 1.4 The Birth of the Early Modern Period: From Galileo to Descartes10m
Exercise: In the mechanistic picture discussed, why does a moving object (like a sledge) continue in a straight line at constant speed unless something changes it?
Video class: 2.1 Recap of General Philosophy Lecture 105m
Exercise: What key change in explanation did 17th-century mechanism introduce compared with Aristotelian physics?
Video class: 2.2 Introduction to Thomas Hobbes11m
Exercise: How does Hobbes argue that free will can exist even if universal determinism is true?
Video class: 2.3 Robert Boyle's Corpuscularian Theory06m
Exercise: What key feature did Boyle’s corpuscular theory add that differs from Descartes’ view of matter as extension?
Video class: 2.4 Isaac Newton and Instrumentalism07m
Exercise: What stance is described when a scientist treats a theory mainly as a tool for predicting observations, without committing to what really causes the phenomena?
Video class: 2.5 Introduction to John Locke12m
Exercise: According to Locke, what is the correct way to understand secondary qualities (like color) in bodies?
Video class: 2.6 George Berkeley and Idealism09m
Exercise: In occasionalism, why can’t the motion of one billiard ball be the real cause of the motion of another?
Video class: 3.1 Introduction to David Hume19m
Exercise: What is Hume’s key skeptical point about induction (inferring from past to future)?
Video class: 3.2 David Hume: Concluding Remarks10m
Exercise: What does the two-slit experiment illustrate about the limits of knowing the world “by pure reason”?
Video class: 3.3 The Problem of Induction23m
Exercise: In Hume’s discussion of induction, why can’t the principle that the future will resemble the past be justified by demonstrative (logical) reasoning?
Video class: 4.1 Scepticism of the External World08m
Exercise: What is the Cartesian Circle problem in the attempt to answer skepticism about the external world?
Video class: 4.2 Possible Answers to Scepticism of the External World09m
Exercise: In the debate about skepticism and the external world, what is the key strategy suggested by the here is one hand, here is another style response?
Video class: 4.3 Introduction to Cartesian Dualism22m
Exercise: In Cartesian dualism, what makes the mind and body distinct according to the view described?
Video class: 4.4 Modern Responses to Dualism10m
Exercise: What is the main point of the knowledge argument (Mary and color) in support of property dualism?
Video class: 5.1 Introduction to Knowledge10m
Exercise: In discussing knowledge, which type is the primary focus when philosophers talk about knowledge that P?
Video class: 5.2 The Traditional Analysis of Knowledge16m
Video class: 5.3 Gettier and Other Complications14m
Exercise: What do Gettier-style cases primarily show about the traditional “justified true belief” (JTB) analysis of knowledge?
Video class: 5.4 Scepticism, Externalism and the Ethics of Belief12m
Exercise: Which claim best captures the externalist idea of how ordinary perceptual knowledge is possible despite skeptical scenarios?
Video class: 6.1 Introduction to Primary and Secondary Qualities14m
Exercise: In Locke’s primary/secondary quality distinction, what is a secondary quality (e.g., yellowness) in an object?
Video class: 6.2 Problems with Resemblance10m
Exercise: What marks the primary/secondary quality distinction in the view discussed?
Video class: 6.3 Abstraction and Idealism10m
Exercise: Why do Berkeley and Hume reject the doctrine of abstraction in arguing about primary qualities?
Video class: 6.4 Making Sense of Perception16m
Exercise: According to the argument presented, why doesn’t simply insisting that we perceive objects directly (rather than ideas or sense-data) solve the skeptic’s worry about the external world?
Video class: 7.1 Free Will, Determinism and Choice18m
Exercise: In the free will debate, which position claims that free will (required for moral responsibility) is incompatible with determinism, and therefore determinism must be false if we have free will?
Video class: 7.2 Different Concepts of Freedom14m
Exercise: According to the compatibilist “contrastive argument,” what is freedom primarily contrasted with?
Video class: 7.3 Hume on Liberty and Necessity10m
Exercise: According to Hume, what is the basis of our idea of necessity/causation, and how does this support determinism about human action?
Video class: 7.4 Making Sense of Free Will and Moral Responsibility09m
Exercise: Why does a Humean sentimentalist view of morality suggest that determinism need not undermine moral responsibility?
Video class: 8.1 Introduction to Personal Identity08m
Exercise: In discussions of personal identity, what is the recommended way to avoid ambiguity when using the word same?
Video class: 8.2 John Locke on Personal Identity15m
Exercise: According to Locke, what most fundamentally constitutes personal identity over time?
Video class: 8.3 Problems for Locke's View of Personal Identity09m
Exercise: How does the “ancestral” (iterated) memory relation address the objection that memory-based personal identity violates the transitivity of identity?
Video class: 8.4 Persons, Humans and Brains11m
Exercise: In split-brain transplant scenarios where each half is placed in a different body, what view is suggested as a plausible response to the problem of personal identity?
This free course includes:
6 hours and 53 minutes of online video course
Digital certificate of course completion (Free)
Exercises to train your knowledge
100% free, from content to certificate
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