Introduction to Philosophy: A Free Online Course from the University of Edinburgh

Cre­at­ed by the Uni­ver­si­ty of Edin­burgh, the online course Intro­duc­tion to Phi­los­o­phy intro­duces stu­dents to “some of the main areas of research in con­tem­po­rary phi­los­o­phy. In each mod­ule, a dif­fer­ent philoso­pher will talk [stu­dents] through some of the most impor­tant ques­tions and issues in their area of exper­tise.” The course begins by ask­ing “what phi­los­o­phy is – what are its char­ac­ter­is­tic aims and meth­ods, and how does it dif­fer from oth­er sub­jects?” Then the online course (offered on the Cours­era plat­form) pro­vides an overview of sev­er­al dif­fer­ent areas of phi­los­o­phy, includ­ing: Epis­te­mol­o­gy, Phi­los­o­phy of Sci­ence, Phi­los­o­phy of Mind, Polit­i­cal Phi­los­o­phy, Moral Phi­los­o­phy, and Meta­physics.

UPDATE: In 2025, Cours­era removed the abil­i­ty to take/audit cours­es for free. We have removed links to the Cours­era plat­form on this page. And, instead we have added the video from the phi­los­o­phy course. They appear in the YouTube playlist above. You can also find more free phi­los­o­phy cours­es in the relat­eds sec­tion below.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

A His­to­ry of Phi­los­o­phy in 81 Video Lec­tures: A Free Course That Explores Phi­los­o­phy from Ancient Greece to Mod­ern Times

Oxford’s Free Course Crit­i­cal Rea­son­ing For Begin­ners Teach­es You to Think Like a Philoso­pher

Intro­duc­tion to Polit­i­cal Phi­los­o­phy: A Free Online Course from Yale Uni­ver­si­ty 

Michael Sandel’s Free Course on Jus­tice, the Most Pop­u­lar Course at Har­vard, Is Now Online