Edin - Know Thyself - The Value and Limits of Self-Knowledge: The Examined Life
- Offered byCoursera
Know Thyself - The Value and Limits of Self-Knowledge: The Examined Life at Coursera Overview
Duration | 19 hours |
Start from | Start Now |
Total fee | Free |
Mode of learning | Online |
Difficulty level | Beginner |
Official Website | Explore Free Course  |
Credential | Certificate |
Know Thyself - The Value and Limits of Self-Knowledge: The Examined Life at Coursera Highlights
- Shareable Certificate Earn a Certificate upon completion
- 100% online Start instantly and learn at your own schedule.
- Flexible deadlines Reset deadlines in accordance to your schedule.
- Beginner Level
- Approx. 19 hours to complete
- English Subtitles: Arabic, French, Portuguese (European), Italian, Vietnamese, German, Russian, English, Hebrew, Spanish
Know Thyself - The Value and Limits of Self-Knowledge: The Examined Life at Coursera Course details
- According to legend, inscribed on walls of the temple on the sacred site of Delphi in Ancient Greece were two premier injunctions: NOTHING IN EXCESS, and KNOW THYSELF. This course will be an examination of the latter injunction in an effort to discover what self-knowledge is, why it might be valuable, and what, if any, limitations it might face. What is missing from a person lacking in self-knowledge that makes her less wise, virtuous, or competent in certain areas than others who have this capacity, and what if anything might she do to fill that gap? Historical sources as well as recent research in philosophy, experimental social psychology, and neuroscience will inform our investigation, in the course of which we will become students of our own dreams, and cultivate some meditative practices.
- Learning Outcomes:
- Learners will gain familiarity with prominent themes from Western, classical Chinese, and Buddhist approaches to our knowledge of ourselves. In the course of doing so, they will gain an appreciation of the relation of self-knowledge to wisdom, of the value of intellectual humility, as well as of methods of learning about oneself that do not depend on introspection.
- Learners will also become familiar with contemporary research in experimental social psychology, philosophy, and neuroscience into the emotions, the unconscious, the role of affect in decision making, and self-deception. They will also gain an appreciation of a challenge to the assumption of a coherent, unified self that derives from the Buddhist tradition.
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- This course was created by a partnership between The University of Edinburgh and Humility & Conviction and Public Life Project, an engaged research project based at the University of Connecticut and funded by a generous grant from the John Templeton Foundation.
Know Thyself - The Value and Limits of Self-Knowledge: The Examined Life at Coursera Curriculum
Getting started
Introduction: Know Thyself @ Wireless Philosophy
About this course
Course assessments and exercises
Optional companion book
The Gadfly
Is anyone wiser than Socrates?
I know that I know (almost) nothing
Meditative moment
Is an unexamined life worth living?
"Not to be lived"
What is knowledge good for?
Summary
Existentialist Comics - The "Apology"
Know Thyself, Chapter One
Interesting videos and podcasts
Plato's Apology - full text
'Socrates' by Professor Deborah Nails
'The Delphic Oracle: A Multidisciplinary Defense of the Gaseous Vent Theory' By Spiller et al
Initial thoughts
Practice Quiz 1: The Oracle
Practice Quiz 2: knowledge, wisdom and ignorance
Knowledge and ignorance
Do you agree?
Module One Quiz: 5 questions assessed
Chapter One Quiz
Descartes' Essence
Descartes
What can be called into doubt?
Are you dreaming now?
I think, therefore I am
Concerning God
The physical and the mental
Divisibility of mind and body
Meditative moment
Dualism
Know Thyself, Chapter Two
Interesting videos and podcasts
Brief essay on Descartes' argument for dualism
Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy
Correspondence between Descartes and Princess Elisabeth
Prof. Christia Mercer on Descartes' debt to Teresa of Avila
Rationalism vs Empiricism
Initial thoughts
Practice Quiz 1
Practice Quiz 2
Evaluate Descartes' argument
Evaluate the arguments again
Module Two Quiz: 5 questions assessed
A re-casting of the Mind/Body problem
Concept of mind
Ghost in the machine
Stupid is, as stupid does
Embodied cognition
Priviledged access
Locked in
The materialist strikes back
Meditative moment
Know Thyself, chapter three
Interesting videos and podcasts
On embodied cognition
Gilbert Ryle, The Concept of Mind
Gilbert Ryle at the Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy
Locked-In Syndrome
Another MOOC: more about embodied cognition
Initial thoughts
Practice quiz
More know-how intelligence
Examples of failed phosphorescence or introspection/infallibility
Module Three Quiz: 5 questions assessed
MIND AND SELF: Some Aspects of Human Nature
Human nature
Investigating human nature
How best to live?
Theory of human emotions
Non-basic emotions
Second nature
Meditative moment
Existentialist Comics - Sartre
Human nature: Six things we all do (New Scientist)
Human nature matters (Aeon)
Some interesting videos and podcasts
Read more about Confucius, Mencius, and Xunzi (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Read more about Sartre, Existentialism, and Nothingness (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Steve Darwall: Empathy, Sympathy, Care
More on basic emotions
Initial thoughts
Your rituals
Human nature as an excuse
Part of human nature?
Module Four Quiz: 5 questions assessed
Share what you've learned by editing the Wikipedia entry on self-knowledge!
A brief How-To
The Unconscious
Losing Oneself
Know Thyself - The Value and Limits of Self-Knowledge: The Examined Life at Coursera Admission Process
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