Learner Reviews & Feedback for Ancient Philosophy: Plato & His Predecessors by University of Pennsylvania

Great course, interesting topics and explanations, thanks !

Very interesting but some parts too solid.

Many Thanks.

Loved the way Dr Susan's way of explaining.

Very interesting and well structure course.

Good background for further exploration.

Good overview of these philosophers.

Interesting material well presented.

Clear and insightful explanation.

quick

Good

This course covers a lot of very interesting material and is presented in a calm, clear, organized manner. I thought the selected materials were well-chosen and presented in a way that captured the most important ideas of the philosophers discussed. I would not recommend this course to anyone with any formal background in philosophy, as the pace is somewhat slow, and the course spends a lot of time covering some basics of philosophy. (This may be an unfair critique, since I covered this material in college. I was drawn to this course as a refresher, but also hoping to learn something new or gain a new perspective on material I had already read. Rather, this is very much an introductory survey.) As a technical issue, I did not like the "pop quizzes" interspersed into the videos. These were annoying, breaking up the flow of the lecture merely to reiterate basic points. These interruptions added no value. I also disliked the introduction to each video: while it was well-produced, it was repetitive. The into music should be only on the first video, or, at most, on the first video of every section. Not each and every video. It may seem like a little thing, but each video is short, which means you're listening to the same musical into every 5 minutes or so. This is maddening. I skipped over it, but I'd prefer if the videos were edited in a way that acknowledges that people will likely be "binge watching" these, and formatted to flow one into the other seamlessly.

It's ok; worth your time if you are trying to get into philosophy and want part of the proper foundation. Overall I enjoyed it and it was good as a hand-hold through the pre-Socratics and some of the most essential Platonic writings.

Pros: the videos are pretty easy to understand, and the material chosen/covered is good to know.

Cons: the video quiz questions are really...dull...and there are too many. A downside of the ease of the videos/lectures is that they don't really go that in depth, and they're nowhere near the quality I've seen in other Coursera courses (like the Kierkegaard course from UCopenhagen).

The content of the course is quite striking since this knowledge is not found everywhere, free and especially taught by a connoisseur. However, the videos are quite tedious since, in my opinion, the voice and tone of the teacher comes a time when it does not transmit energy and therefore is tedious, especially because they could help her with images, examples, animations etc. that could be more interesting and even more striking.

I liked the content, but the valuation system is flawed, first is very very very easy; second the peer system is bad.

I would like to have a more challenging quizes and actually exams, and a more demanding essay.

I really liked the teacher, but despite the fact you cover a lot of subjects, you can go more deep, although was not mere superficial knowledge.

The course material is OK; the lectures are fun and interesting, but to pass the course you need to submit an assignment that is subjected to peer review and you will need to get approval by all of your peers. However the act of subscribing to a MOOC alone does not make people suited to review other peoples work...

The professor is animated and clearly loves her subject. I don't think we need to stop so frequently to ask a quiz question though. It's best to keep going on one subject without interruption.

Content is interesting but the teaching style could be more engaging

Heavy going! Informative though - and an engaging teacher.

Initially, I was excited about this course, but I lost interest due to two things. First, while the beginning segments about how we know the Presocratics was great, the presentation of the early Milesians was shallow and did not deepen my understanding of their world and thought. Then, the section on Parmenides made me lose faith in the teacher - she presented his main ideas in such a way as to obscure his vision, which is of what we now call a multiverse, a world in which all things exist potentially. The best part of the course was that it made me seek out other writers about Parmenides.

can give a better explanation in simple term rather more reading content. But overall a good beginner course

Poor course. Bad teacher bad environment boring and uneducational videos. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about and she says things that simply aren’t true.

Am I not getting any certificate for completing this course or what?

It is not useful.