The Introduction to Philosophy: God, Knowledge and Consciousness MITx course on edX will allow students to obtain a verified ID certificate and have their work graded and commented on by professional philosophers.
“This is a big deal — the first MITx humanities course to offer students the chance to write a paper and have it carefully reviewed by instructors,” says Caspar Hare, who will be running the popular MOOC for the third time. “Listening to lectures and reading books is great, but philosophy is all about taking complex ideas and organizing them in a simple way. You learn by writing, specifically writing to someone.”
The course, which costs $300 with a verified certificate and starts on August 29th, will introduce students to theories around knowledge, beliefs, and consciousness, the existence of God and notion of proofs; the debate between free will and determinism. One of its goals is to move students from discussion to development of critical reasoning and argumentative skills.
The new instructor grading and feedback feature will enable that process to take shape, according to MIT News.
The course is also available for free without the certificate.
According to The Wall Street Journal, philosophy majors tend to earn more than people with majors in accounting, business management or computer science.
