Scan barcode
A review by peter__b
The Philosopher's Toolkit: How to Be the Most Rational Person in Any Room by Patrick Grim
3.0
Will this course really make you the most rational person in any room? I doubt it. While it does an admirable job of covering a useful assortment of topics regarding the way we think, there is a distinct lack of depth to most lectures. If you're new to the ideas around philosophical thinking then this is a great starting point though.
Having done this as a purely audio experience, I did find it hard to follow a number of lectures that kept referring to visual elements. It wasn't impossible to follow along, but this was the first time in a Great Courses audiobook where that's been an issue, so I'd definitely recommend having the supplementary material on hand for those lectures.
For a few lectures, it also helps to be able to interact with the material as the presenter recommends. While I might have been unable to do that, I do somewhat regret it since some of the exercises were very informative and would have been even more so had I had the time to stop and really think through the problems and analyze how I went about them.
Around 3 or 4 of the lectures were notably better than the rest and I'd almost recommend this course just to hear those. However, in a series of 24, half-hour lectures, I did hope to learn more than just the basics of a very useful skill. They claim that this is university-level subject matter and while that may be the case, I think this is actually better suited to high school students or simply anyone who's unfamiliar with the concepts.
Having done this as a purely audio experience, I did find it hard to follow a number of lectures that kept referring to visual elements. It wasn't impossible to follow along, but this was the first time in a Great Courses audiobook where that's been an issue, so I'd definitely recommend having the supplementary material on hand for those lectures.
For a few lectures, it also helps to be able to interact with the material as the presenter recommends. While I might have been unable to do that, I do somewhat regret it since some of the exercises were very informative and would have been even more so had I had the time to stop and really think through the problems and analyze how I went about them.
Around 3 or 4 of the lectures were notably better than the rest and I'd almost recommend this course just to hear those. However, in a series of 24, half-hour lectures, I did hope to learn more than just the basics of a very useful skill. They claim that this is university-level subject matter and while that may be the case, I think this is actually better suited to high school students or simply anyone who's unfamiliar with the concepts.