Subjects

Who is it for?

Philosophy is ideal for those who ask ‘why?’ a lot – those who wonder about life, about right and wrong, about freedom, truth, beauty and a thousand other things. It is for those who want to confront difficult questions and develop the skills required to make rational judgments about them.

Philosophy Units 1 and 2 is a fully online course. Each week you will read through the content, watch videos and try out online interactive media that will introduce you to a particular question of philosophical interest together with some of the possible positions on the question and some of the arguments for these positions that have been offered by past thinkers.

The real fun starts then when you are presented with stimulus activities designed to provoke you to take up your own position on the question before guiding you to develop that position by thinking through the reasons you can give for your view and looking critically at the positions and reasons offered by others.

As you think through the online content you exchange ideas with other students in the online forum areas and post your reflections on your developing understanding of the problem on your personal online blog.

Overall, the activities are designed not only to enable you to develop your own views on the topic but also to build critical thinking skills that will enable you to express your views clearly and to argue convincingly in your favour.

What skills do you need?

There are no formal prerequisites for either Unit, but you do need to:

• love spending time really thinking through challenging questions
• be sincere in your search for the truth
• be willing to take a chance and share your ideas with others, even if you are uncertain of how good your ideas are (there is only one way to find out)
• be ready to give reasons for your opinions and to critically investigate the reasons offered by others
• have the personal integrity to give up a treasured belief if you are given convincing evidence that it is false.

What skills do you develop?

Apart from being a lot of fun, Philosophy offers you the opportunity to achieve a number of very important things. For a start, you can sort out your own beliefs on various significant topics – and having coherent, non-contradictory beliefs is part of becoming your own person and being a complete, independent member of society. In adult life you will be required to make on-the-spot decisions on critical issues, and you will need to be sure of what you believe and why you believe it if you are to act responsibly and authentically in such situations.

Philosophy as an academic discipline requires and fosters the development of some very specific (and very useful) skills in the recognition, analysis, evaluation and creative production of arguments (reasons for belief). These critical thinking skills are essential if you are to succeed not only in Philosophy but also in all other subjects, and in life more generally for that matter.

In particular, study in Philosophy will guide you to develop an understanding of the structural principles and the writing skills required to write a really convincing piece of argumentative prose.

Requirements

Internet is needed to access this course. All work will be completed and submitted online weekly.

Things to think about

Students should be prepared for Philosophy to forever change the way that they see themselves and the world.

You have been warned…

Things you can do now

There is a basic logic component to this course. Students can hone their logic skills in preparation for the intellectual rigors to come by working through the first few tutorials in the Critical Thinking Web’s ‘Identifying Arguments’ module.

Go to the VCAA website for more information about this subject.