24 articles · about 3 hours · 24 written

Total beginner, six weeks

Four articles a week for six weeks. Starts with how arguments work, because every other subject leans on that, then moves through the four questions philosophy keeps returning to: what exists, what we can know, what we owe each other, and what a mind is. Nothing here assumes prior reading.

What an Argument IsLogic · Beginner
Premises, conclusions, and the difference between arguing and asserting
6 min
Validity and SoundnessLogic · Beginner
Why a valid argument can have a false conclusion, and what soundness adds
7 min
Semantic and Syntactic ConsequenceLogic · Intermediate
Two different relations that beginners run together, and the notation that keeps them apart
12 min
Common Formal FallaciesLogic · Beginner
Affirming the consequent, denying the antecedent, and why they fail
7 min
What Metaphysics AsksMetaphysics · Beginner
The questions left over once the sciences have described how things behave
7 min
Existence and Non-ExistenceMetaphysics · Beginner
Whether existence is a property, and what to say about Pegasus and the round square
8 min
Objects and PropertiesMetaphysics · Beginner
The difference between a thing and the ways it is, and what instantiation is meant to be
9 min
Change and Identity Over TimeMetaphysics · Beginner
How one thing can lose a property without thereby becoming a different thing
9 min
Knowledge, Belief, and OpinionEpistemology · Beginner
Three things people run together, and what separates them
7 min
What Justification IsEpistemology · Beginner
What turns a true belief into something better than a lucky guess
8 min
Sources: Perception, Memory, Testimony, ReasonEpistemology · Beginner
Where beliefs actually come from, and the way each source can fail
9 min
Skepticism, First EncounterEpistemology · Beginner
Dreams, deceiving demons, and why ordinary beliefs are hard to defend
8 min
Descriptive and Normative ClaimsEthics · Beginner
How claims about what is the case differ from claims about what ought to be
6 min
What a Moral Theory IsEthics · Beginner
What a theory owes you: a criterion of right action, not a list of verdicts
7 min
Consequences, Rules, and CharacterEthics · Beginner
Three places a theory can locate rightness, and why they diverge on the same case
9 min
The Trolley Problem as a DiagnosticEthics · Beginner
Switch, footbridge, and what the gap between the two verdicts is meant to reveal
8 min
The Mind-Body Problem StatedPhilosophy of Mind · Beginner
Two descriptions of the same episode, and why nobody has managed to fit them together
7 min
Consciousness Versus CognitionPhilosophy of Mind · Beginner
Splitting the mental into what gets processed and what gets felt, and why only one half looks tractable
9 min
What a Mental State IsPhilosophy of Mind · Beginner
Attitudes and their contents, states you are in and states you are merely disposed to, and what the categories are for
8 min
Authority and LegitimacyPolitical Philosophy · Beginner
Why some commands create obligations and others are only threats backed by force
7 min
What a State Is ForPolitical Philosophy · Beginner
Order, defence, and public goods, and the anarchist reply that none of it requires a state
8 min
What God Is Claimed to BeTheism · Beginner
The package of attributes the word normally carries: maximal power, maximal knowledge, perfect goodness, and responsibility for everything else
8 min
Theism, Atheism, and AgnosticismTheism · Beginner
Three positions distinguished by what each asserts rather than by how confident anyone feels
9 min
From Theory to CasesApplied Ethics · Beginner
How consequentialist, deontological, and virtue-based reasoning each turn a moral question into a verdict
9 min