Tutor information
Julia Weckend
Julia has taught philosophy at the Universities of Reading and Southampton before joining the OUDCE as a tutor in 2014.
Courses
Reasoning enables us to acquire knowledge, to persuade others and to evaluate their arguments. But only if we reason well. We shall be learning how to recognise, evaluate, construct and analyse arguments, and how to recognise common fallacies.
Reasoning enables us to acquire knowledge, to persuade others and to evaluate their arguments. But only if we reason well. We shall be learning how to recognise, evaluate, construct and analyse arguments, and how to recognise common fallacies.
'What is truth?' is a perplexing and elusive question. A good first response is that truth and falsity are properties of what people say or think. But how is what we think related to the facts? Why do some believe we are living in a post-truth world?
What distinguishes a work of art from an everyday object? What is the difference between an artwork and its constituting materials? Are there essential aesthetic features to all and only works of art? This course is a spree into the metaphysics of art.
It is said we have entered a post-truth age. Has philosophical skepticism, cultural change or new technology led us on this path? What is truth anyway? This day unpacks the notion of truth, why it might be changing and whether it is still relevant today.
The problem of free will is one of the great philosophical conundrums. We certainly feel free to choose and would be alarmed to lose that sense. But we also experience ourselves constrained by causal laws. So, if it exists, wherein lies our freedom?
What is it that makes certain objects, events, or actions expressions of art? What delimits a work of art from a 'mere' object?