As someone who's never studied philosophy in their life before this, this was a pretty good unit. The lecture content was very interesting but the readings were quite difficult to understand at times. However, this didn't matter too much because this content was summarised nicely in the lectures. As for the assignments, these included weekly quizzes (open-book and online, so easy) an essay, and an exam consisting of two essays. The essay I feel was harshly marked, but the exam does have more lax marking (or so we've been told). Very good overall!

Letheby is an excellent lecturer. He engages with the class and is always happy to take questions, even if they're tough ones. If you want to question some of your own assumptions and learn a thing or two about ontological arguments, what better place to start? 5 Stars

This unit was taught by Chris Letheby in 2022 and I cannot recommend it enough. Very interesting and very well-structured, it's a great introduction to a lot of critical philosophical theories. Although I often found myself wishing we'd gone into greater depth on fewer theories, I found when it came to the essays and exam there was more than enough to explore for a level 1 unit. The study load isn't excessive but you do need to pay attention to the lectures. I found you could pretty much entirely skip the primary readings (i.e. original source material) since they were summarised so well in the lectures and workshops and instead focus on optional readings that critically analyse the main content. Definitely a good option for an elective if you don't mind reading and writing, definitely a unit you can HD without too much effort.

A really well organised unit which covers a broad range of topics and is really interesting. Assessments are weekly quizzes, an essay, and an exam comprised of two essays. I preferred PSYC1101 because of Rubin's lectures and the exam which was all MCQ, but both are really enjoyable units, and the concepts you learn about can really enhance the way you think about the world.

One of my favourite units in first year. Everything is formatted in a really interesting and easy to understand way. The readings were interesting and the quizzes were easy as long as you did the work. The essay was marked super harshly but is made up for by the easy marking in the exam. Highly recommend!

Rubin is one of the great lecturers at UWA. Any unit run by him is well organised and he breaks down some difficult topics into easy to understand chunks.

God, Mind and Knowledge, though it runs in the second half of the year, is probably the unit which best introduces students to the field of philosophy as a whole. The unit is divided into three components, as the name suggests. Not necessarily in this order, students will look at (1) arguments for and against the existence of God; (2) problems to do with the limits of human knowledge, with a focus on David Hume’s infamous problem of induction; and (3) get an overview of the dialectic in the the philosophy of mind, with a focus on problems of identity. These topics address some of the biggest questions in the history of philosophy. A great place to start for any philosophy student.

Michael Rubin is a fantastic lecturer and unit coordinator. He is able to explain difficult concepts and he makes the lectures fun and worthwhile.

The readings are long & not overly interesting. However, when combined with the lectures, they provide good knowledge of each individual topic. The workshops were not useful, but they were also not compulsory. I wouldn’t recommend this unit unless you are really interested in these areas of philosophy.

The content covered in PHIL1003 is extremely interesting, and was presented quite well. The various topics were presented by four different lecturers, which was certainly a strength of the unit, in that each lecturer was well-versed in their field, and thus able to cover topics in good depth. Feedback on essays was also delivered speedily and in depth. Two hours per week of contact time is (unfortunately) the standard for first-year arts subjects, and given this time was usual spent in the company of 30–35 other students, it is a bit of a stretch to claim that classes were tutorials. Periods of time were set aside for impromptu discussions; however, these were generally dominated by no more than ten people, as is to be expected.