I love this class. The class is definitely not an easy A, but the process of learning the materials was very fun and engaging. For the grades, 10 percent comes from section participation, which is not hard, as long as you show up and speak in sections. 10 percent comes from the 2 question quizzes before each lecture, which were extremely easy. The rest 80 percent comes from the two midterms and a final (which is not cumulative), which, to be honest, were not easy. The exams are all in-class hand written essays, usually 6-9 paragraphs in 1hr 10min...pretty tired. However, Professor Greenberg gave us a very comprehensive study guide and questions, which helped me a lot. This class is definitely not an easy A, but if you are interested in the relationship of mind and body/consciousness or if it's your major's prereq, I really recommend you take this class!

This class is NOT AN EASY A OR A LOW EFFORT CLASS (as previous reviews from before 2020 that I was influenced to take this class by claim). The class format was changed from 3 papers to 3 in class essays, one for each unit covered. Not only does Greenberg assign SO MUCH reading, it's also boring and impossible to understand, especially when you don't want to read it and the writings are from 400 years ago by Descartes, so I used chatgpt to summarize all the texts though I retained nothing. You can also use chat to do the 2 question quizzes that he assigns along with the readings. This is a tech-free class (For whatever reason, but I lowk scrolled on my phone every class instead of paying attention) and they pass out a handout with all the notes from the slides from that day, so you don't really have to take your own notes (which is why I didn't pay attention). Maybe that's why I was always so confused about the concepts, but every time I walked into lecture I got hit with a wave of drowsiness and I was fighting to keep my eyes open every day. But anyways I would just lock in the day before the test for like the entire day and go over the handouts and answer the study questions he provides (very helpful, he even provides an AI prompt to help you study). The questions are also similar to the things he asks you to write about on the exams. The TA's grade pretty harshly though, and you have to explain the concepts clearly with an example and make sure you do not write ANY incorrect information or you will be graded down. Overall, Greenberg is a great professor, the class is just not very interesting and the concepts are so abstract that you have to think more than I'm willing to for a GE.

I loved this class. I can not stress it enough, please please take it if you get the chance. This class is so well organized, and even when the topics are tricky professor Greenberg does such a good job at giving you notes already made for you to look back on. The workload was so easy and the exams are not harshly graded. The exams mostly ask for your opinion on the subject and you won't get points taken off if you disagree with the questions the exam is asking. This class contains of 3 exams, the first 2 are just answering simple questions, and the final was an essay. I had no prior knowledge to philosophy beforehand and still managed to do well in this class. I really recommend Prof Greenberg and this class.

I took this my first quarter at UCLA and I'm kind of disappointed I did because I fear I peaked and will never enjoy another class here as much as this one. The workload was extremely easy, just a two-question quiz before each lecture and the questions are incredibly easy. The readings are also very manageable and often have pictures or are only 7 pages long. The professor even gives you a reading guide to know what to look for in the reading and also gives you paper handouts during class. Everything was really interesting and I was always looking forward to the next topic and the professor gave us many resources to make sure we understand the material, which is already fairly easy to grasp. The "midterms" are just two in-person short answer essays which he gives you a study guide for with example question and even provides that study guide on the actual midterm. Again, the class was so simple, organized, and interesting I 100% recommend!

I was initially drawn to Prof. Greenberg's high reviews on Bruinwalk and took this class. As opposed to the popular sentiment here, I would not recommend taking this class if you're generally looking for a low-effort GE, or an enlightening class that will make you love philosophy.

Why you should take this class:
- Improve your rigor of writing in philosophy
- Exams are fair and not too easy or hard

Why you shouldn't take this class:
- Your grade is entirely dependent on your TA's subjective evaluation of your writing
- I disagree with this class's no electronics policy. I understand how electronics are a distraction, but I believe removing them won't solve any problem -- people can still distract themselves with the absence of electronics.
- The very last take is personal: although the topics discussed in this class are surely interesting, I cannot find the answer to: "Why am I learning this?" "Why does it matter that I know the definition and difference between cognition and consciousness?". I think the right answer should be: "It helps us better differentiate objective truth and subjective speculation, which is a skill that can help us reduce bias in our decision making". Or, it should be "We can set up real-life experiments to validate or disapprove theories and establish facts, and using established facts as foundations, expand to solve more complex problems". However, the lectures never dive into these "applications" and "why"s, and just focus on memorizing different people's attacks and defenses on definitions and opinions. I feel like I learned zero ground truths from this class, and only memorized opinions which aren't even mine, and which you can either argue true or false.

This is my personal take, and probably many others enjoyed this class like the rest of people on Bruinwalk. Don't let me disappoint you, but also don't let the glazing of this class on Bruinwalk make you too happy.

The topics and ideas in this class were FASCINATING. Greenberg was a fantastic lecture and really managed to break down complex philosophical concepts to make them more understandable. The only problem I encountered with this class is that your entire grade is based off of essays that are super subjective and severely limited by word count (Greenberg even asks you don't write sentences over a certain word count). I consider myself a strong writer and managed to pull off an A, but I was definitely unsure of what my final grade would be throughout the quarter. My TA, John Abughattas, was fantastic when it came to talking through ideas expressed in class and facilitating further discussion, but the way he graded essays was questionable at times to me (this might just be how I feel about philosophy essays in general though, so no hard feelings). It was definitely frustrating to be graded on such subjective topics, especially because we were often encouraged to write about what we personally believed, not what previous philosophers thought. Talking to other people, if your writing style didn't click with your TA, it didn't seem like there was much you could do to improve your scores, especially since TA's refused to read/comment on essays before submission (which is understandable, I just wish they offered some way to get better feedback). Overall, if you know you are a strong writer I recommend this class, as a lot of the ideas introduced in it have stuck with me even until today, but if you know you struggle with writing I might suggest looking for another course or prof.

Professor Greenberg is one of the best professors at UCLA. He is very passionate about the material and genuinely cares about his students learning and success. He is very responsive to emails and accessible to his students.

The class is graded fairly, and class expectations set clear since the beginning. The essays, which are graded by the TA, make up a large chunk of your grade so make sure you take advantage of discussion sessions.

This class was pretty easy. I did not pay huge attention in lectures, but he always provided pamphlets of his slides. They were super helpful when writing the papers. All of the necessary information is on the pamphlet and it made it so much easier to understand the more complex topics in the class.

I really liked my TA and attended his office hours regularly. I would really recommend it if you need help on the papers because they make up the bulk of your grades. I did not thoroughly do all of the readings, but I still got the gist of them for the quizzes and section.

I was not personally interested in philosophy or anything we discussed in class, but if you need to take a philosophy course, do Phil 7 with Greenberg.

tldr; didn't really pay attention in class or really do the readings, but still got a good grade because I knew what my TA wanted on the papers

The bulk of your grade will be made up by four essays that increase in length and are limited in words per sentence. There is no midterm or final, but there are online quizzes due before every lecture starts.
You won't have to take lecture notes, he gives out pamphlets that go over basically everything on the slides. There are a lot of readings, but you'll be fine as long as you take notes on them - they are discussed in lecture.

Because your TA grades every one of your essays, this means that the TA you get dictates what your grade will be. If you've never taken a philosophy class before, then you should know beforehand that writing for philosophy is different than writing for any other subject, and includes having to prove everything you propose to be a fact (everything, even stuff like gravity and that the sky is blue). HOWEVER, if your TA simply dislikes how your writing style differs from their own, as was my situation, then you'll suffer trying to fit your essays to the prompt as well as to what you TA wants to see.

Philosophy 7 with Professor Greenberg was always the highlight of my week. Not only is the class extremely interesting, but Greenberg is an amazing lecturers. He makes amazing presentations and always provides useful handouts. His readings and quizzes are easily doable. The essays are difficult, so it’s important to participate and even attend office hours. The class is reasonable in the sense that your grade reflects the work you put in. That being said, the class does require work. However, I found myself wanting to attend office hours and spend extra time on our assignments because the material was genuinely interesting. I loved this class and really would love to take similar classes!