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!

I had a lot of mixed feelings about this class but as it came to a close, I grew to really appreciate everything I learned. However, although this class is not a writing 2 fulfillment, it required more writing than a writing 2 English class I took the same quarter. Throughout the quarter, this class was the one I was most anxious about. If you're thinking of taking this class, know you will have to work really hard to get an A or an A-. My essay grades improved a lot over each paper but your grade depends on each one so be careful and don't slack off. You definitely shouldn't take this class if you're looking for an easy A or if you're not interested in philosophy at all.

I loved this class! Professor Greenberg is extremely clear in what he want and what he's looking for. There are 4 papers. The first one is 1 page, the second one is 2 pages, and the last two are 3-4 pages. He is really strict on how he wants them written, he doesn't want any fluff and he puts word limits on sentences. This is tedious at first, but it's actually really nice to learn how to convey your thoughts so precisely. He gives really engaging lectures and I just took side notes on the paper pamphlets he gave out for each class. I would write down exact phrasing he would say to help me write the essays later, and I got good grades on all of the papers (89 was my lowest one, the others I got at least a 94). I never took philosophy before this and didn't know what to expect but I really loved it and thought he did a really nice job connecting philosophical ideas to modern examples. Also, you don't need to buy a textbook and he provides the readings online and there are 2 question quizzes for each class, and they were easy points I think I got 100% on every quiz. I think it's very doable to get an A- in this class, and you just have to really care and put in effort to get an A, but would def recommend this for a GE!