Professor Carriero is kind, passionate about Descartes, eager to answer students' questions, and quite boring. I took this during the remote/Zoom quarter, and I found myself not paying attention to lecture most of the time. He spends approximately half an hour at the beginning of every class answering students' questions. He spent way too much time on the first few Meditations and then rushed through the rest. I relied on my TA a lot for concise interpretations of the material. Please note that you do need to understand the instructors' interpretations of Descartes— they differ quite a bit from what you would glean simply by reading the Meditations or looking up resources online.

He is knowledgable about the material, very, very, very knowledgable. BUT, that does not make him a good lecturer. His lectures are sort of organized mess. He always gives us a point, then says "we'll come back to this later". And you'll never notice when he actually "come back". Then you just lost his point. The good thing is he makes bruincast so you can listen to the lecture for a second time. I usually find myself fall asleep in the class, which means his lectures are really boring. Make sure you got a good TA.

His lectures are always organized, and he has very interesting interpretations about Descartes that you can't get anywhere else.

But, if you're really not into Descartes don't take this course...the entire quarter worked through the meditations (and a little bit of the objections/replies)

A few criticisms I have for him - (1) spends way too much time being a nice guy and answering completely irrelevant student questions (2) has an in-class final in which you have to write 4 essays... I don't understand what it's in class, it would've made everyone's life a little easier if we could've just typed it up.

Tip: don't take this course if you plan to ditch a lot. he gives a lot of interpretations you would never get on your own from reading the text (or via the internet), and many of the questions of the final exam ask you to explicate these interpretations. So, if you didn't go to class you're screwed.