Great teacher.

He really cares about the students. Know that he is in his office a lot of the time. I stopped by his office several times, even randomly, and he was always there and always quick to invite me inside to sit down on his couch, all around which are giant stacks of papers and books. My advice is to not ask him questions during class, but instead either wait until after class or go to his office. He's very talkative and will explain anything.

The class is graded by 2 papers. I personally don't think it's necessary to read all of the readings in this class in order to get an A. You only need to read the stuff that you're writing the papers on. Also, for greek philosophy, there's no need to buy a book. Just get the readings online. It's all free.

An interesting thing about this teacher is he seems very interested in philosophy of language. He has a habit of explaining every philosophical problem as a miscommunication of language.

Anyway, a pretty rational guy, I'd say. Very nice. A couple times I walked with him out of the class while he explained a point about Plato or Aristotle. Not every professor is this nice!

The first day of lecture the hall was full. By the third week there were only 30 people attending lecture and half of them fell asleep. Going to lecture in this class is a straight up waste of time. Lawrence is extremely hard to follow and is too disorganized. Go to discussion, it will save your life. Grading is based off of two papers, so make sure to listen to your TA and what they're looking for. Take this class if you want an easy four units, not if you really want to learn philosophy.

Completely agree with the post below me. Except that I did attend lecture, and completely regret it. I wish I would have stuck to the videocast. Waking up in the morning for an 8am class to watch a professor who has his lectures dictated on the handouts he gives out was a waste of my sleep time. His writing is not legible and he is all over the place(call that being eccentric if you want). The good thing about him is that he seems like a very approachable guy. He is willing to answer your questions and is in a relatively cheerful mood. One down side to that is that because he is so nice he is willing to answer multiple questions during class from students who thing they're asking significant questions or are probably trying to get the teacher's attention for presumably a letter of recommendation down the line for either grad school/law school. This is a negative because it distracts him even more, and a lecture that should have happened in a day extends to 2 weeks. In regards to grading, make sure you pay attention to your TA when he or she go overs the essay questions. They will be the one grading you based on what they want or how they interpret the question.

2 papers = entire grade. i showed up to the 8:00am lecture on the first meeting, and not a single time after that. though the lectures were all podcasted on the course site, i didn't watch any of those either.. it's definitely possible to get through this class (with a B+ or better) without attending lecture and only reading what's directly pertinent to the essay questions. once a paper is assigned, you have 7 - 10 days to complete it. i did both papers the night before they were due and pulled a B+ in the class that i suspect would have been an A-, had i not turned in the first paper a few hours late (1/3 letter grade penalty). if i'd started them a few days earlier, i'm sure i'd have gotten an A in the class.
not having been to lecture but once, i have no real insight to share about Lawrence. he's definitely knowledgeable, and his british eccentricity seemed entertaining, but the 8am thing is a real deal-breaker.

The class was not so bad. One of the problems is that too much material was crammed into 10 weeks. The prof. is actually quite nice and takes class questions seriously, he won't make you feel like a jerk for asking. There were 3 papers assigned, each given at least a week in advance and suited to the topics covered in class. Now here is the problem, which may not occur again - hopefully. The T.A.'s were HIDEOUS! All three of them gave out C+ grades as if it were simply the "best" they were able to give. I have never gotten a C on a paper previous to this class. I talked with other students in class and all 3 T.A.'s seemed to live by the same mantra. The students that i know of, who took their papers to prof. Lawrence, all were raised at least a letter grade. One T.A. actually slammed the door in a students face and refused to speak to him anymore. Hm....isn't that their T.A.ing purpose in life? Oh well, i took my B- like a champ and am issuing this warining like a fog horn in the night, if you take this class - and the class itself isn't horrid - BEWARE of the T.A.'s ask, ask, ask the professor if the T.A.'s are the same as in the previous section. Oh and watch it some of these guys are up for 100B next quarter.

I had Prof. Lawrence for Phil 100A fall quarter and I really enjoyed his class. He is very enthusiastic when he lectures, and I do believe that he does a good job at getting his point across. Sometimes he gets so excited about what he\355s saying that he\355ll resort to standing up on chairs or spitting out a couple of cuss words. But it\355s all in good fun. Furthermore, his analysis of everything we read was very thorough. He provided handouts, which were helpful from time to time, on nearly everything we read. I guess my only qualm was that we didn\355t get on to Aristotle in such great detail. We spent the first 8 weeks on Socrates/Plato, and the last two on Aristotle. This was certainly not the result of any professorial bias, though. Lawrence just got so wrapped up in Plato that before he knew it, the quarter was nearly over. Anyway, that was my only disappointment with the class, but other than that, I really enjoyed myself. He\355s an excellent instructor and very friendly outside of class as well. I recommend him for 100A (well, you probably won\355t have much of a choice), and I\355m interested in hearing his take on Wittgenstein for other classes.