Not a great professor at all. Always left me clueless. I heard the next quarter, he said he was teaching philosophy of mathematics in a class that was suppose to be about philosophy of the mind because he didnt want to confuse himself being he was already teaching a philosophy of mathematics class. Pretty weird huh? Dont reccomend him.

WORST CLASS I'VE EVER TAKEN AT UCLA and i'm a science major. i don't recommend this class for anyone... not even if i dislike you would i put you through such torture. Almog is unorganized and vindictive. He "punishes" his students because lecture attendance isn't up to par (for good reason). He decided that the Winter Philo 7 would be "harder" so instead of giving us the finals questions as he said he would, he changed his mind. I used to be interested in philosophy

almog is passionate about the material. no doubt about that, but his approach to teaching is horrible. he rambles on and on. he didnt stick to the catalog description for the class, but the class material turned out to be ok. my ta was orsi who was just a mouthful of nothing. what helped me attain my A was the exam questions given out beforehand. if i knew how this class was going to be, i probably wouldnt take it again. but then again, he did give questions out

This class was torture. It was supposed to be an easy class, but not so - Almog tag-teamed with John Carriero, to teach this course. They changed the format, and likewise, they did not give out the final questions ahead of time. This class was minimal in work: only three papers and the final. But the material is not very interesting, and lecture, like everyone else says, is really really boring. I also found Almog very hard to follow in lectures: he has an accent, speaks in high pitch, and doesn't complete his thoughts. So it is very hard to follow what he is trying to say and take notes. The discussion sections are definitely worth going to, though. Sonny is a really good TA. But overall, the class is just not as interesting as philosophy material could be.

The course was changed up this quarter, so there was more than one philosopher studied... that made for really great material... however, almog is not a very good professor... as said before, his lectures are repetitive and nonsensical... I went to every lecture and basically picked up on very little... there were pop quizzes, so that made it essential to go... the TAs were amazing... they honestly are the reason why I did well in the class... they are always available to help and so easy to approach... I learned all I had to learn in the review session the TAs gave then I did in the actual class... overall, the professor is not great, but what makes up for it are the great TAs and the wonderful readings...

Almog is pretty animated and passionate about the subject matter. He is also EXTREMELY repetitive and lectures felt like a complete waste of time. All the examples are the same and sometimes it feels like he's giving the exact same lecture twice. He is funny, however, and interjects humor in between. Usually he gives out the midterm/final questions ahead of time so you don't need to attend lecture. The course actually covers very little material, all about Descartes' Meditations, and there's very little reading and no homework. I think the TA's are actually pretty easy graders. Depending on your TA, the discussion session may be helpful or not.

Everyone complains about lectures and such so just DONT GO. This was probably the easiest class I have taken at UCLA. Not once did I attend lecture, went to discussion 3 times, attended the final review session, got an A- in the class. Thats a total of 6 hours spent on the class throughout the whole quarter. I would say that 6 hours for an A- is quite nifty. Although the class was easy, the information that I learned in the final review session was quite interesting and thought-provoking. I finally realized where the idea of The Matrix came from.

I was very disappointed with this class. Rather than a general introduction to philosophy of mind, Almog taught us one (untraditional, by his own admission) interpretation of one text, Descartes' Meditations. If you take this class do not expect it to correspond at all to the registrar's description.

My disappointment aside, this class was very easy. Almog assigned a total of about 40 pages of reading for the entire quarter. There were no assignments, just a midterm and final. Many of the people on this page seem to think his lectures are impossible to follow. I disagree. You must pay careful attention to Almog in order to understand him. You cannot expect to show up to this class, copy down some things from the board and understand it later. You have to listen.

To get an A in this class, you must pay careful attention to the lectures and attend all the discussion sections.

I have the pleasure of being the first class for which Almog did not provide the questions for the midterm ahead of time. Apparently it was the last straw for Almog in regards to the poor attendance of his lectures. Of course, what I don't understand is how Almog can genuinely expect people to be motivated to attend his lectures when they do not make any sense. And he seems to acknowledge that they do not make sense. ("I'm not saying my lectures are great..." "I know my lectures are hard to follow..." yeah that's an understatement.) His lectures are filled with gems like, "Don't write this down because it might change later." Trying to extract notes from his off-the-wall, unstructured and unplanned lectures was insane. And instead of trying to improve his lectures (he does NOTHING in preparation for class-no syllabus, nothing) he makes justifications for them, i.e. "I repeat myself because" no, you repeat yourself because there is no structure to your class. Here's an example: there were two sets of axioms. In one lecture, he finished listing off one set and didn't get through the second; during the next lecture, he relisted the first set and never got to the second set. I had the first set of axioms written in about half of my lecture notes, and I only got the second set when the TA explained them. It's hard to argue with a teacher being upset that students don't take their class seriously, but when the teacher doesn't put anything into the class or make it comprehensible in the least for students (I asked around-a LOT-and there was a unanimous agreement among us about how insanely perplexed we all were, including those who attended every single lecture, and there were a good number who did) how can the teacher expect the students to make an effort? What it seems to boil down to is Almog implying, "I want you to go to my lectures. However, the lectures make no sense. Hence, if you attend my lectures to make me happy, I will give you the answers to tests ahead of time since attending the lectures in and of itself will do nothing to aid you on the exam." (Almog's words were something like, "Usually the only way people are able to do well on the exam is if they get the questions ahead of time.") In an attempt to make this a "fair and balanced" review, I will say that Almog can be quite funny when he's employing political humor; and he is a liberal. However, these are his only redeeming qualities, and they fail to justify the insanity which is Philosophy of the Mind. It seems superfluous to say "Don't take this class"; read the other reviews on this page if you need more convincing.

I cherish this moment, because now, after finishing the Philosophy 7 final, I finally get to write my own review of Professor Almog and of his class.

There is no doubt that Joseph Almog knows about philosophy. The man lives philosophy, he breathes philosophy, he has philosophy oozing from his pores. However, understanding him is a serious test in patience. The man rambles to no end, and he spends a half-hour talking about nothing. I was able to extract maybe two note-worthy sentences from each hour and fifty minute lecture. And that totals about four note-worthy sentences for this quarter, because that is the approxomate number of lectures I attended. I cannot emphasize enough the following point that I am about to make - do not go to lecture. Do not go on the first day, do not go on the last day, do not go ever. Are we clear? Good. If you feel the need to personally go to class so that you may obtain the midterm and final topics, do so and leave as quickly as possible.

Since lecture is useless, Discussion becomes very important. I don't recommend skipping discussion often, because its relatively important. However, if you have Orsii as your TA, you should switch, not because she's bad, but because she grades hard and sometimes its hard to understand what she's saying. But if you really want to be lazy, you can skip discussion too. The midterm and final questions are given to you ahead of time, so all you need to do is 1) attend your TA's office hours to find out how to answer the midterm, and 2) attend the final review session, where ALL THE FINAL QUESTIONS are answered in depth.

So yes, you can believe it, this is a ten week class that only requires you to put in maybe six total hours of work.