what the hellllll was this class about???/ i think i went to lecture only two times and wound up with an A- in the class! im happy with the grade, but the times i did go to lecture i wanted to shoot myself. worst class of my life by far! ahhhhhhh, i still have nightmares of this guy! im not kidding. avoid this class, seriously

This class was a waste of time. If you're smart and sane, nothing he says will make sense. Don't take Phil 7 if you can. If you're looking to satisfy a GE, take a linguistics class. the TAs are either great or horrible, and though you get the answers for tests beforehand, even if you write out what the TAs and Almog say verbatim, you still won't get an A. Easy B, not-so-easy A.

This is the only class that I actually regret taking. He babbled on for 2 hours about water and pain, but I have no idea what he said. Don't buy the reader, and you don't have to go to class as long as you know when the midterm is. You'll learn it all in section. Stupidest class ever.

Haha, I just read some of the examples people have given for this guy and they're hilarious. Mostly because they're all true, and he really is that bad. He's an interesting guy and seems to love philosophy very much. It's refreshing to see a professor so excited about his topic...but this effect wears off once you realize how utterly futile it is to follow his lectures. His examples are extremely convoluted and even if you doze off for a minute it's difficult to understand what he's talking about. Even though he repeats everything a million times, he fails to make connections to the general point he's trying to make. For example, he will start explaining an idea by giving an example of it, thirty minutes later he finishes explaing this example and you have NO idea what he is referring to because he switched topics or points of view about 40 times in that half hour. It's ridiculous.
The TAs, however, make your life one hundred times easier by putting Almog into good old English. Basically, if it's a week before midterms, you have the questions and you have NO idea what to write, just go to one of the discussions and you'll be fine. Before the final there is a gigantic review led by the TAs. So, as long as you go to discussions you will get at least a B and very likely an A.
Overall, though, I found the class to be really useless. Phil 7 is NOT philosophy of the mind or anything I thought was related to philosophy. It's more about linguistics and a little bit of psychology. The whole class revolved around just one linguistic puzzle, and one that was not terribly exciting. If you want philosophy or an interesting class, don't pick this one.

On the last day of lecture before the exam, Almog wrote on the board: " "P believes A is F" is true in context C if and only if there exists another context C', a sentance S, and a meaning M, such that i) P agrees with S, ii) S has meaning M, and iii) S in context C' has the same meaning as "A is F" in context C "

Everyone started laughing at the time, because no one knew what it meant, and it spanned almost two entire chalk boards. Almog himself is useless. The TAs teach and explain the class. However, it is impossible to get below a B in this class, and it is a relatively easy A, with no homework. Take this class for an easy A, but be warned, the lectures tend to put you to sleep or drive you insane.

so i dont understand the people that put in reviews saying that he is amazing or brilliant, or the best professor at UCLA. All i can figure is that those people were so ecstatic about there grade that they were blinded by how ridiculous, pointless, incomprehensible, and egotistical this piece of a professor really is. He has never entered the real world, let alone does he know that there is one outside of his class. If i could fight one professor at ucla this would be him. This class is lame, if you want to do the crossword for 10 weeks take it, i did learn what the Brit word "BARMY" means.

When I was picking classes for Fall Quarter, I saw this one and was very interested. "Wow, Philosophy of the Mind!" I thought. "Materialism...determinism...I'm going to learn so many interesting things in this class!"

Boy, was I wrong. This class is a complete waste of time. I knew I was in trouble the first day I walked in to lecture and Almog informed the class that the course was not so much Philosophy of the Mind, but rather Philosophy of Language. Okay, I figured. I'll just go with it. Big mistake. Almog is an intelligent yet quirky man, and his numerous eccentricities don't translate well to teaching. For instance, Almog seems to have a personal vendetta against structure; there is no syllabus and no textbook for that matter. Just one xeroxed reader that I never opened.

Additionally, Almog's lectures are completely scatterbrained and make no sense to a sane person. Take a look at the dead-on imitation of one of his lectures below to see what I mean. I went to lecture a lot, simply because I figured every day that maybe the next one would make sense, and because I felt bad skipping class since I had another class 10 minutes before Phil. 7 in Bunche. The lectures themselves are completely pointless...all we did the entire quarter was talk about identity sentences and what they mean. We must've discussed the semantic and cognitive significance of the phrase "London Is Pretty" 100 times. If that sounds interesting to you, great. Just be prepared to be beaten over the head with convoluted examples hundreds of times. Consequently, it's very easy to fall asleep in class. I'm not sure how good of an idea it is though, because waking up to some of the insane gibberish Almog spouts (like, say, robot cats from Mars or his pants being on fire) is positively jarring.

This class can be an easy A, but there are a lot of factors involved. Basically, if you have a good TA, you're set. If you don't, you're in trouble, since the TA's basically determine your grade. Almog gives you the test questions in advance, and if your TA teaches you the stuff well enough and grades fairly it's a breeze. Don't be fooled by any of this though. While this class has the potential to be an easy A, it's not worth the grief and wasted time. There are twenty 2-hour lectures in the quarter...that's 40 hours of your life you're NEVER getting back. Marinate on that for a second.

i like almog. Phil 7 has been one of may favorite classes...and its EASY.

HE GIVES YOU THE QUESTIONS IN ADVANCE!!!!!

At first i thought his lectures were confusing but eventually if you pay attention you will begin to understand what he's talking about. he tends to repeat himself a lot so if you doze off its all good. A good TA will help a lot (mine gave us AWESOME handouts) but if you go to the lectures and know whats going on the tests will be a cake walk...

I havent taken the final yet but i got an A on both midterms. Good class, good prof, easy A.

It seems the majority of people find Prof. Almog to be extremely redundant and unstructured. Many people say that he just repeats the same things over and over again for 10 weeks.

However, all the people that believe this are simply NOT PAYING CLOSE ENOUGH ATTENTION. If you listen carefully, and try to comprehend what he's saying, you'd realise that he is a very competant speaker, very precise in his wording, and very intelligent professor who makes sure to give a complete and thorough lecture. If you come to lecture half-asleep, doing the crossword puzzle out of the newspaper, you will have no idea what he's trying to teach and it will sound like he's just making the same points over and over again. If you pay attention, you would notice that all the things he says that sound similar, are slightly altered each time to incorporate something different, that way he can be sure nothing will slip through the cracks of his arguments. He's just covering his bases.

Do NOT take this class if you have a short attention span.

Otherwise, there's not a lot of notetaking necessary if you listen well. The workload is fairly easy (no papers, just midterms and final) and he gives you the questions for the exams about a week ahead of time, so you know exactly what to study. There is no syllabus or defined schedule of topics which gives the class a certain "learn as we go" feel which can be a refreshing break from the commonplace iron-clad class structure. I recommend this class to anyone who can sit still and pay attention to 2 hr lecture (with a break in the middle). If you are someone with a need for structure or someone that has problems concentrating on one thing for long periods of time...you might want to avoid this class.

Ok, try to follow this. 2 + 2, well you know what i mean by 2? 2 is like 1 and 1 together, when i say 1, it is like you have 1 object, say an apple. well the 1 isn't a apple, but rather the amount of an apple that you have, so right now you have just 1 apple. Same can be said as anything else, there is 1 almog on the stage, 1 justin as the ta and 1 phil 7 lecture going on right now. so now imagine that there is a clone of me on the stage, or even, justin is dressed like me, then there is 2 of me. you see what i'm talking about, there is 2 of me, as i objects, but not me being the number 2, but there is one joseph almog, and another joseph almog. ok then now when you have the set of these two joseph almogs, right there and right here, what happens when you have another set of me? i mean there is first a set of 2 joseph almogs, or justins, or julia roberts or whatever, just 2 objects, you see and now i want another set of those 2 objects. objects being anything, but really you know what i mean. So now on stage there is a set of 2 joseph almogs and another set of 2 joseph almogs, when these two sets are put together. its almost as if we're getting the one set, and another set, lassoing them together, or gluing them togehter, some method in bring them togther, however it goes we're bring them together, what do we go? its now a set of 4 joseph almogs, so let me summarize,

and that is how his lecture goes, something sooooo simple stretched out so much, and its really really annoying, i dont' see a point in him doing this besides trying to make use of his 2 hour lecture. Almog just likes to talk, and if you really want to learn philosophy of mind and language you won't learn it from him. His TA's yes, not from him. If you want an easy A then go for it, but its really not worth it. I ended up hating philosophy because of this class, its really ridiculous how he goes off on such tangents.