Courses

Courses are a structured way to learn with the help of a teacher. They’re based on course materials (books, articles, videos) and related coursework, not lectures. You’ll receive guidance and have your questions answered.

We’ll interact over email, instant message and audio call. Plan to spend 5-15 hours per week on your course.

These are individual courses, not group courses. You can interact with peers (and some experts), to get feedback, discussion and help, by posting your coursework on the public Fallible Ideas discussion group.

Available courses are listed below. Price doesn’t include course materials. If you have questions, write to et@elliottemple.com

Introduction to Popperian Epistemology

How does learning work? How do we know whether an idea is good? Around 1960, Karl Popper rebuilt the field of epistemology with his fresh answers to these age-old questions. Most experts had always known that induction was flawed; Popper expanded the criticisms to be more thorough and took them seriously instead of thinking induction must work, anyway, somehow. And, most importantly, he invented a new evolutionary epistemology, which provided a better approach. Because Popper’s ideas are such a large advance, they aren’t yet widely understood – but you can learn them today.

This course will help you understand Popper’s key insights into learning and evaluating ideas. Using original source materials together with commentary by Elliot Temple, you’ll get a clear understanding of the prevailing, mainstream view (induction and justificationism), see why the prevailing view is wrong, and learn Popper’s improved view (conjectures and refutations). Elliot Temple’s expert feedback and guidance will help you become skilled enough with Popper’s ideas to apply them to decision making in real-world scenarios.

Course Materials: Popper book sections listed here. Expect to go through the material from the first 3 books (green headings) at the top.

Duration: 3 months

Price: $4500

Sign Up: Email et@elliottemple.com

Eli Goldratt’s Philosophy of Business

Eli Goldratt was an applied philosopher who specialized in improving businesses. In this course, you’ll learn his best ideas and how to use them to improve your business’ processes.

Topics covered include constraints, drum buffer rope, focus, goals, limitations, margins of error, local optima, simplicity, critical chains, win/win solutions, conflict resolution without compromising, intuition, emergencies, the scientific method, resisting change, silver bullets, effect cause effect, and socratic questioning. You’ll learn how to understand and use these ideas in a practical, effective way, rather than only seeing them as buzzwords like most people do.

Course Materials: Books by Eli Goldratt, like The Goal and The Choice, and Elliot Temple’s Eli Goldratt Screencasts.

Duration: 3 months

Price: $4500

Sign Up: Email et@elliottemple.com