Which of these free philosophy courses come with a certificate
None of the 13 courses on this page gives a free certificate. The split is between courses that sell an optional certificate and lecture archives that award nothing.
Paid certificate on edX and Coursera
Harvard lists Justice as free to audit on edX, which opens the videos and readings while graded work and the certificate are paid, and audit access is time-limited. The verified certificate is $209; the course is rated intermediate and runs twelve weeks at 3 to 6 hours a week. Structure and Function of Argument follows the same model at $209 over eight weeks, and China's Political and Intellectual Foundations at $149. On Coursera, Edinburgh's Introduction to Philosophy and Yale's Moral Foundations of Politics are free in full, with a shareable certificate sold separately at a price the course pages do not show.
No certificate: Oxford lecture series, Open Yale Courses and Princeton
Oxford's open lecture series, General Philosophy, Philosophy for Beginners, Kant's Critique of Pure Reason and Critical Reasoning for Beginners, have no enrolment, no assessment and no certificate; the lectures are available as audio or video, every episode page carries a transcript, and the recordings are released under a Creative Commons licence that allows non-commercial reuse.
Open Yale Courses states that no credit or certificate is available, which covers Death and Introduction to Political Philosophy. Princeton's Effective Altruism and Food Ethics on Coursera state that all features are free and that no certificates, credentials or reports are awarded, in line with Princeton policy. If a credential is the point, free online courses with certificates lists the subjects where one exists.
Learn philosophy online free: which course to start with
The starting point depends on whether you want a map of the subject, a full first-year course, or one question worked through to the end.
If you have never studied philosophy
Philosophy for Beginners is Marianne Talbot's short Oxford series: a rapid history from the Pre-Socratics onwards, a lecture on logic and argument as the philosopher's method, then one lecture each on ethics and politics, metaphysics and epistemology, and the philosophy of language and mind. It is rated beginner and gives you the vocabulary before you commit to anything longer. Edinburgh's Introduction to Philosophy covers similar ground with a different philosopher presenting each topic, from morality and knowledge to minds and machines and free will, over two weeks at 10 hours a week. Talbot's Critical Reasoning for Beginners is the companion skill: recognising an argument, setting it out logic-book style, and telling a valid argument from a persuasive one.
A complete first-year course in lecture form
General Philosophy is Peter Millican's course for first-year Oxford undergraduates, released in full. After a survey from Aristotle and Galileo to Descartes, Hume and Kant, it takes one problem per lecture: induction, scepticism about the external world, the mind-body problem, the analysis of knowledge, primary and secondary qualities, free will, and personal identity. Shelly Kagan's Death does the same for a single question over a whole Yale semester, PHIL 176: dualism against physicalism, Plato's Phaedo, personal identity, whether death is bad for the person who dies, immortality, fear of death and the morality of suicide, with the campus reading list attached.
Ethics and political philosophy
Michael Sandel's Justice reads Aristotle, Locke, Kant, Mill and Rawls against present-day controversies such as affirmative action, income distribution and the role of markets. Steven Smith's Introduction to Political Philosophy goes text by text from Plato's Apology and Republic through Aristotle, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau to Tocqueville. Ian Shapiro's Moral Foundations of Politics organises the same tradition by theory instead: utilitarianism, Marxism, the social contract, anti-Enlightenment politics and democracy, each brought to bear on current debates.
For applied ethics, Peter Singer's Effective Altruism argues over one week that an ethical life means doing the most good one can, and Andrew Chignell's Food Ethics applies utilitarian, Kantian, virtue and religious theories to animal agriculture, food justice and local food systems across five weeks. Both are rated beginner and neither needs prior philosophy.
If you already have some background
Dan Robinson's Kant's Critique of Pure Reason is a guided reading of one book: what Kant's project is, space and time, synthetic a priori judgements, the refutations of idealism, the Transcendental Deduction and the antinomies. The series page says some prior exposure to philosophy will help. China's Political and Intellectual Foundations sits between history and philosophy, reading Confucius and the Analects and the Legalist and other schools that followed as the source of China's political and moral ideas, alongside archaeology and historical method.
What free philosophy lectures online include, and what they leave out
The Oxford and Yale archives give you every lecture as video or audio with a transcript and the reading list; Yale also describes the papers and exams campus students completed. Nobody marks your work and there is no discussion section, so they reward readers who do the assigned texts alongside the lectures. The Edinburgh course on Coursera adds a peer-reviewed assignment; the Harvard courses on edX keep graded work behind the paid track.
Where to go next
Several of these courses read texts in historical order and are also listed under free online history courses. Justice overlaps with free online law courses, the reasoning courses with free online writing courses, and most of the lecture archives appear in free online courses for seniors because they need no prerequisites and no deadlines. The Oxford and Yale provider pages list the rest of their open lecture series.