Stephen R.C. Hicks's Blog, page 18

UNCERTAIN PROSPECTS: BERTRAND RUSSELL and JOHN DEWEY. Lecture 1 of Postmodern Philosophy [Peterson Academy course]

At the beginning of the 20th century, both religion and philosophy seem to have reached a dead end: Russell: philosophy’s answers “are none of them demonstrably true.” Dewey: religions merely “steep and dye intellectual fabrics in the seething vat of emotions.” Lecture One: Uncertain Prospects. Bertrand Russell and John Dewey Themes: Disquieting inheritance: Entropy, Karl […]

Heine versus Nietzsche on obscurantism in philosophy

To what extent is bad writing style, particularly bad academic style, a result of (a) poor skill, (b) affectation, (c) imitation, or (d) a tool to conceal the meaning and implications of one’s ideas? Heinrich Heine here lambasts many of his fellow intellectuals: “Distinguished German philosophers who may accidentally cast a glance over these pages […]

Was Roger Scruton a collectivist?

Roger Scruton was this generation’s most well-known conservative philosopher. He was a fierce critic of various sorts of leftism, socialism, collectivism, postmodernism, and so on. Yet note these two items: (a) He regularly states that he is more in agreement with their philosophical fundamentals than he is with (b) the philosophy he believes is most […]

Was there a Dark Age in Europe?

The Middle Ages (~400 to ~1400) are frequently divided into the ~400-1000 years (the era of decline or “Dark Ages”) and the ~1000-1400 years (when activity picked up again (the “High” or “Late” Middle Ages). The existence of a “Dark Age” is hotly and sometimes angrily contested. Three data visualizations for your consideration, followed by […]

The philosopher Martin Heidegger on the Führer Principle

Quoted in Emmanuel Faye’s Heidegger: The Introduction of Nazism into Philosophy in Light of the Unpublished Seminars of 1933-1935 (Yale, 2009), p. 140, italics in the original. “Only where leader and led together bind each other in one destiny, and fight for the realization of one idea, does true order grow. Then spiritual superiority and […]

POSTMODERN PHILOSOPHY: COURSE SYLLABUS [Peterson Academy]

In this eight lecture (nine-hour) course, Professor Hicks takes us on an exploration of the evolution of 20th-century philosophy, from the disappointed skepticism of Russell and the pragmatism of Dewey to the science-and-rigor philosophies of Popper and Rand to postmodern ideas of Foucault and Derrida. We examine how philosophers responded to major events and challenges […]

Kant on the woman’s way of war

Professor Kant taught an anthropology course yearly from the early 1770s until his retirement in 1796. The lectures were published in 1798[1], six years before his death in 1804. One nugget from his views on the differences between men and women: “It is easy to analyse man; but woman betrays her secrets even though she […]

W. K. Clifford on an intellectual acquaintance who was writing a book about metaphysics

“He is writing a book on metaphysics, and is really cut out for it; the clearness with which he thinks he understands things and his total inability to express what little he knows will make his fortune as a philosopher.” (Quoted in Brand Blanshard, On Philosophical Style, Manchester U.P., 1954, p. 28)

More than half the world is middle class or higher now

“Something of enormous global significance is happening almost without notice. For the first time since agriculture-based civilization began 10,000 years ago, the majority of humankind is no longer poor or vulnerable to falling into poverty. By our calculations, as of this month, just over 50 percent of the world’s population, or some 3.8 billion people, […]

World Cultural Map charting traditional/secular and survival/self-expression values

Relevant for: Politics is downstream from culture, Where innovation happens, Where the Enlightenment did and didn’t take hold, and more. Source. Related: The Enlightenment Vision flowchart.