Stephen R.C. Hicks's Blog, page 19

The servile state — Belloc’s 1913 prediction

One hundred years ago, Hilaire Belloc published The Servile State, with this provocative claim about his mixed intellectual world: “the effect of Socialist doctrine on Capitalist society is to produce a third thing different from either of its two begetters — to wit, the Servile State.” The nineteenth century was largely capitalist in theory and […]

LIBERAL or ANTI-LIBERAL? J.S. MILL and FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE. Lecture 8 of Modern Philosophy [Peterson Academy course]

“The symbol of this struggle, inscribed in letters legible across all human history, is ‘Rome against Judea, Judea against Rome.’” Lecture Eight: Liberal or Anti-Liberal? John Stuart Mill and Friedrich Nietzsche Themes: Darwinism. Utilitarianism versus Expressive Power. Liberty versus Slavery. Social philosophy as derived from basic philosophy. Continuing or rejecting the Enlightenment? Pasteur. Darwin, biology […]

Intellectual History page updated

Updated for the new year: My collected posts on key thinkers from Homer, Socrates, and Augustine to Descartes, Kant, and Rand. Related: My Philosophers, Explained series.

The difficulties of being/not being an artist

The cartoon reminds me of an earlier post about Rimsky-Korsakov on the “hardship” of the composer’s life. According to Shostakovich: “Rimsky-Korsakov used to say that he refused to acknowledge any complaints from composers about their hard lot in life. He explained his position thus: Talk to a bookkeeper and he’ll start complaining about life and […]

Human Creativity?: AI researchers Karthik Swarmy, Jason Miller, and Joe Megyari, and philosopher Stephen Hicks discuss AI’s potential

“We have a panel discussion with Stephen Hicks, Professor of Philosophy, on the impacts of GenAI on the human condition.”

RESURGENT COLLECTIVISM: GEORG HEGEL and KARL MARX. Lecture 7 of Modern Philosophy [Peterson Academy course]

“Our mode of treating the subject is a Theodicaea,—a justification of the ways of God,—so that the ill that is found in the World may be comprehended, and the thinking Spirit reconciled with the fact of the existence of evil.” Lecture Seven: Resurgent Collectivism. Georg Hegel and Karl Marx Themes: After Kant, reality or reason? […]

Prof. Hicks on the Enlightenment: The Age of Reason & Its Opposition, Objective Morality, Israel

Interviewed by Israel’s Harry Kaufmann: Related interview: “Rand, Kant, Israel v. Islamists, & Career integrity”—Stephen Hicks with Vinay Kolhatkar and Roger Bissell.

Rock band Boston’s music: on the integration of science, engineering, and art

A common trope is that art and science are opposed to each other. That, despite the long list of artistic innovators—from Leonardo, Michelangelo, Monet, and others—who self-consciously applied science and the fruits of technical engineering to make their independent visions real. Leonardo and mathematics, Michelangelo and anatomy, Monet and the chemical industry’s new pigments, and […]

Christians against Christmas?

Reminds me of past extended-family debates over whether Christmas is a legitimate Christian holiday: * One faction argued that we need to put the Christ back in Christmas.* Another faction argued that Christ never was properly in it so Christians should boycott.* A third, semi-pagan faction just got on with enjoying the good food, presents, […]

J.S. Mill on American culture and politics

In the following two passages, with a nod to Tocqueville, Mill makes two strong claims. First he praises American culture: “Almost all travellers are struck by the fact that every American is in some sense both a patriot, and a person of cultivated intelligence. … No such wide diffusion of the ideas, tastes, and sentiments […]