Stephen R.C. Hicks's Blog, page 21

Heidegger and World War One — Altman’s good book

The “Heidegger Wars” are an academic battle about the significance of Martin Heidegger’s commitment to Natonal Socialism as an ideology and to the Nazi Party in particular. William H. F. Altman’s important book, Martin Heidegger and the First World War: Being and Time as Funeral Oration, opens with this question: “Was Martin Heidegger an apolitical […]

Were the Nazis socialist? The 1933 Fire Decree

Enacted on February 28, 1933, less than one month after Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor: § 1. Articles 114, 115, 117, 118, 123, 124 and 153 of the Constitution of the German Reich are suspended until further notice. It is therefore permissible to restrict the rights of personal freedom [habeas corpus], freedom of (opinion) expression, […]

My Philosophy of Education course on video

15 lectures: “Philosophy” of “Education.” Metaphysics & Education. Epistemology & Education. Human Nature. Ethics. Integration & Transition. Idealism. Realism. Pragmatism. Behaviorism. Existentialism. Objectivism and Montessori. Marxism. Postmodernism. Conclusion. (Good news for online viewers: You don’t have to take the final exam.) Full Playlist:

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 […]