Stephen R.C. Hicks's Blog, page 25

Peterson interviews Hicks — excerpt on philosophy of mind, epistemology, skepticism

In the following excerpt from his interview with Dr. Jordan Peterson, Dr. Hicks explains why he sees Cognition as an ongoing scientific enterprise — that it’s early days in a complex field — and why he is not a skeptic. Here’s the full interview, with timestamps for sub-topics, filmed in Arizona in November 2024: Related: […]

I don’t understand population fears

We’ve gone from “Too many people!” a generation ago to “Not enough babies!” now. I don’t get either worry. Let’s take Europe as an example. Currently its population is about 740 million, and one projection is that by the year 2100 its population will decline to 600 million. And some commentators go “Yikes!” Why? Possibility […]

Heidegger’s anti-humanism and the Left

Tim Black, a senior writer at spiked, has a good review discussion of “Why they’re really scared of Heidegger.” The “they’re” refers to many contemporary academics, and Black’s review is of Emmanuel Faye’s wave-making Heidegger: The Introduction of Nazism into Philosophy in Light of the Unpublished Seminars of 1933-1935 (Yale, 2009). Some key quotations from […]

Rick Walker interviews Stephen Hicks on what history teaches us about the culture wars

From high theory in the 1960s to applied education in the 1980s to woke activism in the 2000s. Sub-topics: Woke, Critical Theory, Pomo, National Socialist philosophy. Related: The ‘Galt’s Gulch’ lecture mentioned in the interview:

St. Augustine on why babies are evil

One of my professors in graduate school argued that St. Augustine is the most influential philosopher in history. I’m not convinced, though a good case can be made. I recently re-opened Confessions and came across Augustine’s strong version of original sin. As he exclaims to his God, “no one is free from sin in your […]

Explaining ‘Woke’ activism’s origin in two charts

Chart 1, showing faculty political views are mostly left or far left (using ‘Democrat’ and ‘Republican’ as proxy for ‘more left’ and ‘more right’). E.g., Sociology has 43 Democrats for every Republican, and Religion departments have 70 Democrats for every Republican. Chart 2, from Higher Education Research Institute‘s survey of faculty: 80% of faculty say […]

“You can’t sabotage your own soul in order to fit in.” Savvy Street interview on Rand, Kant, & Real-World Ethics (w/ transcript)

Hosts Vinay Kolhatkar and Roger Bissell ask guest Stephen Hicks: Transcript: Ayn Rand, Immanuel Kant, and Real-World Ethics The Savvy Street Show Hosts: Vinay Kolhatkar and Roger Bissell. Guest: Stephen Hicks. Date of recording: November 6, 2024 For those who prefer to watch the video, it is here. The transcript at the Savvy Street site. […]

THE PROMISE OF INDIVIDUAL EMPIRICISM: JOHN LOCKE. Lecture 3 of Modern Philosophy [Peterson Academy course]

“I esteem it above all things necessary to distinguish exactly the business of civil government from that of religion and to settle the just bounds that lie between the one and the other.” Lecture Three: The Promise of Individual Empiricism. John Locke Themes: Empiricism. Tabula rasa. Individualism. Liberalism. Toleration. Church and State. Henry VIII. Shakespeare. […]

The Center of the Universe (quotation)

Reposting this from a favorite novel, set in Paris in the world of mid-nineteenth century theater, a time and place of revolutionary art and politics. A young woman of wonderful intensity and resilience remembers a key lesson from a mentor, Nandou, an actor. “She walked to the place du Calvaire and stood for a time […]

Audacious historical cause-and-effect claims

In an 1846 review of Grote’s History of Greece, John Stuart Mill makes this claim: “The Battle of Marathon, even as an event in British history, is more important than the Battle of Hastings.” My first reaction to Mill’s sentence was agreement. My second reaction was to the audacity of the claim and to wonder […]