Stephen R.C. Hicks's Blog, page 28

The Department of Great Putdowns: Heine on de Musset and Kant

The satirist, poet, and radical Heinrich Heine described poet Alfred de Musset as “a young man with a great future behind him.” Ouch. Musset never forgave him. Heine is known to have fought in at least ten duels in his life. One wonders why. Heine also said this of Kant, describing his clockwork walks along […]

Creativity and the self-directed muse

I like this from Jeffrey Davis: “Creativity is not about waiting for the muse. Creativity is about showing up and shaping time for the muse.”[1] Reminds me of this exchange between a St. Petersburg journalist and Tchaikovsky about his work habits: T: “Once I have settled in Petersburg, I shall continue to work, as before, […]

Karl Popper | Science v. Pseudo-science | Philosophers, Explained | Stephen Hicks.

“Science: Conjectures and Refutations,” from Popper’s ​Conjectures and Refutations (1962)​. Key questions: Are Marxism and Freudianism pseudo-sciences like astrology and alchemy? What makes a theory genuinely scientific? Who are the great philosophers and what are their key ideas? From the beginning of philosophy in Greek myths to the influential thinkers of our own time, in […]

Interview: Rand, Kant, Israel v. Islamists, & Career integrity—Stephen Hicks with Vinay Kolhatkar and Roger Bissell

We covered a lot of ground in one hour: Related: The publications mentioned in the interview:

No Reformation for Islam, Please

[Reprising this piece in the light of this year’s upsurge of Islamism.] Many smart people — including Thomas Friedman in The New York Times, Naser Khader in Newsweek, John Lloyd in The Jerusalem Post, Ayaan Hirsi Ali in The Wall Street Journal — are hoping that the Reformation will come to Islam. Some are calling […]

“Is God Anti-Scientific?” My answer: It depends. [Krauss/Hicks discussion]

Physicist Lawrence Krauss and I appeared jointly in Boulder, CO, to the discuss “The Anti-Science of God?” We ranged over several sub-issues: What is religion? What is science? Is God meaningless? Are all religions equally unscientific or do some try, even if weakly, not to be? Has the is/ought dichotomy made the problem worse? Related: […]

Plato and art that is more noble

Plato was an advocate of censorship of all the arts. But he did allow for some exceptions, so the cartoon above need not be only about ego-boosting hypocrisy. Here’s my summary of Plato’s arguments for censorship, as presented in The Republic. (Image source: An early edition of Douglas Palmer’s fun Does the Center Hold? An […]

Auguste Comte | On Altruism & the Religion of Humanity | Philosophers, Explained by Professor Stephen Hicks

Auguste Comte coined the term “altruism” and is a founder of sociology. What is altruism, and why does Comte argue for a “Sociocracy”—i.e., the rule of priestly sociologist-kings? Who are the great philosophers and what are their key ideas? From the beginning of philosophy in Greek myths to the influential thinkers of our own time, […]

MODERN PHILOSOPHY course syllabus [Peterson Academy]

In this eight-lecture course, Professor Stephen Hicks guides us through the Enlightenment and the Counter-Enlightenment, including philosophers Francis Bacon, René Descartes, John Locke, Voltaire, David Hume, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Immanuel Kant, Georg Hegel, Karl Marx, John Stuart Mill, and Friedrich Nietzsche. For each, Dr. Hicks establishes the philosopher’s context, presents his or her most influential arguments, […]

Review of Tara Smith’s *Ayn Rand’s Normative Ethics* — audio version

In 2006, Professor Smith published Ayn Rand’s Normative Ethics: The Virtuous Egoist (Cambridge University Press). In 2007, I reviewed it for the journal Philosophy in Review. Here is an audio version in MP3 format or at YouTube. Eight minutes: And here is a PDF version. Related: My review of David Kelley’s The Evidence of the […]