Stephen R.C. Hicks's Blog, page 30

Defining Modernism and Postmodernism chart

My five-dimensional contrast of modernism and postmodernism. From Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault (2004/2011).

Medical politics in ancient Greece

Why were the Greeks the first to put medicine on a scientific footing?

Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals | Immanuel Kant | Philosophers, Explained by Professor Stephen Hicks

Who are the great philosophers, and what makes them great? Kant is famous for his ethic of strict duty—Categorical Imperatives—for his claim to be basing ethics upon Reason—and for also saying that “All human reason is wholly incompetent to explain this”. So: What is Kantian ethics? And why does Kant argue that it faces severe […]

How to cook and serve unicorn

In 2012, a medieval cookbook was discovered at the British Library. The book is ascribed to Geoffrey Fule of England and dated to the mid-14th century. The images are delicious (click to enlarge). But here’s the tricky part: How does one capture a unicorn in the first place? Fortunately, about a century after Fule’s cookbook, […]

CRITICAL FEMINIST AND RACE THEORY: CATHARINE MacKINNON and DERRICK BELL. Lecture 7 of Postmodern Philosophy [Peterson Academy course]

Lecture Four: Have women and minorities made progress — or is that an illusion? Catharine MacKinnon argues that “Protecting pornography means protecting sexual abuse as speech” in order to maintain the subordination of women. Derrick Bell says “Racial equality is, in fact, not a realistic goal” and so blacks need a new strategy. Themes: Feminism’s […]

“Artificial Intelligence Means Entrepreneurial Education *Now*” [new Open College podcast]

My publisher, Possibly Correct Media (out of Toronto, Canada) and I have launched a new season of the Open College podcast. My question in this episode: What will be your comparative advantage in this new era of accelerating robotics and artificial intelligence? “Artificial Intelligence Means Entrepreneurial Education Now“ Episode Number: 56 Date: October 2024 About […]

Shining Path terrorism and Marxist Guzmán’s Kantian philosophy

The Peruvian guerrilla and terrorist group Shining Path was founded by a professor of philosophy: Abimael Guzmán, who died in 2021. Shining Path is a Maoist version of Marxism, believing in the inevitability of revolution and the bloody process necessary to see it through. Shining Path is estimated to have killed 11,000 civilians along the […]

On not telling other people what to do

This deep-truth-about-human-nature cartoon reminds me of two quotations from John Locke and John Stuart Mill. Locke on freedom of choice for students: “great care is to be taken, that [education] be never made as a business to him, nor he look on it as a task. We naturally, as I said, even from our cradles, […]

The Enlightenment Vision — updated flowchart

The Enlightenment of the long 18th century was an era of awesome intellectual and cultural transformation. This Enlightenment Vision flowchart is pitched at a high level of abstraction, showing schematically how the philosophical revolution of the 17th century led to the 18th-century revolutions in science, technology, politics, and economics — which in turn led to […]

“The Critical Function of Fiercely Independent Journals” published in *Reason Papers* journal

I contributed “The Critical Function of Fiercely Independent Journals” to the 50th anniversary issue of Reason Papers. My piece included anecdotes about the academic reception of independent thinkers such as Descartes, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Sartre, and Rand. The issue also includes: *Several brief Retrospective pieces, by Fred Miller, Aeon Skoble, Nicholas Capaldi, Doug Rasmussen & Doug Den Uyl, […]