Stephen R.C. Hicks's Blog, page 31

Still learning from my students about the history of philosophy

Reprising this series of … errr … insights from my students, collected from exams and essays over the years. I offer you: A Student History of Philosophy (Being a compilation of student research, gently edited by Stephen R.C. Hicks, Rockford University) Is philosophy a waist of time? Ethical debates have been around for a long […]

DECONSTRUCTION AND POWER: MICHEL FOUCAULT and JACQUES DERRIDA. Lecture 6 of Postmodern Philosophy [Peterson Academy course]

Lecture Six: Do claims to knowledge and morality merely mask power? Foucault argues that sex rhetoric has “a tactical role to play in a transformation into discourse, a technology of power.” And Derrida asserts that “the revolution against reason can be made only within it.” Themes: Power as substrate. Structuralism and Post-structuralism. Dekonstruction. Postmodernism. Alexis […]

Berman: From what ghastly depths come fascism and communism?

Via Edward Fox, a quotation from Paul Berman’s (recommended) Terror and Liberalism: “In the years around 1950, writers from several parts of the world set out to produce a new literature of political analysis, different from any political literature of the past, with the goal of describing and analyzing the totalitarian political passions of the […]

Talk on entrepreneurism at Campbell University, North Carolina

On Thursday, November 17, I’ll be at Campbell University in North Carolina to give a talk at the Lundy-Fetterman School of Business on being the entrepreneur of one’s life. Here’s the talk description: You Are the Entrepreneur of Your Life: Business, Ethics, Politics: How do you educate yourself for jobs that don’t exist yet? Education is […]

Are you rich enough to own a chair? Colonial American eating habits

From this WSJ review of Abigail Carroll’s Three Squares, a book about American eating habits across the centuries, here are two eyebrow-raising excerpts. 1. In 1744, a traveler was invited to eat a meal with a ferryman and his family. The traveler describes it this way in his journal: “They had no cloth upon the […]

*What is the Philadelphia Declaration?* — with David Kelley and Stephen Hicks

On Wednesday at 5 pm Eastern, Dr. David Kelley and I will discuss the Philadelphia Declaration of the a new 2024 venture, which seeks to mind the common cultural ground among key religious and secular groups. Its four-point mission and value statement is here: The Philadelphia Declaration For Freedom and Responsibility July 13, 2024 Preamble […]

*What is the Philadelphia Declaration?* —with David Kelley and Stephen Hicks

On Wednesday at 5 pm Eastern, Dr. David Kelley and I will discuss the Philadelphia Declaration of the a new 2024 venture, which seeks to mind the common cultural ground among key religious and secular groups. Its four-point mission and value statement is here: The Philadelphia Declaration For Freedom and Responsibility July 13, 2024 Preamble […]

Current champion in Philosophy’s Longest Sentences contest — Kierkegaard

Reviving this contest for readers: What is the longest sentence ever written by a philosopher? The kind of sentence that, as you are reading it through — trying to hold the context and decipher the meaning — flows majestically onwards, or meanders along deceptively, with occasional side streams (and parenthetical remarks), until your cerebrum is full, […]

Could Tchaikovsky play Tchaikovsky?

Reprising this amusing anecdote from Tchaikovsky, by Anthony Holden. Tchaikovsky was traveling from St. Petersburg to Tiflis “via the scenic route, aboard a steamship down the Volga. Concealing his identity from the other passengers, he agreed one evening to accompany an amateur soprano in a romance by Tchaikovsky, only to be told by the singer […]

Announcement: Leaving Rockford University

Rockford made me a very nice early-retirement offer, which I’ve accepted. “Retirement” is an undefined and vaguely alien concept to me. So far it means I am a free agent and think about what the next Big Thing will be. It also means getting more of those almost-done publishing projects out the door. It may […]