Stephen R.C. Hicks's Blog, page 40

Humor: Herbert von Karajan and God

Reprising this amusing jibe at the great conductor Herbert von Karajan, whose perfectionism and sometimes-authoritarian leadership style could cause enmity. “St. Peter calls upon Freud and tells him that God is evidently in need of psychiatric help. ‘I should be glad to help, but tell me, what seem to be His symptoms?’ asked Freud. ‘God […]

Two portraits of Charles

For comparison purposes, two artists’ views:

Women’s and men’s college graduation rates

Anecdote: I gave an extra-credit assignment in one of my courses. The course had twenty students, eleven men and nine women. Six students chose to do the assignment — and then I noticed something in my grade book: all of them were women. Getting all statistic-y about it: 66.7% of the females were willing to […]

Empires of conquest and empires of commerce

Reposting this question: In this post-colonial era, what explains the dramatically different levels of prosperity in nations after they become independent of their colonizing powers? Why, for example, has the prosperity of North America been consistently higher than that of Central and South America? Both are rich in natural resources, both involve nations started from scratch, […]

Dueling billboards, Oklahoma style

Reposting this from a trip that took me to Texas and Oklahoma. I saw this sign along a highway a little across the OK border. “Steve,” the sign seemed to say to me, “you’re not in Illinois anymore.” So I took a tourist memento picture. It turns out that they are not worried about what weirdos […]

Artistic representation: Picasso versus Matisse

From Jack D. Flam’s Matisse and Picasso: The Story of Their Rivalry and Friendship (2003): ‘Picasso characterized the arbitrariness of representation in his Cubist paintings as resulting from his desire for “a greater plasticity.” Rendering an object as a square or a cube, he said, was not a negation, for “reality was no longer in […]

David Hume’s current influence

David Hume topped this 2009 PhilPapers survey of most influential and admired philosophers (scroll down to bottom of the page to “Non-living philosophers most identified with”). Aristotle came in second and Kant third. I’ve been thinking much about Nietzsche and Heidegger recently: eleventh and eighteenth, respectively. Overall, the list was still dominated by thinkers in […]

“The Myth of Sisyphus” | Albert Camus | *Philosophers, Explained* by Professor Stephen Hicks

Who are the great philosophers, and what makes them great? Episodes: The full playlist. About the Professor: Stephen R. C. Hicks, Ph.D., is Professor of Philosophy at Rockford University, USA, and has had visiting positions at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., the University of Kasimir the Great in Poland, Oxford University’s Harris Manchester College in […]

Children’s fears and environmental education

Results from a recent survey of children: Respondents across all countries were worried about climate change (59% were very or extremely worried and 84% were at least moderately worried). More than 50% reported each of the following emotions: sad, anxious, angry, powerless, helpless, and guilty. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/la... Much of modern environmentalism strikes me as very Old […]

Sidney Hook on public education

An evocative quotation from philosopher Sidney Hook (1902-1989), from his autobiographical Out of Step. In an earlier post I quoted Hook’s account of his family’s living conditions. Here Hook recalls his authoritarian-style education in American schools circa one century ago: “Although the public schools were religiously attended (children feared the wrath of their parents much […]