Stephen R.C. Hicks's Blog, page 41

Are we declining from our decline?

Following up on “The constant decline of civilization?” — a series of quotations from across the centuries of intellectuals from Plato to Wordsworth to T.S. Eliot bemoaning the sorry state of their generation’s intellectual and moral life. Here, from a review of Mark Lilla’s The Reckless Mind: Intellectuals in Politics and Richard Wolin’s Heidegger’s Children: […]

Evaluating Javier Milei’s presidency at six months

Tomorrow: My webinar evaluating Javier Milei’s presidency at six months. Registration link.

Philosophy humor — The nature of wisdom

At a meeting of the college faculty, an angel suddenly appears and tells the head of the philosophy department, “I will grant you whichever of three blessings you choose: Wisdom, Beauty — or ten million dollars.” Immediately, the professor chooses Wisdom. There is a flash of lightning, and the professor appears transformed — but he […]

Philosophy humor — Logical inference

Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson are on a camping trip. In the middle of the night Holmes wakes up and gives Watson a nudge. “Watson,” he says, “look up in the sky and tell me what you see.” “I see millions of stars, Holmes,” says Watson. “And what do you conclude from that, Watson?” Watson […]

Philosophy humor — Ethics and honesty

A man wins $100,000 in Las Vegas and, not wanting anyone to know about it, he takes it home and buries it in his backyard. The next morning he goes out back and finds only an empty hole. He sees footprints leading to the house next door, which belongs to a deaf-mute, so he asks […]

Philosophy humor — Knowledge and esse est percipi

Three women are in a locker room dressing to play racquetball when a man runs through wearing nothing but a bag over his head. The first woman looks at his penis and says, “Well, it’s not my husband.” The second woman says, “No, it isn’t.” The third woman says, “He’s not even a member of […]

Freedom of Thought and Discussion | John Stuart Mill | *Philosophers, Explained* series by Professor Stephen Hicks

Who are the great philosophers, and what makes them great? Episodes: The full playlist. 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 England, and Jagiellonian […]

How the Enlightenment solved all of our problems

Reprising this chart on the Enlightenment of the long 1700s and it self-conscious grasp it its own significance. Related: My “Enlightenment Vision” flowchart and other posts and lectures on the Enlightenment. The chart is from Chapter One of Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault.

Jane Addams and the progressive mindset

A quotation from Jane Addams, Nobel Peace Prize winner and Rockford University student on progressivism’s meaning of democracy. “In this effort toward a higher morality in our social relations, we must demand that the individual shall be willing to lose the sense of personal achievement, and shall be content to realize his activity only in […]

Qutb, Khomeini, and Khamenei

I’m preparing a lecture on Sayyid Qutb (to be delivered late summer), so this makes me chuckle. The connections: Qutb was executed by Egyptian gov’t in 1966 and became an Islamist martyr. Qutb’s writings were translated into Persian by Ayatollah Khomeini. Khomenei led the 1979 theocratic revolution in Iran. Ayatollah Khamenei is his successor. Here’s […]