Stephen R.C. Hicks's Blog, page 51

“Do Free Societies Need Postmodernism?” A Debate. [In case you missed it]

Don’t miss this debate that featured Stephen Hicks, and author Thaddeus Russell. Soho Forum director Gene Epstein moderated. Related:

“Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed” | Francis Bacon |Philosophers, Explained

At the beginning of a new era, Bacon asks: * What can make science and philosophy productive and generative, not stagnant and sterile as it currently is? * Should we really give tradition much credence? * Learning begins with the senses, but how do we overcome our senses’ and intellects’ native weaknesses? * What is […]

Christianity: Good or Bad for Mankind? Bernstein and D’Souza

A debate from 2014, I believe, between Andrew Bernstein and Dinesh D’Souza, hosted at the University of Texas. Arguments about religion typically fall into three categories: 1. Philosophical arguments about supernaturalism, faith and reason, the source of morality, and so on.2. Scriptural arguments about passages in the religion’s core texts.3. Historical arguments about the record […]

Frederick Douglass and Ayn Rand

Via Classically Liberal, reprising this intriguing connection. In a letter to his former master, Frederick Douglass explains his decision to escape from slavery: “The morality of the act, I dispose as follows: I am myself; you are yourself; we are two distinct persons, equal persons. What you are, I am. You are a man, and […]

Engels chides socialists for their Anti-Semitism

In a letter from 1890, Karl Marx’s colleague takes up the widespread anti-Semitism in their movement. My favorite line: “anti-Semitism betokens a retarded culture.” (Still true 130+ years later.) Further from Engels: “Hence anti-Semitism is merely the reaction of declining medieval social strata against a modern society consisting essentially of capitalists and wage-labourers, so that […]

Should I marry you? — Philosophers answer the big question

For Valentine’s Day, reprising my round-up of philosophers talking to their sweethearts – collected from conversations overheard at smoky cafés, college libraries, mountain caves, and seminar rooms the world over. The Aristotelian: “I wish to marry you, for I know that my happiness, both of body and soul, is contingent upon our union in the […]

Ukraine war: Blame Immanuel Kant?

My favorite headline so far in 2024: Kaliningrad Governor Blames Immanuel Kant for Ukraine War.* The governor of Kant’s hometown no doubt has in mind Kant’s late “Perpetual Peace” essay, which projects a future republican cosmopolitan federation of states committed to universal duties and dignities. Such a future is the opposite of Putin’s nationalistic and […]

Our Three-Way Culture War [Chart]

Binary oppositions are rare in philosophy and politics. Frequently, apparent enemy positions share implicit underlying premises. Related: This abstract philosophical taxonomy from Chapter 1 of Explaining Postmodernism:

Greek money and philosophy

I’ve been reading Richard Seaford’s Money and the Early Greek Mind: Homer, Philosophy, Tragedy. Seaford’s theme: “the monetisation of the Greek polis in the sixth and fifth centuries BC contributed to a radical transformation in thought that is, in a sense, still with us. Academics—perhaps because they are more interested in texts than in money—have […]

How drunken sex can save the economy

Let’s Save the Economy in 7 Easy Steps (and Have Fun While Doing It!) When I was young, I believed in freedom and self-responsibility. Yet my colleagues have regularly told me that my attitude is out of touch with contemporary public policy, which requires the use of any and all legislative tools to solve society’s […]