Stephen R.C. Hicks's Blog, page 57

2023 speaking schedule

My line-up for the year: December-January: Poland. Visiting professor at Kasimir the Great University. Eleven lectures on entrepreneurial education. Lecture in Gdansk at World War II Museum on Dugin’s neo-fascism. February: Sweden. Ax:Son Foundation. Talk on “Woke and Postmodernism,” for forthcoming 2024 volume. February: Chicago, Illinois. Reliance College talk on transforming education entrepreneurially. March: Logan, …

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Iatrochemists: why iron salts cure anemia

A fun anecdote from the history of medicine. (Fun in hindsight, though not necessarily fun for those who lived through the medical history.) The late-medieval Iatrochemists believed that progress could be made by uniting medicine with alchemy. Their intellectual leader was Paracelsus (1493-1541), a Swiss physician whose goal was to reform medical chemistry by rejecting …

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The great Renaissance medical bloodletting controversy

Why accurate translation and skilled editing are important: Bloodletting was a common practice in medieval medicine and did not die out until the nineteenth century. The practice was encouraged by the belief that the excellent Greek physicians Hippocrates and Galen practiced it. Most phelobotomists followed the Persian genius Avicenna‘s editions of the Greek texts, which …

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Bouguereau | “Not Too Much to Carry” (1895) [Newberry on Great Art series]

An Artist’s View: Michael Newberry on Key Works of Art in History Michael Newberry is an avant-garde figurative painter, writer, and teacher promoting evolutionary flourishing through his work. He does this through advances in color theory, body language, symbolism, and composition. Michael is the author of two books released in 2021: Evolution Through Art and Newberry …

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The Meaning of Life and Scrooge’s Hero Journey

What explains the appealing transformation of Ebenezer Scrooge? The many interpretations of Scrooge // Robin Hood analogy // Scrooge as villain of Socialism // as anti-Christian // as Savvy Investor // as Environmentalist // as Malthusian // as anti-Commercialization // Scrooge’s Aristotelian hero’s journey By Stephen R. C. Hicks We all know the tale of …

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Icky then and icky now — a disciple of Kant on sex

A contemporary Kantian on sex: Why sexual desire is objectifying — and hence morally wrong. (And here is the relevant text from Kant’s lectures on sex.) When I read (ahem) hardcore dualist stuff like this, I always wonder if they and I are talking about the same experience. For example, think about most people’s reaction …

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Anacreon and Simonides

An old favorite, discovered in my graduate school days, Anacreon (570–488 BCE) is one of the great poets of drinking parties, the many varieties of love, and the sweetness of life in the shadow of death. . Infatuation from a distance: O sweet boy like a girl, I see you though you will not look …

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Sidney Hook on growing up poor in New York

I re-read some of Sidney Hook’s autobiographical Out of Step. I disagree with Hook about most things philosophical — he was a pragmatist and a Marxist of varying sorts — but I do respect that Hook was one of the first to reject and criticize the lockstep Party-mentality and slavish following of all things Soviet …

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On Education | Immanuel Kant | Philosophers, Explained by Professor Stephen Hicks

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 University in Poland.

Forthcoming chapter: “Mind-shift for 21st-Century Education: Entrepreneurism”

In Education and the State Edited by Professor Katarzyna Wronska (Poland) and Professor Julian Stern (UK) London: Routledge Publishers, 2024 Mind-shift for 21st-Century Education: Entrepreneurism Stephen R.C. Hicks, Department of Philosophy, Rockford University, USA Abstract How do we educate students for jobs that do not exist yet? Education is preparation for life, and one’s work …

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