Stephen R.C. Hicks's Blog, page 6

Evelyn Waugh’s Christian self-control

The author of Brideshead Revisited was a nasty man. So much so that “a woman once remarked to Waugh that, though he claimed to be a Christian, he was one of the most unpleasant men she had ever met. Did he not, she asked, sense any contradiction here? ‘Not at all,’ Waugh is supposed to […]

From academic skepticism to “Take-it-to-the-streets” [interview excerpt]

From a 2020 interview: Jennifer Grossman [34:00]: Speaking of philosophical shifts … it seems to me like right now, we are seeing just like we’re seeing an acceleration in so many other areas, an acceleration in technological change, and acceleration in transitions to different kinds of education. Are you are you seeing an acceleration in the […]

Syllabus for The PHILOSOPHY of POLITICS: From the Cold War to After 9/11

In this eight-lecture course, Professor Stephen R.C. Hicks takes us on a journey through the evolution of modern political philosophies from the tensions of Cold War to the turbulent post-9/11 era. Major thinkers covered include: Ayn Rand, Robert Nozick, John Rawls, James Buchanan, Herbert Marcuse, Michel Foucault, Roger Scruton, Sayyid Qutb, Alexander Dugin, and others. […]

Letters from Mises and Rothbard to Rand

I had not seen these before: Two letters from Ludwig von Mises and Murray Rothbard [pdf] to Ayn Rand upon their reading of Atlas Shrugged. The letters were also published in 2007 in the Journal of Libertarian Studies and forwarded to me by a colleague. Fascinating reading. Related: Ayn Rand, in the Philosophers, Explained series.

Immanuel Kant, portraiture, and I

I’m re-reading some biographical material on Kant, the great counter-Enlightenment philosopher of Königsberg. (Apparently, the crooked-timber house that Kant lived in early in his career was subject to vandalism. A sublime and phenomenal critique of the critiquer.) With one exception, Professor Kant had no pictures hanging on the walls of his house. Kant had been […]

REVOLUTIONARY DANGER. EDMUND BURKE. Lecture 1 of *The Philosophy of Politics: From the French Revolution to World War II*

Burke: “The French have rebelled against a mild and lawful monarch with more fury, outrage, and insult than ever.” About the Course In this eight-lecture course, Professor Stephen Hicks takes us through the development of political philosophy from the late 18th to the early 20th century, focusing on key thinkers and movements that shaped the […]

REVOLUTIONARY DANGER. EDMUND BURKE. Lecture 1 of *The Philosophy of Politics*

“The French have rebelled against a mild and lawful monarch with more fury, outrage, and insult than ever.” About the Course In this eight-lecture course, Professor Stephen Hicks takes us through the development of political philosophy from the late 18th to the early 20th century, focusing on key thinkers and movements that shaped the modern […]

Cineas and the meaning of life

Pyrrhus, the great Greek general, is off to conquer the world — Italy, Sicily, Libya, Carthage, and beyond. Cineas, his eloquent adviser and ambassador, asks him: What will you do after you conquer the world? Pyrrhus answers that he will take his ease. Cineas replies, Then why not take your ease now? Source: Paraphrasing from […]

Standpoint epistemology and social fracture [interview excerpt]

From a 2020 interview: Jennifer Grossman  [27:04]:   One thing I hear is when we talk about race, and this gets to sort of the metaphysics and epistemology of reality, it’s common refrain is, you have your facts, I have my facts, you have your reality, I have my reality isn’t, you know, possible to have […]

Thompson’s *America’s Revolutionary Mind*

. Reiterating that I’m a fan of C. Bradley Thompson’s America’s Revolutionary Mind. First published in 2019, it is a moral history of the founding era that will stand the test of time. Thompson is a transplanted Canadian and a Political Science Ph.D. now teaching at Clemson University, South Carolina. Related: Thomas Jefferson on Slavery. […]