Stephen R.C. Hicks's Blog, page 64

Hume’s bog and the Lord’s Prayer

I’m preparing a lecture on philosopher David Hume, who was ruthlessly skeptical about everything—causality, abstraction, induction, objective morality, the self, and the existence of God. And I remembered this amusing anecdote: Related: My Philosophers, Explained series of close readings of major texts.

Stephen Hicks interview on Kant and Modern Art (Norway, 2023)

In this interview conducted by artist and art critic Jan-Ove Tuv, I discuss Kant’s general philosophy and his philosophy of art. Kant is arguably the most influential philosopher in the last two centuries, and while it’s initially shocking to think that the priggish and uptight Kant has anything to do with the often-nihilistic modernist and …

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Chicago Bulls’ owner Jerry Reinsdorf on Michael Jordan and building the team [*Entrepreneurial Living*]

Jerry Reinsdorf, owner of the Chicago Bulls and Chicago White Sox: “You’ve got to learn to lose. Most of the time in sports you lose. Only one team wins the World Series each year—29 of them don’t.” In Entrepreneurial Living, edited by Stephen R. C. Hicks and Jennifer Harrolle. In this volume of interviews with …

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Why did Nietzsche say Kant leads to crumbling relativism?

Friedrich Nietzsche made this indictment and prediction about the effect of Immanuel Kant’s philosophy: “As soon as Kant would begin to exert a popular influence, we should find it reflected in the form of a gnawing and crumbling skepticism and relativism.” Strong language, and it goes against a popular interpretation of Kant as the savior …

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Where I should buy my next car?

I saw this license plate in Chicago: And apparently Rand and Hicks really do intersect in Chicago: I infer that the philosophy gods and the car guys are trying to tell me something. Related: My close reading of Rand’s classic essay, “Man’s Rights,” in the Philosophers, Explained series.

Stephen Hicks’s “The Postmodern Critique of Liberal Education”

Pope Lecture Series at Clemson University | Stephen Hicks In this invited lecture, Dr. Hicks contrasts key educational ideas from pre-modern times, the modern era, and our post-modern times. Ancient education often stressed discipline, obedience and rule following, while modern thinkers such as Galileo, Locke, and Montaigne stressed independent judgment and the power of reason. …

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Jan Vermeer | “Milkmaid” (1658) [Newberry on Great Art series]

An Artist’s View: Michael Newberry on Key Works of Art in History Michael Newberry is a California-based artist who has exhibited across Europe and North America. He is the author of books on color theory, philosophy of art, modernism and postmodernism in art, and art history. We invited him into our studio for this series …

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Meditations on First Philosophy | René Descartes | *Philosophers, Explained* 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 …

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The Sexual One Percent

The Sexual One Percent We have a fairness problem in the United States: The pleasures of sex are unequally distributed across the population. Data from scholarly publications reveal the following: * Artists self-report having sex 2.3 times as often as non-artists. * Gay males have significantly more sex than heterosexual males. * Regular church-goers, especially …

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False comparisons of old and new architecture

Much modernist and postmodernist architecture is ghastly. So there’s a point about making comparisons with older architecture. But not this way: Are the buildings on the left average buildings from 200 years ago? Or are they the best of 200 years ago, such that they were preserved while the 99% of average and terrible buildings …

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