Stephen R.C. Hicks's Blog, page 89

In class: Socrates in Plato’s *Apology*

On the priority of character: “Wealth does not bring goodness, but goodness brings wealth and every other blessing, both to the individual and to the State” (Apology, 30b). On the dangers of democracy: “No man on earth who conscientiously opposes you or any other organized democracy, and flatly prevents a great many wrongs and illegalities …

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Liberalism: Pro & Con* en Español coming soon

My Liberalism: Pro and Con has been translated into Spanish by Fermin Elizalde. We will be serially publishing here each part prior to the publication of the book as a whole. Find the English version here: Amazon. From the blurb for the English edition: In this primer, we take up the best arguments for and …

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Is socialism closer to monarchy than capitalism is?

Related: My contrasting episodes on Karl Marx and Ayn Rand. In the *Philosophers, Explained* series. Marx on abolishing private property: Rand on individual rights:

Polish translation of “Educating for Entrepreneurship” (and English original)

My “Educating for Entrepreneurship” has been published in Polish in the education journal Przegląd Pedagogiczny. The Polish title is “Edukacja dla przedsiębiorczości.” Here is the original working paper in English at my site and/or in PDF format. And here’s a PDF of the Polish translation. Related: My Philosophy of Education video course lectures online:

US income by ethnicity and race: bar-chart data

From seven years ago. Households vary in size, so take that into account when interpreting. Also: Median income for Jamaican-American households was about $58K. For Nigerian-American households, it was about $65K. Here’s another data-aggregating page.

Should we blame FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried for anything?

Reading up on the crypto-FTX bankruptcy and scandal. Four items of interest: The New York Times after-the-fact: “How Sam Bankman-Fried’s Crypto Empire Collapsed.“ Before the scandal broke: “Stanford Law Profs’ Son Is A ‘Vegan Crypto Billionaire.’“ On of those Stanford law professors, Barbara Fried, wrote “Beyond Blame”, in which she argued that no one is …

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The Outraged versus Magness and Makovi: Un-Marxist Marxists

Background: Here’s a good summary of the Magness/Makovi paper on the influence of politics on Marx’s reputation. Aside from the cheap-shot responses by many of those outraged by the paper, there’s an intriguing philosophical inversion at work among the Outraged. Marx himself argued that the world develops with “iron necessity” in a strict causal priority: …

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T-shirt: How much would you pay for the secrets of the universe?

A friend sent this t-shirt today. A man is listening to a television advertisement: How much would you pay for the secrets of the Universe? Do not answer yet, you also get this stainless steel pot!! Now how much would you pay? Such a tough pair of questions. I love it.

Freud and original sin

In my Introduction to Philosophy course we read Sigmund Freud’s Civilization and Its Discontents. In Chapter 5, Freud makes the following strong claim about human nature: “Men are not gentle creatures who want to be loved, and who at the most can defend themselves if they are attacked; they are, on the contrary, creatures among …

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Next three in *Philosophers, Explained*: Aristotle, René Descartes, and Socrates

The next three in the new Philosophers, Explained by Stephen Hicks series will be 17. René Descartes on doubt and escaping skepticism. From Meditations on First Philosophy. 18. Socrates on civil disobedience. Plato’s Crito. 19. Aristotle on the good life. From Nicomachean Ethics. 1 Immanuel Kant on the limits of reason. Critique of Pure Reason. …

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