Stephen R.C. Hicks's Blog, page 95

John Kenneth Galbraith as political hack

In the mid-20th century intellectual world, JKG was widely regarded as an original and insightful thinker on economics and politics. He was professor at Harvard and author of widely read books such as The Affluent Society and The New Industrial State. While I was a university student in Canada (coincidentally, Galbraith and I both graduated …

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Kant & Absolute Duty [Education’s Villains and Heroes course, Sept. 14]

Our fourth session of the online course “Education’s Villains and Heroes” will be September 14th, when we will discuss Kant’s vision on absolute duty. * Reading to prepare for this session: Excerpts from On Education (1803). * Link to register: ZOOM. To see more of our courses and related topics, visit Atlas Intellectuals. Related: Professor Hicks’s online …

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El Individualismo Liberal Aumenta la Felicidad [*Liberalism: Pro & Con* en Español]

Quince argumentos para el Capitalismo Liberal: Este post va a formar parte de una serie de argumentos del libro “Liberalism: Pro & Con” de Stephen Hicks en español. Pueden encontrar todos los argumentos que serán publicados en orden en el siguiente link: Liberalism: Pro & Con en español. Argumento 9: El individualismo liberal aumenta la …

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NEXT WEEK: “Ask Me Anything About Ethics” with Stephen Hicks

Join our Senior Scholar, Dr. Stephen Hicks Wednesday, September 7 @ 3:30 PM PT / 6:30 PM ET for a special “Ask Me Anything About Ethics” event where Dr. Hicks will be answering your questions on ethics and questions from our 66K Instagram followers. Not yet on Clubhouse, and interested to check it out? We’ve got you covered. Use …

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The declining humanities

In colleges and universities, at least. Whether other institutions are picking up the slack and providing the humanities knowledge and experience young human beings need — I don’t have good data. Questions before forming hypotheses: * Have the other majors become more attractive to students, by offering more relevance, job prospects, a healthier and more …

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European colonialism is still dominant …

… as most American intellectuals remain captive to ideas generated in France and Germany a century ago. See: Nietzsche, Marx, Freud, Heidegger, Marcuse, and Foucault.

Aspirations — how rich we are

This image and caption are wonderfully revelatory about how many options young people (especially) now have and how our expectations for our work lives have risen. The caption is sarcastic, suggesting that settling for a job in such a place is beneath one’s expectations and aspirations. Great. Yet when we look closely at the work …

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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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Mortality headlines [humor alert]

How media report statistics according to their philosophy: Enlightenment headline: SCIENCE and CAPITALISM a great success. Jaded-feminist headline: The PATRIARCHY encouraging women to be BABY-MAKING MACHINES. Socialist-Marxist headline: Europeans gain by EXPLOITING poor women in the THIRD WORLD. Postmodern headline: NO news here — “HEALTH” and “PROGRESS” mere SUBJECTIVE narratives.

The first three episodes in *Philosophers, Explained*, our new series

1 Immanuel Kant on the limits of reason. Critique of Pure Reason. 2 William James on pacifism and defeating militarism. “The Moral Equivalent of War.” 3 Galileo Galilei on not persecuting scientists. “Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina.” Coming soon: The 30 in the first series include: Immanuel Kant Plato Galileo Galilei Ayn Rand Jean-Jacques …

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