From a 2020 interview: Jennifer Grossman [51:40]: While no rational person would support racism, would you accept the idea that a person has the right to be racist? I mean, do people have the right to believe horrible ideas? Stephen Hicks: I would say you don’t have the cognitive right. You don’t have the moral right […]
Question: Does one have a right to believe racism? [interview excerpt] Read More »
“Nothing but the most determined scepticism, along with a great degree of indolence, can justify this aversion to metaphysics.” Lecture Five: Counter-Enlightenment. David Hume and Jean-Jacques Rousseau Themes: Skepticism, Passions, Fideism. Critiquing the Enlightenment. French Revolution. Lafayette. Voltaire. de Gouges. Robespierre. Texts: Hume: A Treatise on Human Nature. Rousseau: Discourse on Inequality. About the Instructor
Lecture One: Why Philosophy of Education? The Radical Greeks, from Homer to Aristotle Themes: “Philosophy” of “Education.” Your ideal school. The radical Greeks. Parents as first teachers: bedtime stories. Homer as educator. Contrast to Ramayana and Gilgamesh. Arachne and Athena. Core issues: Religion. Questioning. Human-centered. Method: Socratic (e.g., conversational, discussions after story). Content: Aristotle on
“The RADICAL GREEKS, from HOMER to ARISTOTLE.” Lecture 1 of *Philosophy of Education* Read More »
The original interview is Spanish is published at Tras la Identidad. Below is a translation into English. A COALITION AGAINST THE WESTStephen RC Hicks, philosopher and professor, October 1, 2025 Stephen RC Hicks is a philosopher and author of, among others, texts such as “Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault”, a book
“I esteem it above all things necessary to distinguish exactly the business of civil government from that of religion and to settle the just bounds that lie between the one and the other.” Lecture Three: The Promise of Individual Empiricism. John Locke Themes: Empiricism. Tabula rasa. Individualism. Liberalism. Toleration. Church and State. Henry VIII. Shakespeare.
THE PROMISE OF INDIVIDUAL EMPIRICISM: JOHN LOCKE. Lecture 3 of Modern Philosophy Read More »
Remembering when I retired a favorite old t-shirt. The text read: Jean Paul Sartre’s answering machine… I am not here… You’re not here… Don’t leave a message… There is no beep Some angst at letting it go.The meaning of its 21 years of existence?Was it only to cover a man’s torso?And now it is committed
Jean-Paul Sartre’s answering machine Read More »
“Who was the greatest man, Caesar, Alexander, Tamerlane, Cromwell, &c.?Somebody answered that Sir Isaac Newton excelled them all.” Lecture Four: The Philosophes and the French Enlightenment. Voltaire Themes: Deism. Toleration. Anti-superstition. Anti-torture. Irreverence. Who are the greatest humans ever? Augustine. Montaigne. Montesquieu. Diderot. de Gouges. Condorcet. The new “trinity”: Bacon, Locke, Newton. Text: Voltaire: Letters
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804): “I had to deny knowledge in order to make room for faith.” And: “All human reason is wholly incompetent to explain this [morality], and it is a waste of trouble and labour to try. … According to my account of the supreme principles of morality, reason can’t render comprehensible the absolute necessity of an unconditional
From Kant to Foucault in Two Easy Steps Read More »