Stephen Hicks

Kant versus human perfectibility — strange interpretations

Immanuel Kant famously said this: “Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made.”[1] And this: “The history of *nature*, therefore, begins with good, for it is God’s work; the history of *freedom* begins with *badness*, for it is *man’s* work.”[2] And he regularly makes other slights against human nature. So

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Texts in Philosophy — very early 2017 additions

For use in my courses, additions to my Texts in Philosophy page. All files are PDFs. William Bennett and Milton Friedman, Open Letters on the War on Drugs, from The Wall Street Journal (1989). Nathaniel Branden, “Self-Esteem in the Information Age” (1997). Max Forrester Eastman (1883-1969), excerpt from Reflections on the Failure of Socialism  (1955).

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Interview: “Latin America Needs to Abandon Its Victimization and Embrace the World”

I was interviewed for PanAm Post by columnist María Marty. The 13-minute interview itself is in English with Spanish subtitles and is prefaced by Ms. Marty’s summary in Spanish. PanAm‘s title is “América Latina debe abandonar su victimismo y abrirse al mundo” (“Latin America Needs to Abandon Its Victimization and Embrace the World.”) The topics:

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*The Will to Power* — new translation by Hill and Scarpitti

Penguin has published a new translation by R. Kevin Hill and Michael Scarpitti of Friedrich Nietzsche’s The Will to Power. In the mid-1880s Nietzsche was extraordinarily productive making and reworking notes for an intended magnum opus. But he did not complete it and turned to publishing the final few short books of his career before

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Who succeeds in business — Garmong on *conceptual* thinking

In a recent post, philosopher-turned-businessman Robert Garmong made this observation: I’m now convinced that 99% of business success comes down to skill at defining and applying concepts. Those who are mere cogs in the machine, generally speaking, are those who don’t really understand the concepts. They may grasp the rules, but not the reasons. They

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