By Professor Stephen R.C. Hicks, Rockford University, USA. Lecture 3: If education is about the transmission of knowledge, then what is knowledge? Or if education is about training young people’s habits of mind, then what about alertness to evidence, skill with logic, and a commitment to reason? Does faith work? Is everything just opinion? Previous […]
On the widespread phenomenon of frustrated and angry young men becoming hateful and destructive: “I was ready to love the whole world, but no one understood me, and I learned to hate” is a line from Mikhail Lermontov’s 1840 novel, A Hero of Our Time. I’ve frequently wondered, given the timing, how much the young
“I was ready to love the whole world, but no one understood me, and I learned to hate.” Read More »
More precisely: Who is the most loathsome philosopher in his or her personal life? Let me set the bar high by naming my top two candidates. 1. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who fathered several children and had them abandoned to orphanages, and of whom David Hume wrote in a letter to Adam Smith: “Thus you see, he
Who is the most loathsome philosopher in history? Read More »
I’m a philosopher, and on the job I ‘ve been known to read literary works as “premises with feet.” Despite that occupational hazard I’m also fascinated with how great fiction writers can seamlessly integrate abstract philosophical themes with concrete literary portrayals. When I teach Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead, my focus in class is philosophical, but
Howard Roark and Peter Keating: first meetings Read More »
Returning to this graphic’s placement of Michel Foucault on the spectrum between Marx and Heidegger. Why? Recall Foucault’s own words:: “I am simply a Nietzschean.” And: “Heidegger has always been for me the essential philosopher.”* Heidegger was a member of the National Socialist Party in the 1930s and 1940s. Foucault was a member of the
Why Foucault as “basically a Nazi”? Read More »
Tyson Popplestone interviews Dr. Hicks on how cultural and political ideologies shift over time, with an emphasis on how intellectual movements and academia have influenced society’s values and further downstream, political movements. Dr. Hicks criticises several major movements but expresses a cautious optimism for the near future, emphasizing the potential for cultural renewal through entrepreneurism,
Australia’s Tyson Popplestone interviews Stephen Hicks Read More »
A charming story from Martin Fridson’s How to Be a Billionaire about Rose Blumkin, founder of an Omaha furniture store that Warren Buffett eventually purchased: “Barely literate in English, the Russian-born immigrant parlayed a $500 investment into Nebraska Furniture Mart, the nation’s largest furniture store, with an astounding two-thirds of the total market in Omaha.
Rose Blumkin | Entrepreneur Read More »
I’ll be speaking on philosophy’s role in the free-speech battles to this MIT organization on Monday, February 3, 2025. It’s an open meeting, so any interested party can listen in. Link to register here. Related: The MIT FSA’s coverage of the Dorian Abbot cancelation. Related: John Stuart Mill on the social requirements of free speech
Talk for MIT Free Speech Alliance Read More »