Lecture Four: Why has moral philosophy become skeptical and sterile? In contrast, Ayn Rand rejects the is-ought dichotomy and argues that ethics is “an objective necessity” for volitional, rational beings. Philippa Foot, also updating Aristotle, states that “the grounding of a moral argument is ultimately in facts about human life.” Themes: Naturalism. Bio-centrism. Value and […]
Marcel Duchamp’s urinal was named most influential work of modern art, according to a vote by 500 critics. Duchamp called it Fountain. It was initially rejected for display at the Society of Independent Artists exhibit in 1917, whereupon Duchamp’s allies argued that it was a worthy work of art along four lines: “First, Fountain represented
Marcel Duchamp and Lillian Rearden Read More »
Some readers of Explaining Postmodernism object that I over-interpret Kant’s skepticism. Some prefer a gentler, more objectivity-friendly Kant. So while I quote Kant a lot in making the argument that Kant’s philosophy is radically subjectivist and the critical step down the road to postmodernism—not everyone is convinced. So I am grateful to Quee Nelson for
Was Kant really that skeptical? Read More »
Scruton: “Conservatism, as I describe it, involves the attempt to perpetuate a social organism, through times of unprecedented change.“ About the Course In this eight-lecture course, Professor Stephen R.C. Hicks takes us on a journey through the evolution of modern political philosophies from the tensions of Cold War to the turbulent post-9/11 era. Major thinkers
Suppose that God really is dead. Then, Sartre says “there is no human nature, because there is no God to have a conception of it.” Camus asks whether we are then like Sisyphus, “the absurd hero.” Themes: The decline of religion? The reality of war. Depression and the Depression. The pointlessness of existence? Existence precedes
Lecture Seven: Progressive Pragmatic Education From Dewey to Du Bois Themes: America’s rise. Woodrow Wilson as professor and president. Pragmatism. James and Dewey. Progressives. Deep democracy and Social Justice. Addams, Adams, and Du Bois. Examples from Sidney Hook. Teachers as agents of social transformation. Texts: John Dewey, Democracy in Education. Jane Addams, Democracy and Social
My three-page “Post-postmodern Art” essay was translated into Arabic [pdf] by Moin Jaffar Mohammed of Babylon, Iraq, and published in the journal Al-Adeeb Al-Thakafiya. الفن ما بعد – ما بعد الحديثPost – Postmodern Artكتابة : ستيفن هِكسترجمة: معين جعفر محمد يبدأ الفن في ذهن الفرد المبدع. فالفنان يتخذ من خبراته الهامة ، مادة أولية و
Arabic translation of my “Post-postmodern Art” essay Read More »
If business begins with entrepreneurship, then so should business ethics. Alma Causevic translated into Serbo-Croatian my journal article “What Business Ethics Can Learn from Entrepreneurship.” The essay was originally published in English [pdf] in the Journal of Private Enterprise and was for awhile on the Social Science Research Network’s “Top Ten” list of papers in
Serbo-Croatian translation of my “What Business Ethics Can Learn from Entrepreneurship” Read More »