History of Philosophy

Philosophy “vertically”: integrating positions into systems

2 Comments / History of Philosophy, Philosophy /

Stephen Hicks here presents philosophy metaphorically “vertically,” discussing how the major philosophies compare to each other as integrated systems. This is from Part 6 of Professor Hicks’s Philosophy of Education course. 1 Clip: Previous: Philosophy “horizontally”: metaphysics, epistemology, human nature, ethics. Next: Placing our seven “isms.” Return to the Philosophy of Education page. Return to […]

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Hindsight and future resolve [Section 40 of Nietzsche and the Nazis]

Leave a Comment / Architecture, Art, Business Ethics, Economics, Film, History, History of Philosophy, Literature, Philosophy, Philosophy of History, Politics /

[This is Section 40 of Nietzsche and the Nazis.] Part 8. Conclusion: Nazi and Anti-Nazi Philosophies 40. Hindsight and future resolve We know from historical hindsight that it took a world war to defeat the Nazis. Tens of millions of human beings died in that war. Actual human beings who lived, loved, cried, had dreams—and

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1789’s importance

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While the world watched France’s revolution, an equally important cultural phenomenon was occurring across the Rhine: “In the year 1789 … nothing else was talked of in Germany but the philosophy of Kant, about which were poured forth in abundance commentaries, chrestomathies, interpretations, estimates, apologies, and so forth.” That’s Heinrich Heine, who also wrote, “Our

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Who is the real father of modern philosophy? [repost]

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[We are reading Descartes’ Meditations this week in my Introduction to Philosophy course, so this is a re-post for new readers this semester.] I vote for Francis Bacon. . . The standard answer gives the honor to René Descartes. Descartes’s claim to the title is based primarily on his epistemology — specifically his method of

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Irrationalism from Kierkegaard to Nietzsche [EP]

5 Comments / Epistemology, History of Philosophy, Philosophy /

[This excerpt is from Chapter 2 of Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault] Epistemological solutions to Kant: Irrationalism from Kierkegaard to Nietzsche The Kantians and the Hegelians represent the pro-reason contingent in nineteenth-century German philosophy. While the Hegelians pursued metaphysical solutions to Kant’s unbridgeable gap between subject and object, in the process

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Herder on multicultural relativism

History, History of Philosophy, Philosophy, Philosophy of History /

[This excerpt is from Chapter 4 of Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault] Herder on multicultural relativism Sometimes called the “German Rousseau,”[57] Johann Herder had studied philosophy and theology at Königsberg University. Kant was his professor of philosophy; and while at Königsberg Herder also became a disciple of Johann Hamann. Herder is

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Reading group on Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments

Economics, Ethics, History of Philosophy /

My colleagues in the Department of Philosophy, Shawn Klein and Matthew Flamm, will be leading a reading group on Adam Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Adam Smith is best known as an economist and a critic of mercantilism and as an early advocate of market economies. Less well known is Smith the moral philosopher.

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