I was interviewed by philosopher Michael Robillard, Ph.D.. We covered six questions: 1.) Can you tell us a bit about who you are, as well as your academic background? Did you always want to be or envision yourself as a public intellectual? 2.) In your influential work, Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to […]
In his 1835 work on Religion and Philosophy in Germany, Heinrich Heine makes this strong claim about Immanuel Kant’s philosophy. While many have characterized Kant as fundamentally a man of reason and a paragon of the Enlightenment, Heine suggests otherwise: “But though Immanuel Kant, the arch-destroyer in the realm of thought, far surpassed in terrorism
Heine on Kant as the Robespierre of philosophy Read More »
Plato on Censorship and “the Ancient Quarrel between Philosophy and Poetry” Excerpt from Book 10 of The Republic. Written 360 B.C.E. [Socrates and Glaucon in conversation] [Speakers: Socrates and Glaucon in conversation] [Socrates:] Of the many excellences which I perceive in the order of our State, there is none which upon reflection pleases me better
Plato’s Myth of Gyges Excerpt from Book 2 of The Republic Written 360 B.C.E. The liberty which we are supposing may be most completely given to them in the form of such a power as is said to have been possessed by Gyges the ancestor of Croesus the Lydian. According to the tradition, Gyges was
Plato, The Myth of Gyges, from *The Republic* Read More »
Plato’s Allegory of the Cave Excerpt from Book 7 of The Republic (360 BCE) Written 360 B.C.E. [Socrates and Glaucon in conversation] [Socrates:] And now, I said, let me show in a figure how far our nature is enlightened or unenlightened:—Behold! human beings living in a underground den, which has a mouth open towards the
Plato, Allegory of the Cave, from *The Republic* Read More »
In this invited lecture, Dr. Hicks surveys key educational ideas from pre-modern times, the modern era, and our post-modern times. Ancient education often stressed discipline, obedience and rule following, while modern thinkers such as Galileo, Locke, and Montaigne stressed independent judgment and the power of reason. He then examines a series postmodern (and fellow-traveler) thinkers
Giroux against liberal education [Pope Lecture] Read More »
WHAT FOUCAULT LIKED TO DO TO ARAB BOYS. Excerpt from Douglas Murray’s The War on the West (2022): It is always unpleasant—as well as unwise—for thinkers to lambaste each other because of the habits of their personal lives. The personal is not always political and is certainly not always philosophical. Yet in March 2021, a
What Foucault liked to do with Arab boys — excerpt from Murray’s book Read More »
Our generation’s gender gap on abortion: And recall that a generation ago, the 7-2 Roe v. Wade decision was by an all-male Supreme Court. So a request to the angry-adversarial-feminist types: Let’s leave the gender ad hominem arguments out of the discussion, please.
Is there a gender gap on abortion? Read More »