Philosophy

Latin America must abandon victimhood and open to the world

1 Comment / Philosophy /

[John Enright translated this short piece by María Marty summarizing her interview with me. The video of the 12-minute interview follows.] Stephen Hicks is the author of Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault and Nietzsche and the Nazis. A Personal View, which have been translated into several languages, including Spanish. Hicks also […]

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Martin Heidegger in Explaining Postmodernism

Leave a Comment / Philosophy /

Being is nothing. “Nothing,” wrote Martin Heidegger, “not merely provides the conceptual opposite of what-is but is also an original part of essence.” That may not make sense logically, but: “Authentic speaking about nothing always remains extraordinary. It cannot be vulgarized. It dissolves if it is placed in the cheap acid of merely logical intelligence.”

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“Should I marry you?” How philosophers answer the big question

3 Comments / History of Philosophy, Humor, Philosophy /

Romance is in the air, thus my annual reposting of my round-up of philosophers talking to their sweethearts – collected from conversations overheard at smoky cafés, college libraries, mountain caves, and seminar rooms the world over. The Aristotelian: “I wish to marry you, for I know that my happiness, both of body and soul, is

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Thomas Kuhn in Explaining Postmodernism

1 Comment / Philosophy /

In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas Kuhn argues for metaphysical subjective relativism: “the proponents of competing paradigms practice their trades in different worlds.” In part, this is because scientists are not educated so much as brainwashed: “the member of a mature scientific community is, like the typical character in Orwell’s 1984, the victim of

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Three Stages of Postmodernism–From Foucault and Rorty to Now [transcript]

1 Comment / Philosophy /

Mark Michael Lewis interviewed me on a variety of philosophical topics. Below is an excerpted transcription, from 26:55 to 36:05, on the evolution of postmodernism. The transcription is by Walter Evans-Wenz. PDF here. Mark Michael Lewis interviews Stephen Hicks Hicks: Right now we are with respect to that phenomenon—that’s third generation postmodernism. What you have

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