I’m all confused. The hot-headed Nietzsche’s startling line from his 1887 Genealogy of Morals has always stuck with me: “the truly great haters in world history have always been priests.” That’s from the First Essay, Section 7, in the context of his analysis of slave morality born of ressentiment. But now I read that, according […]
The piece is broadly Postmodernist and specifically Symbolist, as it is recognizable objects (traffic barriers, flags, police tape) that are chosen, placed in a stylized space (gallery, prize competition) and with some textual suggestions (“austerity,” “Brexit,” “pandemic,” “hostile immigration policy”) so the viewer can infer the intended negative message about the state of the culture.
This year’s Turner Prize for art, yawn Read More »
What does it mean to be a philosopher in the modern era?What made you decide on Philosophy?Religion-friendly philosophies contrasted to Science-friendly philosophies.Both contrasted to Skeptical-negative philosophies.What is Postmodernism, and why do some people become Postmodernists? Related: Is Postmodernism neo-Marxist? | Open College No. 23 | Stephen Hicks
Rattlesnake TV interview of Stephen Hicks Read More »
For use in my courses, additions to my Texts in Philosophy page. Francis Bacon, The Great Instauration (1620). The New Organon (1620). Jacques Derrida, “Cogito & The History of Madness” (1963). Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality: An Introduction, Vol. 1 (1976). Werner Sombart, Chapter 1 of Merchants and Heroes (1915). Voltaire, Letters on England
Texts in Philosophy — late 2023 additions Read More »
Darkly amusing: Marcel Duchamp may have swiped the piece that made the 20th-century’s ‘conceptual’ [more accurately: ‘anti-conceptual’] and postmodern art world giddy: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2023/oct/15/conceptualist-art-fountain-is-fake-say-historians-marcel-duchamp Related: My “Why Art Became Ugly” article, explaining the evolution and devolution of high art’s variants during the 1900s The article was first published in 2004, based on a 2003 lecture in
Duchamp’s Urinal as a Double Scam? Read More »
Some quotations and brief glosses on Augustine’s views on persecuting and torturing to save souls. “No salvation outside the church.” (418 CE) “[M]any must first be recalled to their Lord by the stripes of temporal scourging, like evil slaves, and in some degree like good-for-nothing fugitives.” Augustine had defended toleration for much of his life.
St. Augustine: Righteous Persecution and Benevolent Torture Read More »
In this episode of Philosophers, Explained, Dr. Hicks discusses Sartre’s 1946 lecture “Existentialism is a Humanism.” Sartre (1905-1980) was a French philosopher, playwright and Nobel Prize Winner for Literature (1964) — which he refused. Episodes: The full playlist. Stephen R. C. Hicks, Ph.D., is Professor of Philosophy at Rockford University, USA, and has had visiting
Is Communism a modern doctrine? Or born of the Enlightenment? Heavens, no. Brief history-of-politics series of points, in response to this question from a few places on social media: 1. For millennia all communisms were religious. (* exception at end) 2. Think of the many religious monasteries and convents, populated by those who see their
Is Communism a modern doctrine? Or born of the Enlightenment? Read More »