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 […]
Thomas Kuhn in Explaining Postmodernism Read More »
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
Three Stages of Postmodernism–From Foucault and Rorty to Now [transcript] Read More »
I’m giving two talks in Rhode Island this week at Salve Regina University. Thanks to philosophy professor Khalil Habib for the invitation. One talk, “Nietzsche on Masters and Slaves,” is for SRU students only and will focus on the First Essay of Nietzsche’s Genealogy of Morals. Here’s
Nietzsche on Masters and Slaves — SRU talk upcoming Read More »
The poet Thomas de Quincey said: “Here I pause for one moment to exhort the reader never to pay any attention to his understanding when it stands in opposition to any other faculty of his mind. The mere understanding, however useful and indispensable, is the meanest faculty in the human mind, and the most to
Thomas de Quincey in Explaining Postmodernism Read More »
I’m giving two talks in Rhode Island this week at Salve Regina University. Thanks to philosophy professor Khalil Habib for the invitation. One talk takes up leading postmodernist claims that “the Enlightenment Project has failed” (Rorty), that we are living amid its “dim ruins” (Gray), and that consequently our civilization’s “deepest strata” are shifting earthquake-like
SRU talk coming up: “Postmodernism and the Verdict of History” Read More »
Why does Fountain matter so much to art history? Honored to be included in this collection of quotations on Duchamp’s significance. For more context and development: “The Most Important Artist of the Century” and “Why Art Became Ugly.”
The significance of Duchamp’s urinal Read More »
[Re-posted from TRI.] A protester was shot at the University of Washington during a clash between rival factions — one faction physically blocking an audience from hearing a speech, the other faction seeking to hear a rabble-rousing orator. The orator was Milo Yiannopoulos, a leading spokesman for the alt-right movement, a revitalized and muscularized version of nationalist
Political protest in a “post-fact era” Read More »
FEE this month reprints Sarah Skwire’s good piece from 2017: “The Moral and Spiritual Blessings of Trade Among All Nations”: “Free trade doesn’t just make us better off. It makes us better people.” At PanAm Post this month, Maria Marty takes up the underlying collectivist premises of many anti-free-trade arguments: “La excusa colectivista para limitar
On the *moral* benefits of international trade: Skwire, Marty, and Hicks pieces Read More »