“Faith requires the crucifixion of reason.” Lecture Three: Is God Dead? Themes: Abraham and absolute faith. Psychological functionalism? Pascal’s Wager? Social functionalism? The Grand Inquisitor. Texts: Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling and Either-Or. Dostoevsky, “The Grand Inquisitor,” The Brothers Karamazov About the Instructor Stephen R. C. Hicks, Ph.D. is Professor of Philosophy and the author of […]

Aristotle died in Greece in 322 BCE. In 86 BCE, the Roman general (and soon-to-be dictator) Sulla captured Athens. He confiscated the library of a man named Apellicon of Teos, whose collection included manuscripts of Aristotle and Theophrastus. Sulla had the library transported to Rome, where the meticulous Andronicus of Rhodes edited the texts, forming

“I repudiated rational thought in favour of a theology of feeling.” * This article in Oxford Academic notes that “Kant’s philosophy is one of the most important presuppositions of Schleiermacher’s thought and that his work would have been unthinkable without Kant’s.”  * Source: Schleiermacher, Friedrich. The Christian Faith [1821-22]. Ed. H. R. Mackintosh and J.

By Professor Stephen R.C. Hicks, Rockford University, USA. Lecture 8: What did the great Realist philosophers believe—e.g., “Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed”—and how they apply it to education? Previous lectures in the series: Part One: Introduction: What is the purpose of education, and what is philosophy’s relevance? Part Two: Reality: Metaphysics and Education.

“Duty is the necessity to act out of reverence for the law.” Lecture Two: Absolute Duty Themes: Purifying Ethics. Divine Command Theory. Moses. Uzzah. Whose interests: Egoist, Predatory, Altruist? None: Deontology. Texts: Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals and Critique of Practical Reason About the Instructor Stephen R. C. Hicks, Ph.D. is Professor of