Episodes: The full playlist. Stephen R. C. Hicks, Ph.D., is Professor of Philosophy at Rockford University, USA, and has had visiting positions at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., the University of Kasimir the Great in Poland, Oxford University’s Harris Manchester College in England, and Jagiellonian University in Poland.
[This excerpt is from Chapter 4 of Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault] Hegel on worshipping the state While a student at Tübingen, Hegel’s favorite reading had been Rousseau. “The principle of freedom dawned on the world in Rousseau, and gave infinite strength to man.”[88] As discussed in Chapter Two, Hegel was
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Jean-Jacques Rousseau said: “Considering the awful disorders printing has already caused in Europe, and judging the future by the progress that this evil makes day by day, one can easily predict that sovereigns will not delay in taking as many pains to banish this terrible art from their States as they once took to establish
Jean-Jacques Rousseau on censorship [from Explaining Postmodernism] Read More »
We’re posting serially at thinkspot the transcripts of my Open College podcasts. Here’s the eleventh: OC11: Is Envy Worse in a Free Society? “Is a free and open society more susceptible to the dangers of envy? It’s an interesting question because most often the envy charge is used against socialism, or any kind of outcome-egalitarian
Is Envy Worse in a Free Society? [Open College transcript] Read More »
A new episode of my podcast series, produced by Possibly Correct out of Toronto. Audio: iTunes Stitcher YouTube Topics: Envy-charge against socialism // Envy-charge against liberal capitalism // Rousseau and Rawls on how to combat envy // So: Is envy worse or better in a free society? // Envy as a worse anti-social problem in earlier societies //
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Jean-Jacques Rousseau claimed: “Reason is what engenders egocentrism and reflection strengthens it. Reason is what turns man in upon himself. Reason is what separates him from all that troubles him and afflicts him. Philosophy is what isolates him and what moves him to say in secret, at the sight of a suffering man, ‘Perish if
Rousseau contra reason in *Explaining Postmodernism* Read More »
Counter-Enlightenment thinker Jean-Jacques Rousseau claimed that in moral society, one “coalesces with all, in this each of us puts in common his person and his whole power under the supreme direction of society’s leaders.” And: A “citizen should render to the state all the services he can as soon as the sovereign demands them.” Further:
Jean-Jacques Rousseau said: “While the state can compel no one to believe it can banish not for impiety, but as an antisocial being, incapable of truly loving the laws and justice, and of sacrificing, if needed, his life to his duty. If, after having publicly recognized these dogmas, a person acts as if he does
Jean-Jacques Rousseau on compulsory religious behavior [from Explaining Postmodernism] Read More »