Stephen R. C. Hicks, Ph.D., has been Professor of Philosophy at Rockford University, Illinois; Visiting Professor of Business Ethics at Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.; Visiting Professor at the University of Kasimir the Great, Poland; Visiting Fellow at Harris Manchester College of Oxford University; and Visiting Professor at the Jagiellonian University, Poland.
In 2010, he won his university’s Excellence in Teaching Award.
Postmodern Philosophy
In this eight-lecture course, Professor Hicks covers and contrasts major philosophers and philosophies from 1900 to the present.
Course page with description and syllabus. Published in September 2024.
Direct link to Peterson Academy.
Philosophy of Education
In this fifteen-lecture course, Professor Hicks covers the philosophers — Plato, Locke, Kant, Dewey, Montessori, Skinner, and others — who have influenced education greatly, and he compares systems of educational philosophy — Idealism, Realism, Pragmatism, Behaviorism, Existentialism, Marxism, Objectivism, Postmodernism — and their implications for education in practice.
Course page at StephenHicks.org. Link to full playlists of the lectures at YouTube.
Modern Philosophy
The major philosophers and philosophies of the Modern era, 1600-1900.
To be released in October 2025.
Modern Ethics
Eight-lecture course on the most important Ethical philosophies in the Modern era.
Recorded in Miami, August 2024. In post-production and to be released in 2025.
Philosophy of Politics: From the French Revolution to World War II
Recorded in Miami, August 2024. In post-production and to be released in 2025.
Philosophy of Politics: From the Cold War to After 9/11
Recorded August 2024. In post-production and to be released in 2025.
Other courses:
Biomedical Ethics * Business and Economic Ethics * Philosophy of Science * Introduction to Philosophy * Modern Intellectual History * Contemporary European Philosophy * Philosophy of Art * Free Speech and Censorship * Logic * Philosophy of Religion * Entrepreneurship and Ethics * Capitalism in the Modern World * Applied Ethics * Business Ethics.
Introduction to Philosophy
Philosophy asks the big questions of life: What is it to be a fully developed human being? Am I in control of my destiny? What kind of world are we living in — for example, do gods or a God exist? How do we know these things — should we believe based on tradition, feelings, faith, evidence? And what difference does it make — what is the best kind of life to live? We will grapple with fundamental philosophical issues and discuss the views of major thinkers in the Western intellectual tradition.
Applied Ethics
This course investigates the best arguments on moral issues such as affirmative action, sex and love, torture, capital punishment, welfare, and legalizing drugs. We will also look at several relevant theoretical issues in ethics — for example, the debates over egoism and altruism, relativism and universalism, rights, virtue, and justice.
Logic
This course develops skills for distinguishing good and bad arguments. We will study logic in the classical and modern traditions, following the principles discovered by Aristotle and developed by subsequent logicians. We will emphasize applying logical techniques to real-life arguments.
Course Materials
Business and Economic Ethics
Of the endeavors that have contributed to the quality of human life, business ranks with science, art, and education. Yet like all human endeavors — especially innovative endeavors — business raises its share of ethical challenges. We discuss crucial theoretical issues such as the debates over egoism and altruism and free-market capitalism and socialism; competing accounts of rights, justice, profits, and competition; and employer-employee and business-consumer relations. We discuss the practical applications of those issues through real-life case studies.
Course Materials.
Philosophy of Religion
We will investigate the full range of philosophical issues on religion:
* Metaphysical issues about the existence and nature of a god or gods, creation versus eternal evolution;
* Epistemological issues about reason, experience, faith, mysticism, and accepting tradition;
* Ethical issues about human nature, sin, virtues, and the meaning of life;
* Political issues about toleration and enforcement, separating church and state, and education.
In doing so we will read and discuss representatives of a wide range of perspectives on religion:
* Original Christian, Buddhist, Jewish, and Islamic writings;
* A philosophical atheist (Smith);
* A philosophical Christian (Lewis);
* A philosophical Muslim (Qutb)
* And other essays from a variety of perspectives.
Course Materials
Biomedical Ethics
Reading and Viewing: Biomedical Ethics — Course Modules page.
Philosophy of Science
PHIL 330: Philosophy of Science syllabus [pdf]
Reading and Viewing: Philosophy of Science — Course Modules page.
Free Speech and Censorship
Who should decide what books are read? Should pornography be censored? What about politically rebellious pamphlets? Or the advertising of tobacco on television? Or hate language that attacks a person’s sex, race, or ethnic origin? Should church and state be separated? If the government does not fund some artists on the grounds that their work is offensive, is that censorship? In this course, we will study what some of the greatest minds in history have argued about free speech and censorship in Art, Politics, Religion, Business, Science, and Sex.
Reading:
Plato, excerpt from Book 10 of Republic.
Galileo Galilei, “Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina” (1615).
John Locke, excerpts from A Letter concerning Toleration (1689).
John Stuart Mill, Chapters 1 and 2 of On Liberty (1859).
Modern Intellectual History, 1600-1900
The modern era in Western Civilization saw revolutionary changes in all areas of life—religion, science, philosophy, engineering, economics, politics, and art. The course includes lectures and Friday seminar discussions.
Reading and Viewing:
Course Readings [pdf] from Galileo, Locke, Beccaria, Rousseau, Smith, Jefferson, Madison, Wollstonecraft, Wordsworth, Marx, Darwin, Nietzsche, and others.
PowerPoint files to accompany my lectures: 1. Introduction. 2. The Renaissance Context. 3. England to the Glorious Revolution. 4. Justice and Modernizing the Law. 5. From Feudal to Modern Business and Economics. 6. The American Enlightenment. 7. The Battle for Women’s Liberty and Equality. 8. The Enlightenment. 9. The Enlightenment in France. 10. The French Revolution. 11. Romanticism. 12. The Battle against Slavery and Serfdom. 13. Human Nature and the New Biology.
Philosophy of Education
Contemporary European Philosophy
In this course we investigate several major European philosophies of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Thinkers we will cover include Friedrich Nietzsche, Karl Marx, Martin Heidegger, Friedrich Hayek, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Albert Camus.
Reading:
Selections from Marx, Mussolini, and Goebbels [pdf].
Philosophy of Art
Great artists probe the central issues of the human condition, yet in a different way than do philosophers, psychologists, and political scientists. How does art do what it does—whether it be a piece of music you play over and over again, a novel you hate to see end, or a movie that makes you laugh and cry? And what is art? Can it be defined? What is the difference between good, mediocre, and incompetent art? Or are no such distinctions valid? Is it possible to say of a given piece of art, “This is great art, but I don’t like it”?
In this course we will raise these and other philosophical questions about art, trying to understand the nature of an enterprise that ranges from music to sculpture to dance to painting to poetry to motion pictures. We will read reflections on art by philosophers, artists, and other commentators.
Viewing:
The Art Images page with links to sections on Classical Greece, Renaissance Italy, the Dutch Golden Age, Nineteenth-century France, and Modern and Postmodern.
Entrepreneurship and Ethics
ECON/PHIL 376: Syllabus and Schedule [pdf]
This course integrates entrepreneurship, business history, and business ethics. It consists of case studies of major entrepreneurs in modern history, e.g., Commodore Vanderbilt, Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, John Johnson, Martha Stewart, Bill Gates, and others. Each case study involves learning the entrepreneur’s business practices and how he or she achieved business success. What traits did they have: intelligence, risk-tolerance, leadership, ambition, ruthlessness? And part of each case study involves learning about the ethical controversies: Were they “predatory competitors,” “monopolists,” “robber barons” — or highly productive individuals who traded with others to win-win advantage? Students read histories and biographies by both proponents and detractors.
Capitalism in the Modern World
ECON/PHIL 376: Syllabus and Schedule [pdf]
This course integrates economics with ethics by focusing on two key questions: What is capitalism? Is capitalism moral? Students discuss major pro-capitalist writers (e.g., Mises, Hayek, Rand, Friedman, Phelps) and major anti-capitalist writers (e.g., Rousseau, Marx, Heidegger, Marcuse, Foucault). We discuss the competing theories about what capitalism is; the moral debates over economic liberty, economic equality, and economic justice; whether capitalism is essentially win-win or zero-sum; and the debates over capitalism’s historical connections with the Industrial Revolution, whether it sped or slowed the elimination of slavery, and whether it improved or made worse race relations and the status of women.
Supplemental Materials
The online Texts in Philosophy page.
The Debate Evaluation Rubric
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