Enjoying Chicago
Towers near LUC‘s downtown Water Tower campus. (Click images to enlarge.) And the view from my office window.
Art
The worst love poem ever?
Our Love is Like a Bowling Ball Our love is like a bowling ball Like a brand new Brunswick Red Zone, It rolls and rolls down the alley of desire And rolls and rolls and rolls. I will keep you out of the gutters, my love And put my fingers in your holes Every kiss
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Come to the edge
Come to the edge he said. They said: we are afraid. Come to the edge he said. They came. He pushed them … and they flew. (Christopher Logue. Sometimes ascribed to Guillaume Apollinaire.)
The best (and worst) philosophy of art
One question on the final exam for my Philosophy of Art course asked students to identify the best or worst theorist of art we studied this semester. We devoted significant time to five major philosophers — Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Nietzsche, and Rand — and discussed a few others along the way more briefly. In deciding
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“Egoism in Nietzsche and Rand” at JARS
My lengthy journal article entitled “Egoism in Nietzsche and Rand” [pdf] is now publicly available for free at the Journal of Ayn Rand Studies‘ site. The abstract: “Philosophers Friedrich Nietzsche and Ayn Rand are often identified as strong critics of altruism and arch advocates of egoism. In this essay, Stephen Hicks argues that Nietzsche and
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Creative geniuses as selfish — Richard Wagner version
Wagner, in a letter to Franz Liszt: “If I am obliged to plunge once more into the waves of an artist’s imagination in order to find satisfaction in an imaginary world, I must at least help out my imagination and find means of encouraging my imaginative faculties. So I cannot live like a dog, I
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Creative geniuses as selfish — Rachmaninoff version
The great Rachmaninoff on what the creator needs and what this implies for others: “A creator is a very limited person. Always he revolves around his own axis. There is nothing for him but his own creative work. I agree that the wife has to forget herself, her own personality. She must take upon herself
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Plato on censoring artists — a summary
In my Philosophy of Art course, we are discussing Plato’s philosophy of art, by means of selections from Statesman and Books 3 and 10 of The Republic, along with snippets from Ion, Phaedrus, and Symposium. In The Republic, Plato makes a systematic case for censoring all arts. The task of the Platonic philosopher is to
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