This is the fourth chapter of the audiobook version of Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault. Chapter Four: The Climate of Collectivism [mp3] [YouTube] [102 minutes] From postmodern epistemology to postmodern politics [mp3] [YouTube] The argument of the next three chapters [mp3] [YouTube] Responding to socialism’s crisis of theory and evidence [mp3] […]
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This is the third chapter of the audiobook version of Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault. Chapter Three: The Twentieth-Century Collapse of Reason [mp3] [YouTube] [50 minutes] Heidegger’s synthesis of the Continental tradition [mp3] [YouTube] Setting aside reason and logic [mp3] [YouTube] Emotions as revelatory [mp3] [YouTube] Heidegger and postmodernism [mp3] [YouTube]
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This is the second chapter of the audiobook version of Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault. Chapter Two: The Counter-Enlightenment Attack on Reason [mp3] [YouTube] [72 minutes] Enlightenment reason, liberalism, and science [mp3] [YouTube] The beginnings of the Counter-Enlightenment [mp3] [YouTube] Kant’s skeptical conclusion [mp3] [YouTube] Kant’s problematic from empiricism and rationalism
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This week in Contemporary European Philosophy we are reading Martin Heidegger’s “What Is Metaphysics?” In this recent survey (dominated by philosophers from the English-speaking world), Heidegger ranks as the 18th most-identified-with non-living philosopher. “What Is Metaphysics?” was first delivered in 1929 as Heidegger’s inaugural lecture at the University of Freiburg. Here is my summary of
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I came across this short piece on some connections between Adam Smith, David Hume, and the American founders. Hume writing to Benjamin Franklin in 1762: “I am sure America has sent us many good things; gold, silver, sugar, tobacco, indigo, etc., but you are the first philosopher, and indeed the first great man of letters
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Prompted by Eduardo Marty’s link to this discussion of postmodernism and libertarianism, here are updated links to my 1999 cyberseminar on The Continental Origins of Postmodernism, conducted while I was on sabbatical and Scholar-in-Residence at the Atlas Society. Abstract for the course: For this 1999 online seminar “The Continental Origins of Postmodernism,” TAS Director of
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Let us dwell upon this year’s ranking of Illinois as among the worst states for business: 48th out of 50.[1] That is unchanged from last year. So people are leaving: “Illinois had the second-highest net domestic migration loss, sending 79,000 of its residents to other states. Illinois had ranked 49th in net domestic migration in
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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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