In a letter to Karl Popper dated October 21, 1964, Friedrich Hayek proposed that they name their philosophy “Negativism.”[1] Hayek’s philosophy of economics holds that the limits of knowledge doom any attempt at central planning,[2] and Popper’s philosophy of science holds that observations can only falsify hypotheses.[3] Hence, “Negativism” would capture the central epistemic insight […]
Hayek, Popper, and “Negativism” Read More »
A good example of how political philosophy is driven by ethics. Here is Engels, Karl Marx’s collaborator in writing The Communist Manifesto and other works, criticizing liberals — despite nineteenth-century liberalism’s great accomplishment in reducing war and promoting peace between nations: You have brought about the fraternisation of the peoples – but the fraternity is
Friedrich Engels against liberal peace Read More »
John Dewey was one of the top two most influential philosophers of education in the twentieth century. Maria Montessori was the other. Dewey’s influence has been most strongly felt in the American public school system. In America, Montessori’s influence has mostly been grassroots and in privately funded schools. Montessori’s approach is highly individualistic and individualized.
John Dewey on education as socialization Read More »
Who are the great philosophers, and what makes them great? 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
My essay “Egoism in Nietzsche and Rand” is a 43-page study published in The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies (2009). Text version. Audiobook version: Part One, Part Two. 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
“Egoism in Nietzsche and Rand” now online Read More »
In an earlier post I asked, Who is the most loathsome philosopher in history? I suggested that Rousseau and Heidegger be considered top candidates. Some more data relevant to Rousseau: He made his common-law wife leave all five of their infants at foundling hospitals, on the grounds that they’d be better off there and that
Rousseau’s five children Read More »
Hugh Trevor-Roper was known for his biting polemical style. In a youthful essay he described Rousseau’s Confessions this way: “a lucid journal of a life so utterly degraded that it has been a bestseller in France ever since.“[1] Of course, Confessions has also sold well in the English-speaking world (I see at least eight editions
Double insult — Rousseau and the French Read More »
Wall Street Journal art critic Terry Teachout asks: “Are our brains big enough to untangle modern art?” As examples, Teachout quotes one of thousands of sentences from James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake like this one: “It is the circumconversioning of antelithual paganelles by a huggerknut cramwell energuman, or the caecodedition of an absquelitteris puttagonnianne to the
Is modern art too complicated for us? Read More »