Foucault’s response to an interview question: “Heidegger has always been for me the essential philosopher. I started by reading Hegel, then Marx, and I began to read Heidegger in 1951 or 1952; then in 1952 or 1953, I no longer remember, I read Nietzsche. I still have the notes I took while reading Heidegger – […]
Is Foucault a Neo-Marxist? Heidegger as the “essential” philosopher Read More »
On the priority of character: “Wealth does not bring goodness, but goodness brings wealth and every other blessing, both to the individual and to the State” (Apology, 30b). On the dangers of democracy: “No man on earth who conscientiously opposes you or any other organized democracy, and flatly prevents a great many wrongs and illegalities
In class: Socrates in Plato’s *Apology* Read More »
Friedrich Nietzsche has a reputation for being an individualist. But note this from his Thus Spoke Zarathustra: “The overman is the sense of the earth … . I love those who sacrifice themselves for the earth, that the earth may some day become the overman’s.” (Z I.P.3). So: Contrary to individualism, your life is not
Was Nietzsche individualist? Zarathustra-overman version Read More »
Plato on Censorship and “the Ancient Quarrel between Philosophy and Poetry” Excerpt from Book 10 of The Republic. Written 360 B.C.E. [Socrates and Glaucon in conversation] [Speakers: Socrates and Glaucon in conversation] [Socrates:] Of the many excellences which I perceive in the order of our State, there is none which upon reflection pleases me better
WHAT FOUCAULT LIKED TO DO TO ARAB BOYS. Excerpt from Douglas Murray’s The War on the West (2022): It is always unpleasant—as well as unwise—for thinkers to lambaste each other because of the habits of their personal lives. The personal is not always political and is certainly not always philosophical. Yet in March 2021, a
What Foucault liked to do with Arab boys — excerpt from Murray’s book Read More »
A prominent Cyrenaic named Hegesias, author of a book called *Death by Starvation*, lectured in Alexandria. He taught the doctrine of withdrawing from a malevolent world. The only way to avoid pain is suppress and/or rid oneself of desire. The goal of life is to pain avoidance—to the point that death is preferable to life.
When Hegesias the Cyrenaic was “cancelled” in Alexandria Read More »
A discussion between Dr. Stephen Hicks and vlogger Ryan Faulkner-Hogg on the life and times of Friedrich Nietzsche: Evolution and Darwin, Schopenhauer and pessimism, Wagner and music as metaphysical, whether life is suffering, and more. Understanding Friedrich Nietzsche’s Life & Philosophy Part 1 | Stephen Hicks & Ryan Hogg Stephen Hicks’s other publications and posts
Understanding Friedrich Nietzsche’s Life & Philosophy Read More »
A plug for what I found to be a useful discussion of this philosopher. Linking again as Kant and his complicated relationship to the Enlightenment and Counter-Enlightenment are again being hotly contested. “Immanuel Kant is a famously difficult philosopher, but also undeniably an important one. It isn’t hard to argue that he belongs somewhere in
Cato series on Kant and the Classical Liberal Tradition Read More »