A bold statement from Nobel-Prize-winning novelist Hermann Hesse: “The German intellectual has constantly rebelled against the word and against reason and courted music.” (From Steppenwolf, p. 152, Modern Library ed.) I like the spirit of it, as it fits with my assessment of mainline German philosophy in Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to […]
Hesse on Germans versus reason Read More »
[Grégoire Canlorbe is a French intellectual entrepreneur. He currently resides in Paris. He interviewed me for The Foundation for Economic Education. Excerpt below:] Grégoire Canlorbe: Both Rand and Nietzsche vehemently despise the ancestral notion of “Common Good”, dating back at least to Aristotle. Nietzsche eloquently and provocatively sums up his grievances against it in paragraph 43
Do Rand and Nietzsche both despise “Common Good”? Read More »
Marcus Herz was Immanuel Kant’s friend, a former student, and a well-educated man — he qualified as a physician and eventually became a professor of philosophy. Yet, “when Kant gave the MS. of the Critique to his friend Herz, a man much versed in speculation, Herz returned it half read, saying he feared insanity if
Kant, Herz and fearing insanity Read More »
From Klaus Christian Köhnke’s The Rise of Neo-Kantianism (Cambridge, 1991): “In the 1870s Kant became the most frequently read of the classics in Germany’s universities” (p. 8) That decade marked the decline of Hegelianism and triumph of neo-Kantianism: “Immediately after the Franco-Prussian war [1870-71] things moved forward rapidly and neo-Kantianism as a whole rose rapidly in the
Köhnke on the rise of Kant after 1870 Read More »
My Explaining Postmodernism book is negative on the major developments in German philosophy, tracing a devolution from Kant through Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, and Heidegger to the postmodernists. Lots of room in that story for nuances and exceptions, and I’ve received much criticism for being harsh on the German thinkers. I have two forthcoming Open College
Is German philosophy really Counter-Enlightenment? Nietzsche’s assessment Read More »
From Durant’s The Story of Philosophy, p. 380 (or p. 265 of this Google Books edition). THE Kantian philosophy which announced itself as “prolegomena to all future metaphysics,” was, by malicious intent, a murderous thrust at traditional modes of speculation; and, contrary to intent, a damaging blow to all metaphysics whatsoever. For metaphysics had meant,
Will Durant on Kant Read More »
The well-prepared Ricardo Lopes from Portugal interviewed me on the charged question of Nietzsche’s relationship to the National Socialists.
Dissenter interview on Nietzsche, the Nazis, and the Pomo Read More »
My article, “Does Kant Have a Place in Classical Liberalism?” (English) was translated by the indefatigable Matheus Pacini into Portuguese: “KANT TEM LUGAR NO LIBERALISMO CLÁSSICO?” From the description: “Stephen R. C. Hicks argues that if our case for liberty comes from a mysterious other realm, then perhaps we have no case at all. He
Cato Unbound article on Kant translated into Portuguese Read More »