From Peter Gay’s brief biography, about the terrible brevity of life in Mozart’s time. Wolfgang Mozart “was born in Salzburg on January 27, 1756, the seventh and last child of Leopold and Anna Maria Mozart. Of his siblings, five died in infancy, and only one sister, four years his elder, survived … . This appalling […]
Appalling infant mortality rates, then and now Read More »
Update: Thanks to sponsor generosity, some travel stipends for students now available. A five-day seminar this summer; June 24-28 at the University of Illinois, Springfield, on the philosophy originated by Ayn Rand. Join professors William Kline (Business), Carrie-Ann Biondi (Philosophy), Richard Salsman (Politics and Economics), and me (Philosophy). We will give three talks each and
Week-long seminar on Ayn Rand & Objectivism, at University of Illinois, Springfield Read More »
My short essay on “What Business Ethics Can Learn from Entrepreneurship” [pdf] was published in the Journal of Private Enterprise in 2009, just when entrepreneurism was beginning to get attention in the business ethics literature. The abstract: “Entrepreneurship is increasingly studied as a fundamental and foundational economic phenomenon. It has, however, received less attention as
“What Business Ethics Can Learn from Entrepreneurship” — text and audio versions Read More »
Reposting this from a trip that took me to Texas and Oklahoma. I saw this sign along a highway a little across the OK border. “Steve,” the sign seemed to say to me, “you’re not in Illinois anymore.” So I took a tourist memento picture. It turns out that they are not worried about what weirdos
Dueling billboards, Oklahoma style Read More »
From Jack D. Flam’s Matisse and Picasso: The Story of Their Rivalry and Friendship (2003): ‘Picasso characterized the arbitrariness of representation in his Cubist paintings as resulting from his desire for “a greater plasticity.” Rendering an object as a square or a cube, he said, was not a negation, for “reality was no longer in
Artistic representation: Picasso versus Matisse Read More »
David Hume topped this 2009 PhilPapers survey of most influential and admired philosophers (scroll down to bottom of the page to “Non-living philosophers most identified with”). Aristotle came in second and Kant third. I’ve been thinking much about Nietzsche and Heidegger recently: eleventh and eighteenth, respectively. Overall, the list was still dominated by thinkers in
David Hume’s current influence Read More »
Who are the great philosophers, and what makes them great? Episodes: The full playlist. About the Professor: 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
Unexpected news: Explaining Postmodernism wins first place in a university’s edible cake contest. The cake’s maker, who wishes to remain anonymous online, explains: “Mickey, the dialectical apprentice to such gnostic sorcerers as Rousseau, Hegel, and Derrida, is busy deconstructing our cake, leaving destruction and ruin in his wake.” I like that the book side of
*Explaining Postmodernism* wins baking contest Read More »