Philosophy

Friedrich Schleiermacher in Explaining Postmodernism

1 Comment / Philosophy, Religion /

Theologian Richard Niebuhr called Friedrich Schleiermacher “the Kant of modern Protestantism.” Here is Schleiermacher himself: “The essence of religion is *the feeling of absolute dependence*. I repudiated rational thought in favour of a theology of feeling.” For more on Schleiermacher and his contributions to postmodernism, see p. 57 of my Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism from Rousseau […]

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“Will the Alt-Right Make the Left embrace the Enlightenment?” [Church and State]

2 Comments / Philosophy /

My “Will the Alt-Right Make the Left embrace the Enlightenment?” is now republished at Britain’s Church and State site: “Criticizing Enlightenment thought has become fashionable across the political spectrum. For the past several decades, more and more academics have called reason into question, especially the sort of rationalist worldview that emerged in the seventeenth and

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Andrea Dworkin in Explaining Postmodernism

4 Comments / Philosophy /

“The normal fuck,” writes Andrea Dworkin, “by a normal man is taken to be an act of invasion and ownership undertaken in a mode of predation.” For more on the implications of Dworkin’s claim for postmodernism, see my Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism from Rousseau to Foucault. Information about other editions and translations is available at this dedicated

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Latin America must abandon victimhood and open to the world

1 Comment / Philosophy /

[John Enright translated this short piece by María Marty summarizing her interview with me. The video of the 12-minute interview follows.] Stephen Hicks is the author of Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault and Nietzsche and the Nazis. A Personal View, which have been translated into several languages, including Spanish. Hicks also

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Martin Heidegger in Explaining Postmodernism

Leave a Comment / Philosophy /

Being is nothing. “Nothing,” wrote Martin Heidegger, “not merely provides the conceptual opposite of what-is but is also an original part of essence.” That may not make sense logically, but: “Authentic speaking about nothing always remains extraordinary. It cannot be vulgarized. It dissolves if it is placed in the cheap acid of merely logical intelligence.”

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“Should I marry you?” How philosophers answer the big question

3 Comments / History of Philosophy, Humor, Philosophy /

Romance is in the air, thus my annual reposting of my round-up of philosophers talking to their sweethearts – collected from conversations overheard at smoky cafés, college libraries, mountain caves, and seminar rooms the world over. The Aristotelian: “I wish to marry you, for I know that my happiness, both of body and soul, is

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