Philosophy

“Science: Conjectures and Refutations,” from Popper’s ​Conjectures and Refutations (1962)​. Key questions: Are Marxism and Freudianism pseudo-sciences like astrology and alchemy? What makes a theory genuinely scientific? Who are the great philosophers and what are their key ideas? From the beginning of philosophy in Greek myths to the influential thinkers of our own time, in

We covered a lot of ground in one hour: Related: The publications mentioned in the interview:

[Reprising this piece in the light of this year’s upsurge of Islamism.] Many smart people — including Thomas Friedman in The New York Times, Naser Khader in Newsweek, John Lloyd in The Jerusalem Post, Ayaan Hirsi Ali in The Wall Street Journal — are hoping that the Reformation will come to Islam. Some are calling

Physicist Lawrence Krauss and I appeared jointly in Boulder, CO, to the discuss “The Anti-Science of God?” We ranged over several sub-issues: What is religion? What is science? Is God meaningless? Are all religions equally unscientific or do some try, even if weakly, not to be? Has the is/ought dichotomy made the problem worse? Related:

Auguste Comte coined the term “altruism” and is a founder of sociology. What is altruism, and why does Comte argue for a “Sociocracy”—i.e., the rule of priestly sociologist-kings? Who are the great philosophers and what are their key ideas? From the beginning of philosophy in Greek myths to the influential thinkers of our own time,

In this eight-lecture course, Professor Stephen Hicks guides us through the Enlightenment and the Counter-Enlightenment, including philosophers Francis Bacon, René Descartes, John Locke, Voltaire, David Hume, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Immanuel Kant, Georg Hegel, Karl Marx, John Stuart Mill, and Friedrich Nietzsche. For each, Dr. Hicks establishes the philosopher’s context, presents his or her most influential arguments,