In an 1846 review of Grote’s History of Greece, John Stuart Mill makes this claim: “The Battle of Marathon, even as an event in British history, is more important than the Battle of Hastings.” My first reaction to Mill’s sentence was agreement. My second reaction was to the audacity of the claim and to wonder […]
Audacious historical cause-and-effect claims Read More »
The Enlightenment of the long 18th century was an era of awesome intellectual and cultural transformation. My Enlightenment Vision flowchart [pdf] is pitched at a high level of abstraction, showing schematically how the philosophical revolution of the 17th century led to the 18th-century revolutions in science, technology, politics, and economics — which in turn led
The Enlightenment Vision — Flowchart Read More »
Did the death of one man in Mongolia affect the entire course of European history since the 1200s? Here’s the context: In 1227, Genghis Khan’s son Ogedai became head of the Mongolian empire, which at that time included much of northern China, southeastern Russia, and Persia. Ogedai sent one of his generals, Tsubodai (or Subotai),
The Mongols and modern European history Read More »
Following up on “The constant decline of civilization?” — a series of quotations from across the centuries of intellectuals from Plato to Wordsworth to T.S. Eliot bemoaning the sorry state of their generation’s intellectual and moral life. Here, from a review of Mark Lilla’s The Reckless Mind: Intellectuals in Politics and Richard Wolin’s Heidegger’s Children:
Are we declining from our decline? Read More »
Quotations on Nazi socialism and fascism. Excerpt from Nietzsche and the Nazis.
Appendix 2: Quotations on Nazi socialism and fascism [Nietzsche and the Nazis] Read More »
[This is Appendix 3 of Nietzsche and the Nazis. Sources for the quotations are at the end of this post.] Appendix 3: Quotations on German anti-Semitism Martin Luther (1483-1546): “The Jews deserve to hang on gallows, seven times higher than ordinary thieves.” And: “We ought to take revenge on the Jews and kill them.”[189] Immanuel
Appendix 3: Quotations on German anti-Semitism [Nietzsche and the Nazis] Read More »
Who are the great philosophers, and what makes them great? Episodes: The full playlist. 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 England, and Jagiellonian
Philosophy of History | G.W.F. Hegel | Philosophers, Explained by Stephen Hicks Read More »
Reprising these reflections from reading Eric Axelson’s Congo to Cape: Early Portuguese Explorers. Always an interesting question to ask how great ventures begin: Why did they start when and where they did? Why were they initiated by those individuals or groups and not others? The circumnavigation of Africa was a great achievement over many decades.
Why did Portugal become a great exploring nation? Read More »