Philosophy of History

Anti-Slavery in the Americas: A Primer [Atlas Intellectuals]

In this week of the Atlas Intellectuals course on Slavery we feature Stephen Hicks’s analysis of slavery’s history: Anti-Slavery in the Americas: A Primer. The first two points: Before Columbus’s Atlantic crossing, slavery had long been practiced by every major culture in the world, with the likely exception of Australia. Virtually no individuals known to […]

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Victor Davis Hanson interview: war and foreign policy

I guest-hosted The Atlas Society Asks program and interviewed classicist Victor Davis Hanson for 30-minutes on what we moderns can learn from the classics about human nature and war. Some of the questions we covered: Is a lesson of history that freer societies prevail over authoritarian ones? E.g., how the Greeks were able to defeat

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Johann Herder as prophet of the contemporary university

[Herder (1744-1802) was an early Counter-Enlightenment voice calling for group identity politics and value relativism, along with a rejection of cultural appropriation and an embrace of zero-sum cultural conflict. The following is excerpted from Explaining Postmodernism.] Herder on multicultural relativism Sometimes called the “German Rousseau,”[1] Johann Herder had studied philosophy and theology at Königsberg University. Kant was

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“Philosophy and a Century of War” — transcript

Below is a transcription of the video available YouTube and StephenHicks.org. Philosophy and a Century of War (transcription) Stephen R. C. Hicks Philosophy has a reputation for being abstract and difficult, which it certainly can be. It also has a reputation for being impractical, which it definitely is not. So today I want to give

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Zientkowski on Nietzsche and human rights

I have a co-authored article (in English) forthcoming in a Polish academic journal. My co-author is Przemysław Zientkowski of Nicholas Copernicus University. Dr. Zientkowski has just published a book (in Polish) on the critique of human rights in Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophy. So if your Polish is up to speed, check it out.

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Modernity’s declining violence

“A common misconception often quoted by media, politicians, activists is that violence is on the rise and has historically been much lower. Similarly, the trend in post-colonial anthropology has been to regard historically indigenous and tribal societies as more peaceful than contemporary Western society. However, archaeological evidence shows that previous societies had very high level

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Postmodern Strategy [Explaining Postmodernism audiobook]

This is the sixth and final chapter of the audiobook version of Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault. Chapter Six: Postmodern Strategy [mp3] [YouTube] [54 minutes total] Connecting epistemology to politics [mp3] [YouTube] Masks and rhetoric in language [mp3] [YouTube] When theory clashes with fact [mp3] [YouTube] Kierkegaardian postmodernism [mp3] [YouTube] Reversing

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