What Moves History: Intro. to the Philosophy of History, by Stephen RC Hicks [In Case You Missed It]

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What Moves History? An Introduction to the Philosophy of History By Stephen R. C. Hicks Topic Outline: Introduction: Why Rome’s Collapse, Renaissance, Modern Revolutions? History and Philosophy of History Philosophy of history’s three types of questions: 1. Metaphysical Questions about History Divine Causation? Materialist Causation? Volitional Causation? Individual or Collective Causation? Does History Have a […]

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Žižek on pleasure and three types of leftists

1 Comment / Politics /

I usually think of Slavoj Žižek as a performance-artist-of-philosophy-sometimes-shading-into-clownishness, but he can be perceptive, especially when diagnosing the internal dynamics of his fellow leftists. Here is his taxonomy of left thinkers in terms of where they stand on the issue of enjoyment: “Leftist libertarians see enjoyment as an emancipatory power: every oppressive power has to

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Texts in Philosophy — mid-2024 additions

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For use in my courses, additions to my Texts in Philosophy page. Ruth Benedict, Patterns of Culture (1934). Auguste Comte, Catechism of Positive Religion, Conversations I-V (1852). G.W.F. Hegel, Philosophy of Right (1820). Excerpt from Philosophy of History (1822). Immanuel Kant, Groundwork for the Metaphysic of Morals (1785). Søren Kierkegaard, excerpts from Either-Or (1843). John

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Is modern art too complicated for us?

2 Comments / Art, History of Philosophy, Philosophy /

Wall Street Journal art critic Terry Teachout asks: “Are our brains big enough to untangle modern art?” As examples, Teachout quotes one of thousands of sentences from James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake like this one: “It is the circumconversioning of antelithual paganelles by a huggerknut cramwell energuman, or the caecodedition of an absquelitteris puttagonnianne to the

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Nietzsche’s poem “From High Mountains”

2 Comments / Poetry /

Friedrich Nietzsche“From High Mountains: Aftersong” O noon of life! O time to celebrate!O summer garden!Restlessly happy and expectant, standing,Watching all day and night, for friends I wait: Where are you, friends? Come! It is time! It’s late! The glacier’s gray adorned itself for youToday with roses,The brook seeks you, and full of longing risesThe wind,

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Garrett Hardin bemoaning India’s 600 million population in 1974

1 Comment / Politics, Science /

Hardin is one of the most widely-read twentieth-century intellectuals, most known for his two pieces “The Tragedy of the Commons” and “Lifeboat Ethics: The Case Against Helping the Poor.” The two are intimately related, as one diagnoses a fundamental problem with resources and the other draws policy conclusions. A key quotation, in which Hardin states

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