David Hume topped this 2009 PhilPapers survey of most influential and admired philosophers (scroll down to bottom of the page to “Non-living philosophers most identified with”). Aristotle came in second and Kant third. I’ve been thinking much about Nietzsche and Heidegger recently: eleventh and eighteenth, respectively. Overall, the list was still dominated by thinkers in […]
David Hume’s current influence Read More »
Who are the great philosophers, and what makes them great? Episodes: The full playlist. About the Professor: 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
Results from a recent survey of children: Respondents across all countries were worried about climate change (59% were very or extremely worried and 84% were at least moderately worried). More than 50% reported each of the following emotions: sad, anxious, angry, powerless, helpless, and guilty. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(21)00278-3/fulltext Much of modern environmentalism strikes me as very Old
Children’s fears and environmental education Read More »
An evocative quotation from philosopher Sidney Hook (1902-1989), from his autobiographical Out of Step. In an earlier post I quoted Hook’s account of his family’s living conditions. Here Hook recalls his authoritarian-style education in American schools circa one century ago: “Although the public schools were religiously attended (children feared the wrath of their parents much
Sidney Hook on public education Read More »
Unexpected news: Explaining Postmodernism wins first place in a university’s edible cake contest. The cake’s maker, who wishes to remain anonymous online, explains: “Mickey, the dialectical apprentice to such gnostic sorcerers as Rousseau, Hegel, and Derrida, is busy deconstructing our cake, leaving destruction and ruin in his wake.” I like that the book side of
*Explaining Postmodernism* wins baking contest Read More »
Today at Jagielloninan University in Krakow, Poland, is a book-launch event for this new volume: Defending the Value of Education as a Public GoodPhilosophical Dialogues on Education and the State, edited by Katarzyna Wrońska (Jagiellonian University, Poland), Julian Stern (Bishop Grosseteste University, England). I contributed an essay. My title and abstract: “Mind-shift for 21st-Century Education:
Chapter: “Mind-shift for 21st-Century Education: Entrepreneurism,” by Stephen Hicks Read More »
I will be at the Academy’s impressive studio in Miami to record a new eight-lecture course on the philosophy of ethics. Here is the invitation to join the live studio audience. We will cover thinkers who made ethics modern (and highly diverse) — and those who resisted the modernizing trends — including John Locke, Jean-Jacques
Studio audience invitation for new Peterson Academy course: *Modern Ethics* Read More »
A striking quotation from Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions: “Every civilization of which we have records has possessed a technology, an art, a religion, a political system, laws, and so on. In many cases those facets of civilization have been as developed as our own. But only the civilizations that descend from Hellenic
Kuhn on the Greeks and scientific culture Read More »