15-lecture series by Professor Stephen R.C. Hicks, Rockford University, USA Lecture 11: What did the major Existentialist thinkers—Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre in particular—believe and how they apply it to education? How are “Existence precedes essence” and “The Myth of Sisyphus” relevant to deciding our purposes in life? Previous lectures in the series: Part One: […]
“It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied.“ Lecture Five: The Greatest Happiness for the Greatest Number Themes: Hedonism. Epicurus. Utility. Bentham. Individual or collective? The problem of Casanova, de Sade, Sacher-Masoch. Text: Mill, Utilitarianism About the Instructor Stephen R. C.
Nietzsche on Kant’s fundamental correctness: “reason does not derive its laws from nature but prescribes them to nature.” Source: Friedrich Nietzsche, Human All Too Human, A Book for Free Spirits [1878]. Related: On the related context of Nietzsche’s provocative claim: Related: On Nietzsche’s place in the historical course of philosophy: Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism
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
“Man’s Rights” | Ayn Rand | *Philosophers, Explained* series by Professor Stephen Hicks Read More »
Champion’s essay on Substack, “How Science Lost its Way: Karl Popper and Gordon Tulloch on the institutional malaise of science.” After World War II: “The philosophical diaspora in the US converted the philosophy of science into a wasteland of conceptual analysis and sterile probability theory instead of an introduction to the kind of imaginative and
From a 2020 interview: Jennifer Grossman [24:40]: Another term that could have some help unpacking is the Woke culture. What does that mean? Where did it come from? Stephen Hicks: That’s a much broader concept. It comes out of the Left politically. Interestingly on the Right politically too—if we can use these labels—they’re obviously Left and
‘Woke Left’ and ‘Woke Right’: false consciousness and the red pill Read More »
Synopsis: Late in the 19th century artists began to experiment with non-representational art. Dr. Hicks traces this movement to Immanuel Kant’s basic philosophy as expressed in his 1781 Critique of Pure Reason. Their conversation ranges over Kant’s metaphysical ideas and his ideas of beauty and the sublime as expressed in Critique of Judgment. The perceptual
By Professor Stephen R.C. Hicks, Rockford University, USA. Lecture 10: What did the major Behaviorist thinkers, and B.F. Skinner in particular, believe and how they apply it to education? Previous lectures in the series: Part One: Introduction: What is the purpose of education, and what is philosophy’s relevance? Part Two: Reality: Metaphysics and Education: The
Behaviorism and Education: B.F. Skinner [Lecture 10 of Philosophy of Education course] Read More »