I did not know that in 1818 a younger Arthur Schopenhauer, aged 30, made a trip to Florence, Italy, where he pursued love. Unfortunately for Arthur, it didn’t go well. “After a number of rejections, he decided that ‘only the male intellect, clouded by the sexual impulse, could call the undersized, narrow-shouldered, broad-hipped, and short-legged […]
Schopenhauer in and out of love Read More »
In this introductory volume, Professor Stephen R. C. Hicks makes the essential arguments for and against liberalism. Each argument is supported by quotations from the major thinkers—including Locke, Nietzsche, Plato, Hayek, de Maistre, Rand, Marx, and others—who have advanced or attacked liberalism. The Pro-Liberal claims: Liberalism increases freedom | People work harder in liberal societies |
*Liberalism Pro and Con* A Primer [e-book version] Read More »
A re-post of my Galileo and the Modern Compromise: IN HIS OPEN LETTER to the Grand Duchess Christina (1615), Galileo offered a defense of science against the prevailing heavy hand of religious orthodoxy: “But I do not feel obliged to believe that that same God who has endowed us with senses, reason, and intellect has
Galileo, free speech & censorship, religion and science Read More »
An analogy of books to money. As an exercise of imagination, let us suppose that the following were a true description of our publishing industry: * Only the government may print books.* The government decides how many books may be in circulation at any given time.* The government determines the initial price at which books
Money and Books: monopoly and censorship analogy Read More »
Audio version of my 42-page journal article “Egoism in Nietzsche and Rand.” Table of Contents: Part One: On Critiquing Altruism [MP3] [YouTube] [64 minutes] Three Nietzsches and Ayn RandSome Intellectuals on Nietzsche and RandEgoism, altruism, and “selfishness”A Nietzschean sketch: * God is dead * Nihilism’s symptoms * Two bio-psychological types * Psychology and morality *
*Egoism in Nietzsche and Rand* [audio-book version] Read More »
Re-reading E. G. West’s classic Education and the State, which plunges into the current and historical debates over private and government education. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that we grant that the government has obligation to protect children and that growing up ignorant is one of the things the government should protect children against.
Driver’s education and the government-schooling debates Read More »
From Maynard Solomon’s Beethoven: “For Beethoven’s German and Austrian contemporaries, the Napoleonic image was especially potent: Bonaparte’s admirers included Kant, Herder, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Schiller, Goethe, Hölderlin, Wielan, and Klopstock. Grillparzer, in his Autobiography wrote, ‘I myself was no less an enemy of the French than my father, and yet Napoleon fascinated me with a
Napoleon’s German admirers 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 »
Fifty hours of my video lectures on Philosophy of Education are available free online. * The course cover issues from metaphysics, epistemology, human nature, and ethics that are directly relevant to education.* The lectures also cover major philosophies Idealism, Realism, Pragmatism, Behaviorism, Existentialism, Marxism, Objectivism, and Postmodernism — that have enormously influenced contemporary education.* Along
Philosophy of Education: My lectures online Read More »
Reprising from my interview with economist David Henderson: I asked him how economics came to be called the “dismal science.” The source, he explained, was Thomas Carlyle, the nineteenth-century historian and essayist. The surprising reason for his coining the phrase? Carlyle was attacking free-market liberals for advocating the end of slavery. Free-market liberals argued that
The surprising origin of “the dismal science” [Slavery versus Free-market capitalism] Read More »