From a later preface to Hans of Iceland, originally published anonymously in 1823: “When a man’s prime is past, when his head is bowed, when he feels compelled to write something more than strange stories to frighten old women and children, when all the rough edges of youth are worn away by the friction of […]
Victor Hugo on the power of the mature writer Read More »
Jerry Saltz, a senior art critic for New York Magazine, makes a strong connection between Duchamp and Immanuel Kant’s theory of the sublime in art. Writing in the Village Voice, Saltz says: “Fountain brings us into contact with an original that is still an original but that also exists in an altered philosophical and metaphysical
Duchamp’s urinal & Kant’s sublime, according to Jerry Saltz of New York Magazine Read More »
“Who was the greatest man, Caesar, Alexander, Tamerlane, Cromwell, &c.?Somebody answered that Sir Isaac Newton excelled them all.” Lecture Four: The Philosophes and the French Enlightenment. Voltaire Themes: Deism. Toleration. Anti-superstition. Anti-torture. Irreverence. Who are the greatest humans ever? Augustine. Montaigne. Montesquieu. Diderot. de Gouges. Condorcet. The new “trinity”: Bacon, Locke, Newton. Text: Voltaire: Letters
In the following excerpt from his interview with Dr. Jordan Peterson, Dr. Hicks explains why he sees Cognition as an ongoing scientific enterprise — that it’s early days in a complex field — and why he is not a skeptic. Here’s the full interview, with timestamps for sub-topics, filmed in Arizona in November 2024: Related:
Peterson interviews Hicks — excerpt on philosophy of mind, epistemology, skepticism Read More »
We’ve gone from “Too many people!” a generation ago to “Not enough babies!” now. I don’t get either worry. Let’s take Europe as an example. Currently its population is about 740 million, and one projection is that by the year 2100 its population will decline to 600 million. And some commentators go “Yikes!” Why? Possibility
I don’t understand population fears Read More »
Tim Black, a senior writer at spiked, has a good review discussion of “Why they’re really scared of Heidegger.” The “they’re” refers to many contemporary academics, and Black’s review is of Emmanuel Faye’s wave-making Heidegger: The Introduction of Nazism into Philosophy in Light of the Unpublished Seminars of 1933-1935 (Yale, 2009). Some key quotations from
Heidegger’s anti-humanism and the Left Read More »
One of my professors in graduate school argued that St. Augustine is the most influential philosopher in history. I’m not convinced, though a good case can be made. I recently re-opened Confessions and came across Augustine’s strong version of original sin. As he exclaims to his God, “no one is free from sin in your
St. Augustine on why babies are evil Read More »
Chart 1, showing faculty political views are mostly left or far left (using ‘Democrat’ and ‘Republican’ as proxy for ‘more left’ and ‘more right’). E.g., Sociology has 43 Democrats for every Republican, and Religion departments have 70 Democrats for every Republican. Chart 2, from Higher Education Research Institute‘s survey of faculty: 80% of faculty say
Explaining ‘Woke’ activism’s origin in two charts Read More »