Stephen R.C. Hicks's Blog

Rachmaninov Is Reminiscent An interview with Rachmaninoff By Basanta Koomar Roy Published in The Musical Observer, May 1927 [Transcription] Among composers, Rachmaninov looms large. While it seldom transpires that one gains equal distinction as a composer, and a pianist, yet this may be said of Rachmaninov. In the course of the next hundred years or […]

Friedrich Nietzsche on the philosophical legacy from Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer: “The whole great tendency of the Germans ran counter to the Enlightenment.” Source: Friedrich Nietzsche, Daybreak [1881], Section 197. Related: The context of Nietzsche’s provocative claim: Related: On Nietzsche’s place in the historical course of philosophy: Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault […]

From Douglass’s 1848 open letter to Thomas Auld, his former master, on the tenth anniversary of his escape from slavery to freedom, which he accomplished on September 3, 1838. Sir: … When yet but a child about six years old, I imbibed the determination to run away. The very first mental effort that I now […]

Attributed to Paul Graham (via Philip HM Oliver). Related: How Great Artists became Great.

All CEE videos are now hosted at YouTube. Thanks to Chris Vaughan for performing the gargantuan task of transferring the material. Anil Singh-Molares on Microsoft and entrepreneurship.Terry Noel on The Virtuous Entrepreneur.Emily Chamlee-Wright on non-profits and the recovery efforts after Hurricane Katrina.Steven Horwitz on Wal-Mart to the rescue after Hurricane Katrina.David Mayer on Thomas Jefferson, […]

In this eight-lecture course, Professor Stephen Hicks guides us through the Enlightenment and the Counter-Enlightenment, including philosophers Francis Bacon, René Descartes, John Locke, Voltaire, David Hume, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Immanuel Kant, Georg Hegel, Karl Marx, John Stuart Mill, and Friedrich Nietzsche. For each, Dr. Hicks establishes the philosopher’s context, presents his or her most influential arguments, […]

Professor Stephen Hicks‘s courses on the influential political philosophies of the modern era —Liberalism, Conservatism, Nationalism, Communism, Fascism, Capitalism, Islamism, Postmodernism, and more. The syllabi: Part 1: From the French Revolution to World War II Part 2: From the Cold War to After 9/11 Stephen R. C. Hicks, Ph.D. is Professor of Philosophy and the […]

Mussolini & Gentile: “Anti-individualistic, the Fascist conception of life stresses the importance of the State and accepts the individual only in so far as his interests coincide with those of the State.” And: “The Fascist conception of life is a religious one, in which man is viewed in his immanent relation to a higher law, […]

Rawls: We must “look for a conception of justice that nullifies the accidents of natural endowments and the contingencies of social circumstance“. About the Course In this eight-lecture course, Professor Stephen R.C. Hicks takes us on a journey through the evolution of modern political philosophies from the tensions of Cold War to the turbulent post-9/11 […]

Wisdom about the challenge of learning from a great genius and then finding one’s own path. Here is Zarathustra: “Now I go alone, my disciples, You too, go now, alone. Thus I want it. Go away from me and resist Zarathustra! And even better: be ashamed of him! Perhaps he deceived you. The man of […]