Stephen R. C. Hicks

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Stephen R. C. Hicks

Stephen R. C. Hicks

@SRCHicks

Philosophy, Business Ethics, and Entrepreneurship

USA Katılım Temmuz 2009
20 Takip Edilen19.2K Takipçiler
Stephen R. C. Hicks
Stephen R. C. Hicks@SRCHicks·
Next month, I will be giving a four-lecture series at the University of Antwerp, Belgium. Each will be followed by a discussion with professors from Belgian and Dutch universities on different aspects of postmodernism. What is modernism? Is it progressing—or a disaster? What is the post-modern critiques? Have Foucault, Derrida, and the others fatally undermined the Enlightenment—or is it still flourishing?
Maarten Boudry@mboudry

Een lezingenreeks over het "koekoeksjong" van het postmodernisme, met filosoof Stephen Hicks (@SRCHicks) als centrale gast! Mijn gesprek met hem is op 22 april. Andere sessies met Tinneke Beeckman, Arthur Cools, Patrick Loobuyck, Leo Neels, Freek Van de Velde en Alain-Laurent Verbeke. Inschrijven hier: www2.humanistischverbond.be/page?orl=308&s…

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Stephen R. C. Hicks
Stephen R. C. Hicks@SRCHicks·
@MonkeyInMachine DM is an excellent economist and a very good historian. My sense is this: She has a flair for the dramatic and loves a rhetorical flourish, which makes her a compelling writer but sometimes leads to over-statements.
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The Monkey in the Machine 🐒
The Monkey in the Machine 🐒@MonkeyInMachine·
@SRCHicks Obviating Voltaire, above all others, can’t be ignorance hence it reeks of malice. Well done making this point, Professor.
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Stephen R. C. Hicks
Stephen R. C. Hicks@SRCHicks·
The French *have* developed a deserved reputation for more top-down bureaucracy. But please stop with terrible mis-statements like the below about the French Enlightenment. Top F. E. thinkers include Voltaire, Diderot, Montesquieu, Turgot, Condorcet. All of them were for economic liberalism, free commerce, the benefits of spontaneous markets, and minimal government interference in trade, etc. All explicitly and strongly against centralized state control of economic activity. Please check for oneself. There are differences among the Enlightenments in England, Scotland, France, and America. Ususally they are of emphasis and degree not of principle. That requires a lot of research and discussion before venturing strong claims.
Deirdre Nansen McCloskey@DeirdreMcClosk

Systematic thinking about unintended consequences, the third thing, commenced in the 1700s with the Scottish Enlightenment. The other Enlightenment, the French, kept the old, personal blame and the top down. The French Enlightenment loved reason, planning, design, the state. Not the Scots, who loved liberty—but were scientific about its causes and consequences. My latest column for @folha ....

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Heteroklit
Heteroklit@heteroklitblog·
@SRCHicks I think she's mostly referring to Rousseau
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Arlen Doran
Arlen Doran@ArlenDoran·
@SRCHicks @DeirdreMcClosk Sir, my opening post mentions an "intrinsic flavour" of technocracy. I am not sure if I could make it softer than it already is. :) Maybe my taste buds are not as sensible as yours. Surely you cannot deny the "apparent" technocratic tang F.E. leaves at the tip of our tongues.
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Deirdre Nansen McCloskey
Deirdre Nansen McCloskey@DeirdreMcClosk·
Systematic thinking about unintended consequences, the third thing, commenced in the 1700s with the Scottish Enlightenment. The other Enlightenment, the French, kept the old, personal blame and the top down. The French Enlightenment loved reason, planning, design, the state. Not the Scots, who loved liberty—but were scientific about its causes and consequences. My latest column for @folha ....
Deirdre Nansen McCloskey tweet media
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Stephen R. C. Hicks
Stephen R. C. Hicks@SRCHicks·
When pessimists are captured by theory and psychologically immune to data.
Marian L Tupy@Marian_L_Tupy

.@mattwridley: Interesting parallels come to mind. 1. Malthus published his book on English overpopulation and overconsumption in 1798. Thereafter, the population of England rose, and the prices of wheat fell relative to wages. 2. Marx published Das Kapital in 1867, arguing that workers' wages would be squeezed to zero by capitalist competition (based on a much-debated and probably incorrect "Engels' Pause"). Thereafter, English wages skyrocketed. 3. Ehrlich published his book about coming global famines in 1968. Thereafter, global famines collapsed, and standards of living across much of the world rose.

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Stephen R. C. Hicks
Stephen R. C. Hicks@SRCHicks·
Good start, but your initial claim is still radically under-determined. "Technocracy" is a stronger claim than that experts should be in government, or that they should also be rational, or that they should make decisions informed by the best science of the day. I see that you've softened the claim to say now that they're only "proto-" technocrats, but still ... That they were liberals, as you point out, should militate against adding a "-cracy" to whatever greater role they saw for science (against the then-prevalent appeals to tradition, divine guidance, raw power, and so on).
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Arlen Doran
Arlen Doran@ArlenDoran·
@SRCHicks @DeirdreMcClosk 9/9 This intellectual style is the reason behind the French Enlightenment's apparent proto-technocratic tendencies, even while many of its thinkers also defended economic liberalism.
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Arlen Doran
Arlen Doran@ArlenDoran·
@SRCHicks @DeirdreMcClosk I can't see which part of “laissez-faire, laissez-passer” wasn't French. Didn't Turgot argue in favor of free trade, mainly in grain? Still, one may also argue that there is an intrinsic technocratic flavour in the French Enlightenment. So, I think you both are partially right.
Arlen Doran tweet media
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Stephen R. C. Hicks
Stephen R. C. Hicks@SRCHicks·
I'd break that down more. Mostly on political leftists, yes, but not on political liberals. On educational liberals yes. Not on the first two years of the Revolution, which the liberals dominated, but yes when the collectivist and authoritarian Jacobins took over a couple of years into it.
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Alejandro Durán
Alejandro Durán@Alejand47508396·
@SRCHicks I agree, yet his influence over French liberals, the French Revolution, and French statolatry is undeniable.
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Alejandro Durán
Alejandro Durán@Alejand47508396·
@SRCHicks Rosseau was a decisive influence over French liberals. He was different from other French thinkers, a worshiper of the State. Bastiat was the lone French liberal thinker few decades after. You can realize, from his writings, that he was waging a hopeless war against statism.
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Stephen R. C. Hicks
Stephen R. C. Hicks@SRCHicks·
A deep dive into the fundamentals of philosophy: METAPHYSICS and EPISTEMOLOGY. Eight lectures on fundamental questions about reality, causality, space and time, knowledge, mind and body, and volition. We work through the big questions — and the debates over the best answers to them — guided by claims and insights from major philosophers including Plato, Aristotle, Ockham, Kant, Hume, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Rand, and others. Link to course Trailer and Syllabus in the first comment.
Stephen R. C. Hicks tweet media
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Keşfet

@mboudry @MaartenBoudry @MonkeyInMachine @heteroklitblog @ArlenDoran @DeirdreMcClosk @folha @elonmusk