In this episode of Open College, Stephen Hicks reflects on the significance of Sam Harris as a public intellectual, drawing from his foreword to Sam Harris: Critical Responses. Hicks explores Harris’s wide-ranging contributions from morality, free will, and consciousness to religion, psychedelics, artificial intelligence, and politics arguing that Harris embodies a rare “third culture” synthesis of science and humanism at a time when philosophy has been split by C.P. Snow’s “two cultures” divide. Along the way, Hicks contrasts Harris’s reductionist approach with Jordan Peterson’s values-first orientation, using their exchanges to illustrate today’s ongoing struggle between facts and values, reason and emotion, and science and religion, and why overcoming these dualisms remains a central challenge for contemporary philosophy.
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In this episode of Open College, Stephen Hicks reflects on the significance of Sam Harris as a public intellectual, drawing from his foreword to Sam Harris: Critical Responses. Hicks explores Harris’s wide-ranging contributions from morality, free will, and consciousness to religion, psychedelics, artificial intelligence, and politics arguing that Harris embodies a rare “third culture” synthesis of science and humanism at a time when philosophy has been split by C.P. Snow’s “two cultures” divide. Along the way, Hicks contrasts Harris’s reductionist approach with Jordan Peterson’s values-first orientation, using their exchanges to illustrate today’s ongoing struggle between facts and values, reason and emotion, and science and religion, and why overcoming these dualisms remains a central challenge for contemporary philosophy.
Explores the conflict between modern liberalism, which historically championed anti-racism, anti-sexism, and individual rights, and the contemporary "Woke" movement, which paradoxically rejects liberalism despite similar goals. Rooted in postmodern skepticism, Wokism emerged from a mistrust of objective truths and traditional structures, instead promoting power dynamics and subjective truths. The author categorizes Wokism into four main strands—Anti-modern Woke, The Great Awokening, Dictatorship of the Woketariat, and Motte-and-Bailey Wokists—each rejecting various aspects of liberalism and embracing distinct philosophies. The tension between reasoned liberal ideals and Woke ideology’s reliance on power and relativism has led to ongoing cultural battles, with postmodernism’s influence hollowing out the Enlightenment’s achievements and leaving a fragmented intellectual landscape.
Open College Podcast
In this episode of Open College, Stephen Hicks reflects on the significance of Sam Harris as a public intellectual, drawing from his foreword to Sam Harris: Critical Responses. Hicks explores Harris’s wide-ranging contributions from morality, free will, and consciousness to religion, psychedelics, artificial intelligence, and politics arguing that Harris embodies a rare “third culture” synthesis of science and humanism at a time when philosophy has been split by C.P. Snow’s “two cultures” divide. Along the way, Hicks contrasts Harris’s reductionist approach with Jordan Peterson’s values-first orientation, using their exchanges to illustrate today’s ongoing struggle between facts and values, reason and emotion, and science and religion, and why overcoming these dualisms remains a central challenge for contemporary philosophy.
