By: Mathieu Yuill on March 10, 2024
The concepts outlined in Stephen R. C. Hicks, Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault[1], are new to me. In my formal studies and independent reading I hadn’t explored ideas our postmodernism, modernism, the enlightenment era and the like. In fact, the closest I had ever gotten to it was through playing the…
By: Dinka Utomo on March 8, 2024
“Where the human knowledge ends, God’s wisdom and power begins to manifest in abundance.” –Gift Gugu Mona- Humans generally like certain things. That’s why most people always try to find certainty in their lives because certainty will bring peace to their hearts. A phrase in Latin reads, “certum est quod certum reddi potest,” which…
By: Esther Edwards on March 8, 2024
“We need and desperately want to make sense of our world: to compose/dwell in some conviction of what is ultimately true.”[1] But what is ultimately true? Can we really know? These questions, steeped in skepticism, form the basis of postmodern thinking. It seems to have set the societal tone in how life, truth, and faith…
By: Jana Dluehosh on March 7, 2024
Bothersome, that is how I found this book and my trying to understand. I do not believe I would’ve ever been a philosophy major….it hurts my head. My thoughts on Steven Hicks book Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault; I get it, or I think I get it, we are going down…
By: Todd E Henley on March 7, 2024
This week as I read, Explaining Postmodernism, by Stephen Hicks, I kept thinking about the brain and our emotions. Please bare with me as I discuss how our brain, emotions, and immune system are connected by God and how this goes entirely against most of what postmodernism postulates. Anterior Midcingulate Cortex (aMCC) There’s a brain…
By: Adam Harris on March 7, 2024
I have a bittersweet relationship with philosophy. I think it is incredibly useful to not only examine knowledge, but it exposes the invisible assumptions we have when making claims about truth and points out the tinted glasses sitting on our noses when interpreting data and our experiences. Nancey Murphy, a philosopher from Fuller Theological Seminary…
By: Cathy Glei on March 7, 2024
“To the extent that reason is the standard, faith loses, To the extent that reason develops, science develops, To the extent that science develops, supernaturalistic religious answers to be accepted on faith will be replaced with naturalistic scientific explanations that are rationally compelling.” [1] Supernaturalistic religious responses in faith are the buzz. In conversations with church…
By: Jonita Fair-Payton on March 7, 2024
My Limited Understanding I would like to claim that my understanding of Postmodernism expanded after reading Explaining Postmodernism and listening to The Jordon B. Peterson Podcast with Stephen R. C. Hicks but that would not be true. I did not truly understand the concept of Postmodernism and I am not really sure if that’s…
By: Jenny Dooley on March 7, 2024
After reading, Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault, by Stephen R. C. Hicks, I find this post more challenging to write than usual. I’m tossing around a number of thoughts struggling to find the right words. Thanks to Chapter 5: The Crisis of Socialism, I keep getting tripped up by my experiences…
By: Jennifer Vernam on March 6, 2024
Goodreads describes Explaining Postmodernism as an “intellectual history with a polemical twist, providing fresh insights into the debates underlying the furor over political correctness, multiculturalism, and the future of liberal democracy.”[1] Its author, Stephen Hicks, takes us on another step of our journey in understanding the current context in which we find ourselves. Themes from…
By: Pam Lau on March 6, 2024
In 2016, the Oxford English Dictionary’s word of the year was post-truth: “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.”[1] In that same year, the people around the world from all political and religious beliefs watched with mourning as unbelievable stories were…
By: Kally Elliott on March 5, 2024
I am ever so guilty of throwing around the word, “post-modern” without fully understanding how deeply ingrained this philosophy is in how I think and live. As I slogged through Stephen R.C. Hicks’ book, Explaining Postmodernism Skepticism from Rosseau to Foucault, and more willingly listened to some podcasts with Hicks as a guest, I began…
By: Scott Dickie on March 4, 2024
In his book, Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault (1), author Stephen Hicks attempts to…well…explain postmodernism! I suppose that’s relatively self-evident (Although I will argue a little later that he actually seeks to dismantle it and not simply explain it). Hicks begins his book with a few chapters introducing the topic and…
By: Tim Clark on March 4, 2024
I spent my formative teenage and young adult years in 1980’s/90’s Los Angeles, which seemed to be a ground zero for postmodernism in the United States at the time. In fact, I remember in college hearing a lecture on emerging postmodernity and thinking “that’s not emerging, it’s what I grew up with” (now I would…
By: Kim Sanford on March 4, 2024
“Conflict and contradiction are the deepest truths of reality.”[1] I certainly grappled with inner conflict and contradiction as I read Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault by Stephen Hicks. Plowing through chapter after chapter was laborious, but (to my own great surprise) when I closed the book, I actually felt like I…
By: John Fehlen on March 4, 2024
U2 is a rock band from the north side of Dublin, that was formed in 1976. The group consists of Bono (lead vocals and rhythm guitar), the Edge (lead guitar, keyboards, and backing vocals), Adam Clayton (bass guitar), and Larry Mullen Jr.(drums and percussion). Each of these members were teenagers at Mount Temple Comprehensive School…
By: Travis Vaughn on March 4, 2024
Postmodernism is “skepticism toward metanarratives.”[1] In an interview with clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson, Stephen Hicks attributed this perspective to the French philosopher Jean-François Lyotard. I recall a seminary professor once describing a metanarrative as a “grand and expansive account of truth and meaning,” something postmodernism rejects. In Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to…
By: Russell Chun on March 3, 2024
ܙܒܢܐ ܡܬܚܠܦܢܐ، ܣܟܢܐ ܕܟܠ ܓܒܪܐ” (zevna methhalphana, sekana dkul gavra) Aramaic, Shifting Sands, Everyman’s Peril Introduction – Shifting sands, Everyman’s peril Part 1 Post Modern Impact on Christianity Part 2 Focus on Chapter 6 Epilogue – Not a modernist or a post-modernist. Introduction Post modernism is not a topic that excites “everyman.”[1] To even begin…
By: Jonita Fair-Payton on March 2, 2024
“Race did not give birth to racism. Racism gave birth to race.”[1] I was apprehensive about this week’s reading. The idea of discussing race with my cohort was not one that I was looking forward to. I have had many discussions over the years about race, and they almost always end with someone triggered or…
By: Jana Dluehosh on March 2, 2024
Sankofa is an African word from the Akan tribe in Ghana. The literal translation of the word and the symbol is “it is not taboo to fetch what is at risk of being left behind.” The word is derived from the words: SAN (return) KO (go) FA (look, seek and take)[1] In my early career, at North Park University in Chicago, IL,…
