The Center is pleased to announce a new course on the Political Philosophy of the American Revolutionary Era, which will be offered for the first time during the spring 2009 semester. The course will be taught by Professor Jules Gleicher and will cover the era of the American Founding (1776-1800), perhaps the most philosophic period in our history. The course will examine texts by John Locke, Baron Montesquieu, Thomas Paine, the Declaration of Independence, and the writings of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. See the Political Philosophy of the American Revolutionary Era course flyer (PDF) and view Professor Gleicher’s brief video introduction to the course below. For information on course dates and times please visit Rockford College’s IQ.Web.

This week the Center for Ethics and Entrepreneurship is proud to welcome its guest speaker for the Spring Semester, Dr. Eric Mack. Dr. Mack (Ph.D., University of Rochester) is professor of philosophy at Tulane University and a faculty member of Tulane’s Murphy Institute of Political Economy. He has written extensively on the philosophical foundations of individual rights, property rights, markets, and toleration. He is currently working on a book on the political philosophy of John Locke.

Professor Mack will be speaking Friday, April 25th, at 3:00 pm in Scarborough 4, in connection with Professor Klein’s Business and Economic Ethics course. He will give a talk on the political philosopher Robert Nozick’s theory of entitlement, and the propensity of liberty to upset social patterns. Professor Mack’s talk is open to anyone and everyone interested.

Please contact us if you have any questions or would like more information.

Philosophy professor Stephen Hicks gave two invited talks this month. On November 13th, he spoke at the University of Texas, Austin, on the impact of Galileo Galilei and John Locke; the title of his talk was “Philosophy and the Early Modern Revolution in Religion.” On November 15th, he spoke at Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia on the topic of the fiftieth anniversary of Ayn Rand’s philosophical novel, Atlas Shrugged; the theme of the conference was “The Continuing Relevance of Atlas Shrugged.”