This is an invited talk on an important part of my forthcoming book, New Critical Thinking: What Wittgenstein Offered.
The Legacy of Antonin Scalia
My Reply to Dennis Coyle
My reply to Dennis Coyle's review can be found here:
https://flexibleconstitution.squarespace.com/author-replies/2012/7/18/coming-soon
Dennis Coyle's Review
Professor Dennis Coyle has offered a thoughtful and generally positive review of The Flexible Constitution. I wanted to thank him for his generous efforts. I do intend to write a short reply on two substantive points. But I am quite thankful for his effort and consideration.
Speaking on Constitution Day
At Wright State, on September 17th, I'll give a short talk touching upon key themes in three books: (1) Constitutional Disobedience, Louis Michael Seidman; (2) Framed, Sandy Levinson,and (3) The Flexible Constitution, Sean Wilson.
The American Constitution is neither old nor unwise. It's central problem lies only in the way that a certain generation of law school professors are starting to imagine it. The document wasn't considered "old" when Ronald Dworkin was king of the American legal mind. And it isn't the last 15 to 20 years of age that has finally hampered the parchment; it's the fact that American law professors have been having a very poor conversation for nearly two decades. The latent cause of all of this is the rise of originalism. Only if originalism wins does the Constitution become "too old." And one wonders if scholars like Louis Seidman and Sandy Levinson aren't silently rooting for conservative professors to forever bury the life of the Constitution into the dirt of history. For doing this would take away the inherently dynamic and flexible nature of the open-ended and undefined provisions. It would, in a manner of speaking, take away the constitutional imagination -- and in so doing, make Americans falsely think they are stuck with a document that is "old."
Where and When: http://www.wright.edu/events/constitution-day-0
Duncan Richter's Book Review
Wanted to thank Duncan Richter, a Wittgenstein scholar, for his review of my book.
http://languagegoesonholiday.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-flexible-constitution.html
Interview by The Junto
Special Thanks to Ruthann Robson
Very appreciative of this:
Long Live Ronald Dworkin
Ronald Dworkin was simply the greatest legal philosopher of our time. His philosophical acumen was far superior to his detractors. He had a beautiful mind that challenged the philosophic capacities of many American legal scholars who wasted their thoughts on lazy philosophical orientations (e.g., pragmatism, critical legal studies). Many of his critics, to this day, still can't get it. I, myself, owe a great deal of my orientation about jurisprudence to Dworkin. I'm a Wittgensteinian first, to be sure, but I found a way to make these two have an intellectual offspring. When one looks at where the serious thinking is about law, all roads travel through Dworkin's thoughts.