manwithoutqualities

Legal Philosophy as Philosophy

August 26, 2020SUSAN HAACK

Yet another deliciously entertaining paper from Susan freely accessible here.

Some of you may think that this shows that the civil-law custom of court-appointed experts has a distinct advantage over the common-law practice. And in some ways, no doubt, it does. But I’m not convinced it is better overall, and not just because the U.S. experience with court-appointed experts hasn’t been exactly a roaring success. The problem, as I see it, is that judges may not always choose experts wisely, and may become too accustomed to working with, and relying on, “their” DNA guy, or “their” epidemiology guy, etc., to maintain a critical distance when they need to.
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An example that comes immediately to my mind is a paper (on which, heaven help me, I had to serve as commentator) by Ronald Allen and Brian Leiter.

The Moviegoer: quotes (18)

August 26, 2020walker percy

Sometimes when she mentions God, it strikes me that my mother uses him as but one of the devices that come to hand in an outrageous man’s world, to be put to work like all the rest in the one enterprise she has any use for: the canny management of the shocks of life. It is a bargain struck at the very beginning in which she settled for a general belittlement of everything, the good and the bad. She is as wary of good fortune as she is immured against the bad, and sometimes I seem to catch sight of it in her eyes, this radical mistrust: an old knowledgeable gleam, as old and sly as Eve herself. Losing Duval, her favorite, confirmed her in her election of the ordinary. No more heart’s desire for her, thank you. After Duval’s death she has wanted everything colloquial and easy, even God.

new orleans philosophical literature the moviegoer Walker Percy

The Open Society and Its Complexities

August 25, 2020classical liberalism

I have been informed that Jerry Gaus has a new book to be posthumously published by OUP next year. Here he is discussing some of the book’s ideas.

classical liberalism complexity Gerald Gaus open systems

A Confederacy of Dunces: quotes (17)

August 24, 2020john kennedy toole

“Clean, hard-working, dependable, quiet type.” Good God! What kind of monster is this that they want. I am afraid that I could never work for a concern with a worldview like that.”

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a confederacy of dunces John Kennedy Toole new orleans philosophy and literature

Jerry Gaus

August 22, 2020classical liberalism

Saddened to learn of Jerry’s passing. He was such an easy going and a thoroughly decent chap and a really good philosopher to boot. Jerry was well-known to Cosmos + Taxis via the symposium on his The Tyranny of the Ideal and his participation in the symposium on Pete Boettke’s F. A. Hayek: Economics, Political Economy and Social Philosophy. There were plans for Jerry to edit a symposium on Jon Haidt’s forthcoming book but sadly this wasn’t to be. Jerry also offered me his name in support of my pulling together a couple of publishing projects that are doing exceedingly well. Obituaries: Daily Nous — Daily Wildcat.

classical liberalism Gerald Gaus Political philosophy

Zeno’s Conscience: quotes (15)

August 21, 2020Italo Svevo

With great, ominously calm severity, he replied: “I explained to you the state of our knowledge at that instant. But who can say what may happen by tomorrow, or in half an hour’s time? By keeping your father alive, I have left the door open to all possibilities.”

Then he put on his glasses, and with his fussy clerk’s mien, he added further, endless explanations about the importance that a doctor’s intervention could have in the economic destiny of a family. An extra half hour of respiration could decide the fate of an inheritance.

consciousness Italo Svevo philosophical literature Trieste Zeno's Conscience

The Moviegoer: quotes (17)

August 19, 2020The Moviegoer

Yet loves revives as we spin homewards along the coast through the early evening. Joy and sadness come by turns, I know now. Beauty and bravery make you sad, Sharon’s beauty and my aunt’s bravery, and victory breaks your heart. But life goes on and on we go, spinning along the coast in a violet light, past Howard Johnson’s and the motels and the children’s carnival. We pull into a bay and have a drink under the stars. It is not a bad thing to settle for the Little Way, not the big search for the big happiness but the sad little happiness of drinks and kisses, a good little car and a warm deep thigh.

new orleans philosophical literature the moviegoer Walker Percy