Author: Huenemann

If the post below, about Sotomayor, whets your appetite for understanding how judges make decisions, you may want to watch this lecture by Brian Leiter. He provides a useful introduction to a couple of philosophies of judging — Ronald Dworkin’s and legal realism. It’s very informative.

No comment.

I’ve never been able to get much into E. M. Cioran’s aphorisms, though it seems like I should. Here’s a review of a book about him, with this concluding paragraph:

To read Cioran is to be reminded of another strain in Western culture, one that rejects the progressive ethic of political compromise and social improvement. It is customary, now, to refer to such eruptive and wild-hearted modes of thought, particularly where they coexist with a penetrating intellect, acute criticisms of the liberal political order, and high talent for prose, as “dangerous” – to demean with this label anything touched by the slightest breath of anti-modern sentiment. Cioran’s work belongs to the category of the “dangerous”. And the word applies as both a term of opprobrium and a term of the very highest praise: After all, if philosophy is not dangerous, what purpose can it have?

Pretty funny.

Advisory: naughty words used (aplenty).

There is a good YouTube interview with John Perry, a philosopher at Stanford who has been hugely influential in thinking about personal identity. What’s especially valuable is the personality Perry shows — patience, wisdom, and modesty. Worth a look.