No irony

"Nothing says 'shirt' like a shirt that says 'shirt'."
 

Three's company

Whoo-hoo! The gang's all here now. I told all y'all that they were going to show up.
 

For the Straussians among you, et al.

Cross posted at Political Arguments.

The beloved Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has a new essay on The Influence of Islamic Thought on Maimonides.

A visionary thinker and prolific author, Moses Maimonides (1135-1204) writes on topics ranging from physics to Jewish Law, theology to politics, psychology to Biblical exegesis, and from philosophy to medicine. Rich and complex in their own right, Maimonides' writings must, however, be understood within their 12th-13th century Spanish Islamicate context, revealing, as they do, the imprint of earlier Greek and Islamic philosophical traditions. In this entry, we will uncover some of the philosophical underpinnings of Maimonides' work in an effort to best understand his ideas.

I know that this is of interest to many, not only those who read in Rambam's œuvre the tension between Athens and Jerusalem. So read, enjoy, and discuss amongst yourselves.

I, for one, remain contentedly post-Hobbesian.
 

A world shaped by fear

Cross posted at Political Arguments.

The New York Times appraises the new "Freedom Tower" in Manhattan:

The darkness at ground zero just got a little darker. If there are people still clinging to the expectation that the Freedom Tower will become a monument to the highest American ideals, the current design should finally shake them out of that delusion. Somber, oppressive and clumsily conceived, the project suggests a monument to a society that has turned its back on any notion of cultural openness. It is exactly the kind of nightmare that government officials repeatedly asserted would never happen here: an impregnable tower braced against the outside world.

 

Comments comments

Cross posted at Political Arguments.

There's some nasty diatribing in the comments section of one of my previous posts. Most of it is mine. Who would have thunk that a throwaway line in a throwaway post would stir up trouble?

¶ Well, when the line is "I hope that we culture-war liberals are finally getting it" I can see the potential for acrimony.
 

New kids on the block

Cross posted at Political Arguments.

Via Michael Green (17 June 2005; Green doesn't permalink), I notice that a number of Chicago folks started to blog philosophical. Eric Schliesser is doing movie blogging at Nesciocinema; a few others have taken up a home at Original Positions, a name that I wholeheartedly approve of.

And though Original Positions I found this charming Guardian article calling the BBC "Favorite Philosopher" poll for Immanuel Kant.

No, the problem with In Our Time's vote is not the concept of a poll as such, but the pointlessness of this one. The reason is simple: there is such a wide consensus over who is the greatest philosopher that it is hardly worth asking the question. True, a case can be made for the giants of ancient Greece, Aristotle and Plato, not least because of their vital role as the founders of philosophy. But on every other measure the undefeated heavyweight philosophy champion of the world is Immanuel Kant. Few professional philosophers would seriously quibble with Kant's number one status - although being philosophers, no doubt several would, especially Britain's collection of David Hume fans.

One could argue that the poll doesn't ask readers to list the most important, insightful or influential philosopher—it doesn't track philosophical merit—but rather who their favorite is.

The choice of Kant is obvious today, especially now that the acclain for his moral philosophy has risen to the previous renown of his epistemology. And I won?t bite my tongue about this: we have John Rawls to thank for that. But except for a few brave or foolhardy souls out there, I don't think that many people would think of the saddler's son from Köningsberg as an easy or even enjoyable read. Many will be drawn to Russell's witticisms, Nietzsche's provocations, Mill's clarity. Others will cast a nostalgic vote for antiquity (plato) or cloak themselves in Continental obscurity (Heidegger).

Manelchen Kant, of course, is without a doubt the best of them all. But there's no need to shed tears if he loses, or tear our clothes and despair about the death of the transcendental ideal. The "contest" is a pageant, not a struggle for Truth.
 

Summer reading

Cross posted at Political Arguments.

I'll be taking a blogging break next week to attend the IHS Social Change Workshop for Graduate Students. While I'm gone, I thought I'd leave some reading material for the half dozen readers of this blog.

John Nichols and Joel Rogers have several articles on the embattled liberal "urban archipelago" in the June 20 issue of The Nation.

• "Urban Archipelago"


• "Progressive City Leaders"


• "Cities: The Vital Core"

I hope that we culture-war liberals are finally getting it: the urban rural divide is important and pervasive, and it promises to define the cultural landscape for the near future. (UPDATE: link to previous post added.)

Russell Arben Fox, at In Medias Res has a few posts on theologian John Milbank. I still have to read them all, but I have followed an interesting link to an essay on the "new medievalism" that seems to be coming about as the attributes of state sovereignty become disaggregated and diffuse. Most of the literature deals with the effect of the diffusion of sovereignty on International relations, but I suspect that the effect on the domestic level are equally strong.

The neglected theoretical tradition of political pluralism, which is the subject of my dissertation, has garnered a lot of attention lately. Its central premise is that the state doesn't have a monopoly of sovereignty, but that sovereignty is shared by associations and intermediary groups.

Finally, I can't leave out the readings for the Social Change Workshop, available here.

Enjoy!
 

The Helvetica Meditations

Typographica has some good images of uses and misuses of that most ubiquitous typeface: Helvetica. More can be found in a little book called Helvetica: Homage to a Typeface found here and reviewed there. I got it at Powell's; it's a gem.

Helvetica was desiged by Max Miedinger in 1956. it quickly became synonimous with the no-nonsense Swiss school of graphic design. In 1983, Linotype Design Studio published an updated version called Neue Helvetica, which retains all the beautiful form and proportion of the original. It can be obtained here for the low sum of $500 (excluding VAT).
 

Trouble on the East Hill?

Cross posted at Political Arguments.

Via Crooked Timber, it seems that the president of my alma mater has resigned in less than clear circumstances.

Lehman became president after I'd left Cornell; I never met him nor followed his short tenure there. Most of my years on the East Hill were dominated by Frank H.T. Rhodes, who'd been president since 1977. My last year saw the beginning of Hunter Rawlings' tenure.

Lehman's career is impressive. He clerked for Justice John Paul Stevens in the Supreme Court, wrote the brief that won Edwards v. Aguillard, the first case to ban creation "science" from genuine science classrooms, and was dean of the University of Michigan's Law School before coming to Ithaca. He is also the first Cornell alumn to serve as President.

If his leaving is in fact due to hand wringing by the Board of Trustees, it will be another argument for returning administrative control of universities to where it used to reside, and where it belongs still: in the hands of the faculty.
 

New encyclopedia of legal theory

Cross posted at Political Arguments.

Via Brian Leiter, we note that there is a new encyclopedia on the block: the Encyclopaedia of Jurisprudence, Legal Theory and Philosophy of Law, brought about by the International Association for Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy (IVR).

Most of the entries are promised—not yet delivered—and there is no way to tell which are actually up. As a public service, I've linked to the available entries below (after the jump).

more...

• Manuel Atienza, "Argumentation in the law"


• Beata Polanowska-Sygulska, "Isaiah Berlin"


• Burton Leiser, "Capital Punishment"


• Sean Coyle, "Common Law"


• Bruce Anderson, "Context of discovery, context of decision and context of justification in the law"


• Chaim Gans, "Value-based disobedience"


• Joan Mesquida Sampol, "Duty - moral and political"


• Janneke Gerards, "Equality as legal argument"


• Juha Räikkä, "Reflective equilibrium"


• Kenneth Winston, "Lon L. Fuller"


• Giovanni Sartor, "Fundamental legal concepts"


• Wojciech Zaluski, "Game theory in jurisprudence"


• Arend Soeteman, "Legal gaps"


• Arend Soeteman, "Hugo Grotius"


• Roger Shiner, "Harm"


• Patricia Mindus, "Axel Hägerström"


• Jerzy Stelmach, "Hermeneutical Legal Theory"


• Wibren van der Burg, "Ideals in law"


• Lorenz Kähler, "Indeterminacy in the law"


• Massimo La Torre, "Institutionalist theories of law"


• Bartosz Brozek, "Interpretation of law"


• Chibli Mallat, "Islamic legal theory"


• Jaap Hage, "Jörgensen's dilemma"


• Augusto Cerri, "Judicial review of statutes"


• Stefano Bertea, "The concept of law"


• Eduardo Rivera López, "Law and Bioethics"


• Jaap Hage, "Law and Defeasability"


• Richard Posner, "Law and Economics - main entry"


• Richard Posner, "Law and Economics - contracts"


• Richard Posner, "Law and Economics - ethics, economics, and adjudication"


• Jeanne Gaakeer, "Law and Literature"


• Juha Raitio, "Legal certainty"


• Kenneth Himma, "Legal positivism"


• Sebastián Urbina, "Legal positivism - critical assessment"


• Torben Spaak, "The concept of legal competence"


• Brian Bix, "Legal theory: types and purposes"


• Horatio Spector, "Liberty"


• Ota Weinberger, "Logic and Law"


• Christopher B. Gray, "Same sex marriage"


• Pauline Westerman, "Natural law"


• Jan Sieckmann, "Objectivity of law"


• Jan Sieckmann, "Objectivity of legal science"


• Luc Wintgens, "Chaim Perelman"


• Francesco Viola, "Positive Law and Natural Law"


• Eveline Feteris, "Practical argumentation in the justification of judicial decisions"


• Roger Shiner, "Precedent"


• Juan Ruiz Manero, "Rules and principles"


• Rex Martin, "Conceptions of Rights in Philosophy"


• James Nickel, "Human rights and globalization"


• David Lyons, "Legal and Moral Rights"


• Guido Pincione, "Rule of law - philosophical perspectives"


• Ernest Weirib, "Tort law as corrective justice"


• Ota Weinberger, "Valid law reconsidered"

 

Wacko Jacko cleared

Michael Jackson gets off scott free. Not guilty accross the board. Let's hope he's so happy that he goes into Neverland and never comes out again.
 

Watching the watchers

Cross posted at Political Arguments.

Alex Tabarrok has started a good thread on the privatization of prisons. The comments section is especially interesting. One commenter writes:

I spent a few years as a civil rights investigator in a major U.S. city that had two jails - one public and one private. The inmate populations were the same, and the guards were drawn from the same labor pool.

Investigating alleged abuse at the private facility was much harder. The guards felt a strong economic motive to cover up their actions (even if their actions were not criminal) - the loss of their company stock, or the decline in its value. The stock price of the private company was written every morning on a white board in the jail lobby, and it -rather than prison management- became the focus of the institution. Also, the private company had trouble finding guards, so it drew from the ranks of the public system, often hiring the fired, or the worst performers. On the other hand, their cover-ups were much more efficient than the ones at the public jail.

I see how it's supposed to work, but in my experience, outsourcing such an essential government function is both wrong on a theoretical level and dysfunctional in practice. I worry even more about the outsourcing of law enforcement (speed cameras, red light cameras, and private patrols are current examples).

Power always corrupts anyway. Why provide economic incentives on top of that?

I spent a year as a clerk in a public interest lawfirm that monitored the Puerto Rico jail system. The complaints about abuses in the "privatized" prisons were considerably higher and more severe than those at the public ones. I seem to recall that inmate-on-inmate violencewas higher at government run facilities, but these housed the most dangerous criminals, so the lines of causation may have been muddled.
 

Silence

I fried my monitor yesterday morning. Until I get a new one, there's no blog for me.

Morning shows

Pandagon reports that "Good Morning America is catching up with Today in the ratings." I rely on these shows to provide background banter while M.— and I get ready in the morning (before either of us is awake enough to attempt conversation). My preference is clear: anything, anything, is better than Katie Couric. And Matt Lauer and Al Roker and just make it worse.

Now I learn that "conservatives really, really hate Katie Couric," which is usually enough to warm my feelings towards someone, but I don't feel a twinge. I can't stand the woman. She has the sensibility of a block of concrete and is just as dense. The only person worth watching on Today is Ann Curry, the news anchor.

The problem is that, lately, I've come to the realization that GMA's Diane Sawyer is a pinhead. Or she plays one on TV which, for present purposes, is all the same. And for the record: I've never held Diane's stint in the Nixon White House against her. My opinion of her has fallen strictly on her merits. And on the whiny tone of her voice.

It's the GMA supporting cast that saves the show. Charlie Gibson is a sweet, sweet man, and he has the occasional decency to express genuine indignation about the some of the inane citizens of this country that he is asked to interview. Robin Roberts is just awesome; it can't be a coincidence that, like Ann Curry, she's also in charge of the "3 minutes of news sandwiched between 57-minute buffers of parenting advice and segments on the best instant coffees."
 

Imaginary commerce

Cross posted at Political Arguments.

Forget Volokh and SCOTUSBlog; we have Fafnir from Fafblog! (Via The Fly Bottle):

Commerce doesn't HAVE to be real commerce. We can bring it to life with the power of imagination!

This snowman is not commerce. But we can make him commerce with this ol top hat we found... and if we just believe! Now all the children of the world clap your hands an say together now: 'I do believe in an expanded Commerce Clause, I do believe in an expanded Commerce Clause!'

 

Funny?

Cross posted at Political Arguments.

Andrew Sullivan tells A Very Catholic Joke:

Leonardo Boff, Hans Kung and Benedict XVI all die on the same day. They arrive at the Pearly Gates and St Peter welcomes them and says that Jesus wants to see each of them individually. Boff is first to go in to see Jesus. After half an hour, Boff comes out, shaking his head, and muttering, 'How could I have been so wrong?' Kung is next. Same deal. After a while, Kung too emerges, head in hands: 'How could I have been so wrong?' Benedict is next. After half an hour, Jesus himself comes out and groans: 'How can I have been so wrong?'

Leonardo Boff is considered the initiator and most eloquent defender of liberation theology. He was silenced by the Vatican in 1985 and again in 1992 for suggesting that growing temporal power and collusion with political and economic elites were harming the Church's spiritual mission.

Hans Küng is arguably the brightest and most celebrated Roman Catholic theologian alive today. Yet, in 1971, he was stripped of his right to teach theology for suggesting that papal infalibility was not a divine institution, but an invention of the First Vatican Council. He now presides over the Global Ethic Foundation.

Benedict XVI is the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger who, as head of the Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition Doctrine of the Faith, silenced Boff and Küng.
 

Screw Dr. Diblin

The best line of the day, from the pen (keyboard?) of John Holbo:

Did the Victorians ever do wacky things like send their pages to the binder and say: screw Dr. Diblin! make my shelf of patristic theology look like a Tie Fighter?

And the post has the double distinction of being about bookbinding, which is close enough to typography to be topical.
 

Inside edition

Cross posted at Political Arguments.

Henry Farrell has some very useful advice on submitting papeers to academic conferences (specifically APSA), and I want to keep it close at hand.

This is more a reminder to myself than a notice to the world. After all, anyone reading this blog will most likely have read everything in Crooked Timber before hand. But if you haven't, go have a look. We'll all be better for it.
 

Boudoir confessions

Cross posted at Political Arguments.

Sometimes one finds oneself with strange bedfellows. And if, as the rays of morning sun break through the curtains, I were to turn my sleepy head and fix my eyes on this less-than-comely figure, I fear that I would at once lose all faith in my convictions.

That said, I must confess to the resemblance of my intuitions about the French vote on the European constitution to those of Mr. William F. Buckley Jr.:

What haunted the vision, in recent years, were two demographic ice floes. The first, the diminution of the birthrate in native populations; the second, the perception that genuine freedom had to include the freedom to migrate. If simultaneously (to take only a single example), Swedes diminish in numbers by their negative birthrate, and Turks are free to immigrate to Sweden, the cultural contours of existing society will be gradually reshaped.

Such developments the elite can, with a measure of calm, live with, but they generate apprehension in others, men and women who have looked to their governments to protect their special interests. We know that 70 percent of French farmers voted no on the new constitution. Now, French farmers are the most coddled economic tribe in the entire world, so why should they invite any change in the laws they live under? Public and blue collar workers, and of course the unemployed, voted no on the constitution. Their leverage on the immediate future of France, which is the future they are concerned with, depends on exertions within a political framework they are familiar with. If the eggheads in Paris want a great visionary constitution in the place of what they have got now, let them go for it, but don't let them hallucinate that this has the backing of the French working man.

I do believe (and this, I hope, will rescue me from a rude awakening) that the European states have some responsibility to ease the transition of their citizenry from a more to a less regulated economy. That these farmers and working men will likely have their life prospects increased in the long run by a more efficient economy and a greater access to domestic, regional, and foreign markets does not erase the suffering that an unbuffered transition.
 

Monkey see, monkey blog

Cross posted at Political Arguments.

Since I haven't yet read the unfortunate Gonzalez v. Raich opinion, and am still taking in the comments at SCOTUSBlog and Volokh, I'll hold off on my editorializing.

In the meantime, enjoy last Saturday's Speed Bump cartoon (from the Chicago Tribune).


 

Mercantilism in the 21st century

Cross posted at Political Arguments.

This is a lesson on how a state monopolies is born. And from that darling of the Right, Sen. Rick "man on dog" Santorum, no less. (Via the New York Times):

Far from just talking about the weather, Senator Rick Santorum is doing something dank and cloudy about it: he is proposing to squelch the National Weather Service's growing role in the information age.

The Weather Service provides a priceless flow of nonstop measurements and readings that commercial forecasting companies package and sell to the public. Lately, the Weather Service itself has been trying to make all its information more accessible to anyone who wants it. But Mr. Santorum, the No. 3 Republican in the Senate, has introduced legislation that would basically require the service to give much of its data only to those private weather forecasting companies. A dozen of those businesses happen to be located in Mr. Santorum's home state, Pennsylvania.

"It's not an easy prospect for a business to attract advertisers, subscribers or investors when the government is providing similar products for free," the senator said, somehow overlooking that taxpayers finance this round-the-clock national resource in the first place.

Senator Santorum, who is running for re-election, is vowing to protect hundreds of Pennsylvania weather company jobs. But timing is everything in both politics and weather, and his case was not helped by the fact that two days before the bill was introduced, his campaign accepted a $2,000 donation from one of the weather companies lobbying for protection. This was dismissed by the senator's supporters as a small-beer coincidence in a $25 million race. But as they say on the weather segment, it's a lingering disturbance on the Doppler.

This must be what Clint Bollick meant when he said that "there is a world of difference between an organization that is pro-business and an organization that is pro-free enterprise." Can we say "corporate welfare," people?
 

I can't get enough

Cross posted at Political Arguments.

Margo Howard—Dear Prudence of Slate—is my favorite advice columnist. But she really dropped the ball on this.

Dear Prudence,
Never before a user of these kinds of columns, I am irresistibly curious to see what you might think of the following: My wife and I are hoping to have a baby and have debated, at some length, the choice of first names. I've conceded/compromised on possible choices and thought that was the end of it. Now, she wants to talk about the last name. I consider myself very open-minded and am willing to discuss a hyphenation. (I find them dated, clunky, and pretentious, but I only have one vote.) She is insisting on her last name: no hyphenation. In theory, I can appreciate that the choice of the man's last name is, tradition aside, somewhat arbitrary. I've joked about selecting a new last name; an amalgam, or anagram perhaps. I have been assuming that as that future day approaches, the issue would disappear and the children would have my last name. But testing the waters tells me that her resolve is firm. In 100 years, maybe the convention will include choosing your own last name, but for the coming year or two, I doubt it. Any advice?

--Queryingly yours, Nameless in New York

Dear Quer,

Is your wife a militant feminist? Or perhaps your surname is the same as one of the major crime families? Prudie only knows of one instance where the last name on the birth certificate was the mother's: There were no males to carry on the name, and the name was that of a major corporation. Another instance would be if the parents weren't married and it was the mother's choice to use her own name (which, of course was her father's, but onward). What Prudie would like to know about your wife's "resolve" is the thinking behind it. You might want to get into this subject a little deeper, because there's a slim chance that the baby's name may be the least of your problems.

--Prudie, portentously

This elicited some pretty pissed off responses. Go Slate readers!
 

Pompe et circonstance

Congratulations to all graduating University of Chicago student bloggers who are done with classes and—after finals—will go out into the World. Assuming, arguendo, that going out there a reason for good cheer?

A special "bon courage" and "mazel tov" to Ms. Phoebe Maltz, whom I've never met, but who's blog it was a pleasure to discover this year. I hope she keeps it going post-Chicago.