More on Gadamer: Josh Cherniss has some thoughtful things to say about the question I posed below: was Gadamer a Nazi? Josh thinks that

one of Gadamer’s greatest personal virtues was also a part of his greatest moral failing, and that this same double-edged quality accounts for both an attractive strength, and a worrying weakness, in his work. Gadamer seems to have suffered from an excess of indulgence, of generosity, of tolerance; he was too charitable, at the time and afterwards, to colleagues who believed and did appalling things (though not towards certain fanatical out-and-out Nazis, whom Gadamer did distinguish from their milder colleagues and condemned). It wasn’t that Gadamer refused, or was even reluctant to, pass judgment; he did. But his judgments with regard to the behaviour of German academics under the Nazis strike me as too indulgent towards others – and towards himself. It was a tough situation, and we should indeed avoid passing hasty and arrogant judgment on those faced with a very hard decision . . . Gadamer’s thought, to the very limited extent I understand it, seems to me animated by his attractive and admirable commitment to dialogue and understanding, which Wolin notes at the beginning of his review. This is worth emulating and fostering. But, as Wolin also notes (and quotes Adorno to the effect of), we are also faced with a moral imperative to avoid repeating the horrors of Nazism – and to oppose those who would seek to repeat them. To the extent that Gadamer inspires us to greater humanity, humility, tolerance and understanding, he is a worthy ally in this project; but to the extent that adopting his philosophy and method may inhibit our ability to make tough judgments and take difficult stands, he may also be a sometimes unreliable and even dubious one.

Read the rest here.

Light blogging over the next couple of weeks. I'm trying to get an artice out, and then I'll be out of town for about a week. It's that time of the year when your friends get married!

Lawrence: the Supreme Court surprised a lot of people today, I think, in using the privacy justification to strike down the Texas law against sodomy. Another decision for the casebooks. For the majority and dissenting decisions, as well as a map showing which states are affected by this decision, go here.

Affirmative action: if you're looking for a good round-up of the day's commentary, Larry Solum has compiled an excellent set of resources.

Given that so much has already been said, I've decided not to blog about the substance of the Grutter and Gratz decisions. But I will say that these are the first landmark cases to come down since I started law school. As the excitement passes, I'm looking forward to seeing how the career of these cases develops. One of my professors mentioned to me today that the first major case decided after he started law school was Miranda. It must have been something to watch the legacy of that case expand and unfold. I don't know that Grutter will have the same sort of longevity, but for those of us just entering the legal world, I'm sure it'll be a case we watch with similar interest and concern.

Blogger fodder: in about an hour, the Supreme Court is supposed to release some major opinions on affirmative action, homosexuality, and free speech (to mention only the big three). That should keep the blogosphere going for a few days . . .

Was Gadamer a Nazi? Richard Wolin seems to think he was, at least during the early years of WWII. Arts & Letters Daily is linking to a scathing review of a biography of Gadamer by Jean Grondin in which Wolin argues that Gadamer was actively complicit with the Nazi regime:

Time and again, Gadamer's own ethical transgressions are compounded by Grondin's post hoc rationalizations. "It was certainly a delicate situation to sit in for a Jewish colleague, but what was Gadamer supposed to do?" inquires Grondin plaintively—as though Gadamer's career prospects were self-evidently the major issue at stake rather than his embarrassing willingness to cooperate with a lawless and racist dictatorship. "Should he have protested?" Grondin continues. Yes, that's exactly what Gadamer should have done! For by protesting or having otherwise expressed his disapproval of this horrific regime, Gadamer would have saved the honor of philosophy as well as his own reputation. Yet for reasons Grondin never fully explains, he insists that the only option available to Gadamer at the time was the low road: "In his situation he could only think about getting along himself." Grondin seems not to understand that philosophy's distinctiveness as a vocation is that in such situations it acts on the basis of principle rather than self-interest or survival. Those who view Grondin's biography as a conte morale about how hermeneutics functions in times of duress are surely in for a major letdown.

Undoubtedly, Gadamer's greatest compromise with the Nazi regime concerns his lecture "Volk and History in Herder's Thought," presented on May 29, 1941, at the "German Institute" in occupied Paris. To appreciate the performative dimension of Gadamer's text, one must take into account that the various German Institutes were purely and simply vehicles of Nazi cultural hegemony. As such, there could be no illusions about their explicit political function: to convince wavering European elites of the legitimacy of a Nazi-dominated Europe and to convey the sense that Germany's military potency was backed by an immense cultural prowess. The Wehrmacht had done its job in the trenches. It was now time for German humanists to do their part in the battle for the hearts and minds of Europe's elites and opinion leaders.

The themes of Gadamer's lecture harmonized perfectly with the regime's ideological aims. Gadamer argued that Enlightenment rationalism had played itself out. The new era would be characterized by the ascendancy of the German Volk idea, the ideological lineage from Herder to Hitler, as it were. With Germany's blitzkrieg triumph of June 1940 (the date of the fall of France), the sun had set on Enlightenment universalism. It was now time for the reign of national particularisms, and, in this regard, Germany's claim to superiority seemed self-evident. The philosopher's job was to provide intellectual legitimation for the new geopolitical order. In keeping with this objective, Gadamer concludes the lecture with a glowing encomium to Germany's battlefield triumphs: Herder's "unpolitical intuition of . . . the fate of Germany during his time, and perhaps the fate of such political belatedness is the reason why the German concept of das Volk—in contrast to the democratic slogans of the West—proves to have the power to create a new political and social order in an altered present." After reading these lines, can there be any doubt that, in spring 1941, Gadamer made the Nazis' cause his own?

I was genuinely surprised by this review. On a spectrum of Nazi affiliation from Heidegger to Habermas, I suppose I'd always thought of Gadamer as closer to Habermas--despite Gadamer's age. Maybe Wolin is wrong about his interpretation of the events he discusses, but, if he's right, it's pretty disturbing stuff.

Not Geniuses, but damn good web-designers. Ezra Klein, Joe Rospars, and Matt Singer have opened up shop together. The blog looks terrific. Go check them out.

Weithman and public reason: Lucas Swaine (Dartmouth) reviews Paul Weithman's (Notre Dame) recently published Religion and the Obligations of Citizenship in Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews. I haven't yet had the opportunity to read Weithman's book, but I'm very much looking forward to it. His other contributions to debates about public reason are careful and precise (two special virtues in an area with so much mushiness), as well as uncommonly charitable to those with whom he disagrees. In the book's Introduction, Weithman says that he will defend the following two principles:

(5.1) Citizens of a liberal democracy may base their votes on reasons drawn from their comprehensive moral views, including their religious views, without having other reasons that are sufficient for their vote – provided they sincerely believe that their government would be justified in adopting the measures they vote for.

(5.2) Citizens of a liberal democracy may offer arguments in public political debate which depend upon reasons drawn from their comprehensive moral views, including their religious views, without making them good by appeal to other arguments – provided they believe that their government would be justified in adopting the measures they favor and are prepared to indicate what they think would justify the adoption of the measures.

In his review, Swaine worries that Weithman's "principles would permit voting or advocacy for unreasonable measures, in unreasonable ways, and on unreasonable grounds." I have similar concerns about the permissiveness of Weithman's principles, but I'm also interested in the sincerity constraint expressed in (5.1) and perhaps also in (5.2). I say "perhaps" because it's not clear that (5.2) imposes a sincerity constraint on public advocacy. Citizens may offer non-public reasons provided (i) they believe that government is justified in adopting whatever policy they advocate, and (ii) they are "prepared to indicate what they think would justify the adoption of the measures." They don't actually have to indicate what they think--they just have to be prepared to do so. Does this mean that citizens may offer any reasons they think will be persuasive in public advocacy--so long as they, personally, believe what they advocate is justified according to some adequate reason? Can they offer reasons they don't believe at all just to get other people to agree with them? I think any adequate account of the ethics of public advocacy will have to deal with this question. It'll be interesting to see what Weithman says in the book about the signficance of reasonableness and sincerity in public debate.

Bernard Williams has died. I haven't yet seen links for a memorial but will post them as soon as they are available. Here is a brief biography for Williams from the philosophy department at UC-Berkeley:

Professor Williams received the M.A. degree from Oxford University. After serving in the Royal Air Force, he held a series of academic positions in England. In 1967 has was appointed Knightbridge Professor of Philosophy at Cambridge University, and in 1979, Provost of King's College. He came to Berkeley in 1988; from 1990 to 1996 he also held the position of White's Professor of Moral Philosophy at Oxford University. Professor Williams divides his time between Berkeley and England.

He has been Fellow of the British Academy since 1971 and Foreign Honorable Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 1983. He has been awarded honorary degrees by the University of Dublin, the University of Aberdeen, Cambridge University, Harvard University, Yale University, and the University of Chicago; he was knighted in 1999.

He has served on several government committees in England, including the Royal Commission on Gambling (1976-78), and he was chairman of the Committee on Obscenity and Film Censorhip (1977-79). He was a member of the Labour Party's Commission on Social Justice (1992-94) and participated in the Independent Inquiry into the Misuse of Drugs Act (1997-2000). From 1967 through 1986 he was a member of the Board of Sadler's Wells Opera (later the English National Opera).

The photographer Sijmen Hendriks has a portrait of Williams here, and, in 1993, David Lavine drew one of those classic caricatures for Williams in the New York Review of Books. Around the publication of Truth and Truthfulness, Stuart Jeffries published a nice profile of Williams in the Guardian. It's available here.

Update: for some tributes to Williams among bloggers, see Bertram, Runnacles, Solum, and Levy. There's now an obituary in the Guardian (noted by Bertram).

The Strauss reading list: so it seems that the Strauss story isn't going away. Leo Strauss' daughter, Jenny Strauss Clay (a professor of classics at UVA) defends her father's legacy in the New York Times. Another tribute to Strauss--this one by Bret Stephens--appears in the Jerusalem Post. But the only recent contribution that I've found really valuable is today's post by Josh Cherniss, who I had a chance to meet during my recent visit to Oxford. Josh has put together a nice list of secondary reading for anyone who wants to learn more about Strauss and Straussian political philosophy.

Anonymous: now who wrote those unclaimed Rawlsian pick-up lines in Chafetz's run down of the best (postable) entries? Only a Straussian could figure it out!

Regards from Oxford: I've stopped in Oxford on the way back to the States. Not much to report, except that construction never ceases on Cornmarket Street. I've also managed to scrounge up a couple entries for OxBlog's "best political theory pick-up lines." Unfortuntely, I didn't manage to work in "colonization of the lifeworld." But, then again, we Rawlsians don't do that sort of thing . . .

Regards from Israel: I'm traveling this week, so I won't have the chance to blog very much. On the drive from from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem this afternoon, we had the strangest weather I've ever seen. I've watched ominous, green and purple skies driving through Kansas, stopped for white-outs in Colorado, waded through floods in southern Virginia, and even bunkered down for a serious hurricane in Biloxi. But today the sky was darkened with sand, with a hot wind blowing, and then it rained. When we stopped, our car was caked in mud. I've never seen it rain in Israel after Passover. But that alone might not have been so unusual. The really crazy part was that it rained in the midst of a sand-storm. Strange things are happening in this country. Is any one superstitious?

Taking Strauss (less?) Seriously: I've been following the recent flare-up about Strauss from a distance. I thought I would cobble together the major posts for people who might be interested but haven't had the time or the patience (understandably) to look for this stuff. If you're new to this debate, the recent discussion was kicked off by a spate of articles about how neoconservatives in the Bush administration have been influenced by the political philosopher Leo Strauss. There are articles by Seymour Hersch in the New Yorker, James Atlas in the New York Times, Jeet Heer in the Boston Globe, Jim Lobe in Asia Times, William Pfaff in the International Herald Tribune, and Alain Frachon and Daniel Vernet in La Mond (happily translated in the link provided). Peter Berkowitz has published an apology for Strauss in the Weekly Standard (with thanks to Arts & Letters Daily for spotting it).

Leiter v. Cherniss: In a scathing letter, Brian Leiter lambasted the New York Times for perpetuating "the mainstream media's long-standing fraudulent portrayal of Leo Strauss, and his acolytes like Allan Bloom, Francis Fukuyama, and Harry Jaffa, as serious political philosophers and scholars." Josh Cherniss (at Balliol) has replied to Leiter and others in a remarkable series of posts available (in chronological order) here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. (Whoever your supervisor is, Josh, for your sake, I hope s/he's not reading this post--unless, of course, you're planning to include a chapter about Strauss in your thesis. In which case, more power to you!)

Other bloggers: Ted Hinchman posts some valuable commentary here, here, and, on the new Diachronic Agency page, here. (Hinchman's last post also includes my favorite line of the month: "If my own head had a job opening, I don't think I'd even get an interview." Anyone who can write a line like that should automatically get an interview--even in his own head!) Chris Bertram has a measured response to all this here; following Eric Tam's lead from here; the Invisible Adjunct is here and here, and Eddie Thomas here. Lastly, I've drawn some of the links above from Daniel Drezner, who has some excellent posts here, here, and here.

For what it's worth, I think the political hype about "Leo-cons" has blown things way out of proportion. I don't have much sympathy for the Straussian project, but I do think Straussian arguments are worth discussing. This is one place where a proper journal article (or two) would probably be of more help than the blogger's rant. I'll let the Straussian experts suggest a good reading list--it would be very helpful for someone who is sympathetic to Strauss to put together a short-list. (I'm sure such lists exist, but point us in the right direction.) If you're looking for a critical essay, I'd recommend a short article by Charles Larmore originally published in the New Republic (July 3, 1989). It's reprinted in his The Morals of Modernity as "The Secret Philosophy of Leo Strauss."

Bloggered: it appears Blogger is migrating old blogs over to a new format. At the moment, I don't have access to my template to update my blogroll, etc. There are so many pages out there deserving of recognition . . .

The good life: some folks in this town must be living it. I can't believe I spent four years in England and never went to Hay-on-Wye. Maybe it's because most of the bookstores there have put their inventories on-line. At any rate, I'm planning to correct my mistake next week. I'm hoping to be in Hay for the last day of its literature festival. The sheer amount of programming for the week-long festival is incredible. (Does anyone know of anything like this is the U.S.?) Of particular interest to political theorists are talks by John Gray, Michael Lind, A.C. Grayling, Mary Warnock, and Richard Sennett, among others. If anyone's been to Hay and has a favorite book store, let me know.

Update: maybe next year in California for the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. Or maybe I'll just stay right here in Charlottesville.

Seldon v. Swift: as Chris Bertram points out, the latest issue of Prospect has an excellent exchange between Anthony Seldon and Adam Swift about the social justice of private education. For more on Swift's book How not to be a Hypocrite, see my earlier entries on "Political theory for everyone" and "Education and hypocrisy." Permalinks are bloggered, but both are archived at 3/23/2003.

The Cool Name Theory: in the social sciences, good theories are supposed to have (i) parsimony and (ii) explanatory power. So how about this: to make it into the canon of great political philsophers, your name has to be amenable to a suffix like "ism," "ist," "ian," "ite," "an," etc.

Consider: Plato(nic), Hobbes(ian), Locke(an), Hume(an), Kant(ian), Hegel(ian), Burke(an), Marx(ist/ism), Milli(an), and Rawls(ian).

There are two additional corollaries. First, the common-name corollary says that common names are fatal to cannonization. So I've got some bad news for Charles Taylor, David Miller, and Jerry/Josh Cohen. A second and related corollary says that already-taken names are also fatal. It'll be hard to break through as Marx II. Humble apologies if your last name is Smith.

Of course, having a cool name is not a sufficient condition. But you have to wonder about some could-have-beens: Sidgwick(?), Hobhouse, Oakeshott--and there's probably some bad news on the way for Ackerman, MacIntyre, and Kymlicka. On the flip side, Gaus and Strauss are looking good. The theory would probably also predict success for Raz. Razian works, right?

As I see it, there are three fairly strong objections to CNT:

First, there are good counter-examples: Aristotle isn't easy to assimilate to the theory; Tocqueville is also a challenge. Are they exceptions that prove the rule?

Second, the boundaries of the canon are obviously flexible. Does Wittgenstein count? People do say "Wittgensteinian." But that doesn't make it cool--nor does it make Wittgenstein a political philosopher. CNT can probably withstand this objection . . . but what about all those Continental philosophers? Is CNT anglo-centric? Gadamerian might pass the test. Heidegger probably not. Foucault? (I'm going to count on Russell Arben Fox to help out here--even though he's doomed on this account. I think Fox is probably taken.)

Third, although I think this formulation of the theory is somewhat original, the theory is doomed unless it takes off under its descriptive name. Because Schwartzmanian isn't going anywhere.

Philosophical lexicon: so Jack Balkin and Larry Solum have a gigantic, jurisprudential argument going back and forth. In the midst of it all, Tom Runnacles has this noteworthy comment:

The almighty battle between Professors Balkin and Solum, over the merits of the 'neo-formalist' view of judicial decision-making, proceeds apace. In his latest post, Larry is momentarily dismayed when the argument takes a turn he didn't quite anticipate:

I thought I had Balkin, but now, at the very end, he pulls a Dworkin on me. What I am supposed to do now. I could Raz Balkin, but there is no way to Raz someone in a blog. It takes way too long.

Indeed, but that's only the half of it. The real problem is that when a Razzing has been successfully carried through, the affected party may well not notice what's happened to him for some time afterwards; in fact, even then it may take him a considerable while to determine the nature of his injuries.

Folks, let's hope this fight stays clean. They're both taking some tremendous hits out there, but one can certainly say that each is showing a lot of Hart, and that this one ain't Finnis-ed yet.

If you've never seen Dworkin or Raz in action, then all of this will be something of a mystery. But that's where the Philosophical Lexicon comes in. Except that Solum and Runnacles aren't helping out the uninitiated by using the "standard" definitions. According the Lexicon, "to dwork" means: "To drawl through a well prepared talk, making it appear effortless and extemporaneous. "I bin dworkin on de lecture circuit" - old American folk song." Looks like Solum is using an alternative, unsanctioned definition. And, unfortunately, the Lexicon seems to be missing altogether a definition for "Raz". In the "Preface to the Eight Edition," Dennett extends his "apologies to all the illustrious members of the profession who deserve to be included but have so far failed to inspire a suitably pungent definition." I think with some refinement, Solum could supply the requisite one-liner. Then maybe we can move on to Hart and Finnis--since jurisprudes seem to be rather under-represented in the Philosophical Lexicon. For what it's worth, my favorite entry is:

buber, v. To struggle in a morass of one's own making. "After I defined the self as a relation that relates to itself relatingly, I bubered around for three pages." Hence buber, n. one who bubers. "When my mistake was pointed out to me, I felt like a complete buber."

There are certainly times when blogging feels like bubering. Hence my hiatus. Here's to getting back into the saddle.

Hart is out: although he was never fully "in," Hart's decided not to run. Wish I had more time to comment, but last exam is around the corner.