Alani Golanski
@alanigolanski.bsky.social
Philosophy @ Graduate Center CUNY, James Kent Scholar @ ColumbiaLaw, Ghanaian drumming @ CalArts -- Partner/Director @ Weitz & Luxenberg
Pinned
Alani Golanski
@alanigolanski.bsky.social
· Dec 29
WHY THE RULE OF LAW PROJECT DEMANDS EXTRALEGAL CHANGE | Published in Capital University Law Review
By Alani Golanski. This article explores whether the rule of law project can evaluate conditions in society distinct from attributes of the legal system or sources rooted in power.
www.capitallawreview.org
By valuing capabilities to assert rights and defenses, coordinate opposition to arbitrary authority, and participate in democratic governance, the rule of law unexpectedly & subversively demands social & economic conditions that foster those capabilities.
www.capitallawreview.org/article/1278...
www.capitallawreview.org/article/1278...
One of the central problems of late-capitalist societies lies in their viewing public life from a legalistic-juridical perspective alone, while the vision of a community of needs and solidarity is ignored and rendered irrelevant.
-- Seyla Benhabib
-- Seyla Benhabib
November 10, 2025 at 7:58 PM
One of the central problems of late-capitalist societies lies in their viewing public life from a legalistic-juridical perspective alone, while the vision of a community of needs and solidarity is ignored and rendered irrelevant.
-- Seyla Benhabib
-- Seyla Benhabib
A gem that might have escaped notice
November 10, 2025 at 7:46 PM
A gem that might have escaped notice
The eminent political theorist Norberto Bobbio penned the preface for these early 1990s memoirs, each by self-taught writers: Macagno, a Turin mechanic and Resistance fighter; Malgaroli, retired worker who'd been confined in the Mauthausen concentration camp; Ruju, Sardinian-born partisan.
November 10, 2025 at 7:34 PM
The eminent political theorist Norberto Bobbio penned the preface for these early 1990s memoirs, each by self-taught writers: Macagno, a Turin mechanic and Resistance fighter; Malgaroli, retired worker who'd been confined in the Mauthausen concentration camp; Ruju, Sardinian-born partisan.
Informative global labor history volume (2017), the IWW (Wobblies) promoted pro-worker ideals that found purchase internationally, eventually gaining members in at least twenty countries on six continents.
November 10, 2025 at 5:21 PM
Informative global labor history volume (2017), the IWW (Wobblies) promoted pro-worker ideals that found purchase internationally, eventually gaining members in at least twenty countries on six continents.
Reposted by Alani Golanski
My new essay on the New Right and its relationship to historical fascism has been published at the Ideas Letter @lbenardo.bsky.social www.theideasletter.org/essay/the-ge...
Misunderstood Radicals - The Ideas Letter
Adam Knowles maps how the Swiss philosopher Armin Mohler—a post-WWII apologist of fascism and self-styled theorist of the “Conservative Revolution”—helped launder fascist-adjacent thinkers into respec...
www.theideasletter.org
November 4, 2025 at 12:04 PM
My new essay on the New Right and its relationship to historical fascism has been published at the Ideas Letter @lbenardo.bsky.social www.theideasletter.org/essay/the-ge...
When lawyers are asked to define what they do, they string together long sentences in which they unfailingly use the adjective "legal" to qualify everything they say, without troubling to define it further, without even realizing that they are caught up in a tautology!
-- Bruno Latour
-- Bruno Latour
November 9, 2025 at 4:42 PM
When lawyers are asked to define what they do, they string together long sentences in which they unfailingly use the adjective "legal" to qualify everything they say, without troubling to define it further, without even realizing that they are caught up in a tautology!
-- Bruno Latour
-- Bruno Latour
Thomas Hobbes didn't tolerate a profession or position in an institution, which would have exercised authority over his intellect, so instead chose the life of a multi-task servant within aristocratic households, with freedom to read, write, travel.
November 8, 2025 at 6:26 PM
Thomas Hobbes didn't tolerate a profession or position in an institution, which would have exercised authority over his intellect, so instead chose the life of a multi-task servant within aristocratic households, with freedom to read, write, travel.
It might seem optimistic perspectives that hope for far-reaching transformations of human life are more epistemically chancy than pessimistic ones. But, Charles Taylor wrote, pessimism tragically errs when it aborts positive change from the beginning by refusal to believe in it.
November 8, 2025 at 5:29 PM
It might seem optimistic perspectives that hope for far-reaching transformations of human life are more epistemically chancy than pessimistic ones. But, Charles Taylor wrote, pessimism tragically errs when it aborts positive change from the beginning by refusal to believe in it.
In the aftermath of the 1970 Kent State shooting, "his conservative family and neighbors pressured him to say nothing critical about the guardsmen who had shot him and 12 others."
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/07/u...
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/07/u...
John Cleary, Wounded in Kent State Shooting, Dies at 74
www.nytimes.com
November 8, 2025 at 4:07 PM
In the aftermath of the 1970 Kent State shooting, "his conservative family and neighbors pressured him to say nothing critical about the guardsmen who had shot him and 12 others."
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/07/u...
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/07/u...
Jules Coleman: It's a conceptual truth about law that officials must coordinate their behavior w/ one another..
Ronald Dworkin: Some American judges hope to reverse decades of constitutional law, while others firmly oppose. Judges are more divided than united by their ambitions.
Ronald Dworkin: Some American judges hope to reverse decades of constitutional law, while others firmly oppose. Judges are more divided than united by their ambitions.
November 7, 2025 at 8:03 PM
Jules Coleman: It's a conceptual truth about law that officials must coordinate their behavior w/ one another..
Ronald Dworkin: Some American judges hope to reverse decades of constitutional law, while others firmly oppose. Judges are more divided than united by their ambitions.
Ronald Dworkin: Some American judges hope to reverse decades of constitutional law, while others firmly oppose. Judges are more divided than united by their ambitions.
When the Voice said goodbye to Lindsay's progressivism 1973
November 7, 2025 at 2:28 PM
When the Voice said goodbye to Lindsay's progressivism 1973
HLA Hart lauded and followed von Jhering & Holmes in identifying as "the fundamental intellectual error about the nature of legal concepts" the idea that these are fixed prior to their application in concrete cases such that legal reasoning merely unfolds what's "already there."
November 7, 2025 at 3:24 AM
HLA Hart lauded and followed von Jhering & Holmes in identifying as "the fundamental intellectual error about the nature of legal concepts" the idea that these are fixed prior to their application in concrete cases such that legal reasoning merely unfolds what's "already there."
Before appearing in book format in the original English (1993), Michael Dummett's 1987 discerning lectures were published as Ursprünge der analytischen Philosophie (1988), Alle origine della filosofia analitica (1990), and Les origines de la philosophie analytique (1991).
November 6, 2025 at 7:28 PM
Before appearing in book format in the original English (1993), Michael Dummett's 1987 discerning lectures were published as Ursprünge der analytischen Philosophie (1988), Alle origine della filosofia analitica (1990), and Les origines de la philosophie analytique (1991).
Fierce Brooklyn dusk
November 5, 2025 at 11:19 PM
Fierce Brooklyn dusk
Such, I say, appears to be (David Hume's) meaning. For, as in all his writings, he is rather acute and ingenious than coherent and profound,.. evincing an utter inability to grasp his subject as a whole.
-- ouch, John Austin (1832)
-- ouch, John Austin (1832)
November 5, 2025 at 9:12 PM
Such, I say, appears to be (David Hume's) meaning. For, as in all his writings, he is rather acute and ingenious than coherent and profound,.. evincing an utter inability to grasp his subject as a whole.
-- ouch, John Austin (1832)
-- ouch, John Austin (1832)
The idea that the duty of the state is only to its citizens stems from a faulty conception of a state's purpose, which includes representing its citizens to the world, such that
the claim for refuge of those fleeing persecution should be universally recognized.
-- Michael Dummett
the claim for refuge of those fleeing persecution should be universally recognized.
-- Michael Dummett
November 5, 2025 at 8:03 PM
The idea that the duty of the state is only to its citizens stems from a faulty conception of a state's purpose, which includes representing its citizens to the world, such that
the claim for refuge of those fleeing persecution should be universally recognized.
-- Michael Dummett
the claim for refuge of those fleeing persecution should be universally recognized.
-- Michael Dummett
Found @MercerBooksNYC, Human Acts (1963) by Eric D'Arcy (1924–2005), Australian philosopher and ninth Archbishop of the Catholic Archdiocese of Hobart.
November 4, 2025 at 10:38 PM
Found @MercerBooksNYC, Human Acts (1963) by Eric D'Arcy (1924–2005), Australian philosopher and ninth Archbishop of the Catholic Archdiocese of Hobart.
Reposted by Alani Golanski
This article is one of the more wonderful things I have ever read on Plato www.bostonreview.net/articles/pla...
Plato and the Poets - Boston Review
The centuries-old debate should be settled: an intellectual world bereft of poetry is a damaged one.
www.bostonreview.net
November 4, 2025 at 6:24 PM
This article is one of the more wonderful things I have ever read on Plato www.bostonreview.net/articles/pla...
If we need to grasp intersubjective experience to appreciate the constitution of objective reality, as Husserl saw it, and if this grasping depends on Einfühlen, Verstehen, Fremdverstehen (all entailing a capability to stand in others' shoes), how secure is our objective reality?
November 4, 2025 at 6:28 PM
If we need to grasp intersubjective experience to appreciate the constitution of objective reality, as Husserl saw it, and if this grasping depends on Einfühlen, Verstehen, Fremdverstehen (all entailing a capability to stand in others' shoes), how secure is our objective reality?
Given the implicit formula by which one describes the other's politics as ideological, Clifford Geertz (1973) reminded that "the term 'ideology' has itself become thoroughly ideologized."
November 4, 2025 at 4:56 PM
Given the implicit formula by which one describes the other's politics as ideological, Clifford Geertz (1973) reminded that "the term 'ideology' has itself become thoroughly ideologized."
I had found my religion: nothing seemed more important to me than a book. I saw the library as a temple.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre
My library is an archive of longings.
-- Susan Sontag
-- Jean-Paul Sartre
My library is an archive of longings.
-- Susan Sontag
November 4, 2025 at 12:32 PM
I had found my religion: nothing seemed more important to me than a book. I saw the library as a temple.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre
My library is an archive of longings.
-- Susan Sontag
-- Jean-Paul Sartre
My library is an archive of longings.
-- Susan Sontag
"I have had two days and have got through seven out of 80 pages plus incidental forward references."
Letter 1923 from Frank Ramsey to his mother about the Tractatus
Letter 1923 from Frank Ramsey to his mother about the Tractatus
November 3, 2025 at 9:18 PM
"I have had two days and have got through seven out of 80 pages plus incidental forward references."
Letter 1923 from Frank Ramsey to his mother about the Tractatus
Letter 1923 from Frank Ramsey to his mother about the Tractatus
Reposted by Alani Golanski
THIS MOTHERFUCKER HELD A GREAT GATSBY PARTY WHILE 43 MILLION PEOPLE GO HUNGRY AND HEALTHCARE COSTS KEEP RISING.
November 1, 2025 at 4:00 PM
THIS MOTHERFUCKER HELD A GREAT GATSBY PARTY WHILE 43 MILLION PEOPLE GO HUNGRY AND HEALTHCARE COSTS KEEP RISING.
Compare Hegel (critiquing Kant's tautology that appropriating a deposit, universalized, would mean the end of deposits, presupposing immorality) with Oakeshott (on the "confusion" of conflating moral rules with directions for achieving substantive ends such as "the good").
November 2, 2025 at 7:01 PM
Compare Hegel (critiquing Kant's tautology that appropriating a deposit, universalized, would mean the end of deposits, presupposing immorality) with Oakeshott (on the "confusion" of conflating moral rules with directions for achieving substantive ends such as "the good").
Hegel's two-part essay (1802-1803) in his and Schelling's Kritisches Journal der Philosophie, includes accessible critiques of Kant and formalist thought.
November 2, 2025 at 6:29 PM
Hegel's two-part essay (1802-1803) in his and Schelling's Kritisches Journal der Philosophie, includes accessible critiques of Kant and formalist thought.