Alani Golanski
@alanigolanski.bsky.social
Philosophy @ Graduate Center CUNY, James Kent Scholar @ ColumbiaLaw, Ghanaian drumming @ CalArts -- Partner/Director @ Weitz & Luxenberg
Amartya Sen credited, among others, John Stuart Mill, John Rawls, Jürgen Habermas, Ronald Dworkin, and Seyla Benhabib, for harnessing the notion of public reasoning in service of a view of democracy broadened from that of public balloting toward one of "government by discussion."
November 15, 2025 at 5:29 PM
Amartya Sen credited, among others, John Stuart Mill, John Rawls, Jürgen Habermas, Ronald Dworkin, and Seyla Benhabib, for harnessing the notion of public reasoning in service of a view of democracy broadened from that of public balloting toward one of "government by discussion."
At least by HLA Hart's lights, Ronald Dworkin and Hans Kelsen held oddly similar views on the position of judges, for RD legal rights being those held against judges to the correct legal decision, for HK laws being commands made on judges and directing that they impose sanctions.
November 14, 2025 at 12:50 PM
At least by HLA Hart's lights, Ronald Dworkin and Hans Kelsen held oddly similar views on the position of judges, for RD legal rights being those held against judges to the correct legal decision, for HK laws being commands made on judges and directing that they impose sanctions.
📸 Gauri Gill -- Mira Nair et fils Zohran
November 13, 2025 at 8:27 PM
📸 Gauri Gill -- Mira Nair et fils Zohran
Andrei Marmor's critique of anti-positivist logic:
1) some facts about legal validity are moral;
2) moral facts aren't fully grounded in beliefs;
3) so mistaken moral beliefs are possible;
4) so comprehensive errors about legal validity are possible,
2 & 3 are plausible, but not 4.
1) some facts about legal validity are moral;
2) moral facts aren't fully grounded in beliefs;
3) so mistaken moral beliefs are possible;
4) so comprehensive errors about legal validity are possible,
2 & 3 are plausible, but not 4.
November 13, 2025 at 5:56 PM
Andrei Marmor's critique of anti-positivist logic:
1) some facts about legal validity are moral;
2) moral facts aren't fully grounded in beliefs;
3) so mistaken moral beliefs are possible;
4) so comprehensive errors about legal validity are possible,
2 & 3 are plausible, but not 4.
1) some facts about legal validity are moral;
2) moral facts aren't fully grounded in beliefs;
3) so mistaken moral beliefs are possible;
4) so comprehensive errors about legal validity are possible,
2 & 3 are plausible, but not 4.
Ronald Dworkin's admittedly stripped-down construal of Paul Grice's view: Speaker's meaning is determined by what the speaker expects the hearer to understand the speaker as intending him to understand.
November 12, 2025 at 7:19 PM
Ronald Dworkin's admittedly stripped-down construal of Paul Grice's view: Speaker's meaning is determined by what the speaker expects the hearer to understand the speaker as intending him to understand.
This changes everything
November 12, 2025 at 3:19 PM
This changes everything
I think that analytic philosophy was a defence to fascism's claims. It punctured claims that the state was really enforcing the real will of its citizens, and therefore they must obey, and that they are obeying themselves.
-- HLA Hart, commenting on his reply to Bodenheimer
-- HLA Hart, commenting on his reply to Bodenheimer
November 11, 2025 at 4:01 PM
I think that analytic philosophy was a defence to fascism's claims. It punctured claims that the state was really enforcing the real will of its citizens, and therefore they must obey, and that they are obeying themselves.
-- HLA Hart, commenting on his reply to Bodenheimer
-- HLA Hart, commenting on his reply to Bodenheimer
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.
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.
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.
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