alanigolanski.bsky.social

Conceptions of Law, Ideology, and the Rule of Law -- why the rule of law project can be conducive in its moral evaluative commitments to an oppositional ideology in service of democratic agency and an ameliorative social function. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf…

Tanjier during the period of Paul Bowles, William Burroughs, Tennessee Williams, Daniel Defoe, Henri Matisse, Eugène Delacroix et al..

Kelsen believed his "pure theory" accomplished what Marx sought, the law as norm not being tantamount to the law as just, hence not guilty of ideological distortion of reality but expressive of a specific "object of cognition without any moral connotation."

One of HLA Hart's principal influences was Norberto Bobbio, who's 1950 breakout work saw law as a discourse of normative sentences issued by law-giving authorities, hence legal rules as linguistic entities. Bobbio overall doesn't appear to be widely translated into English.

It did not require much political wisdom to see that America's declaration of war with Spain was a matter of sugar and had nothing to do with humanitarian feelings, that its abuses at home showed it could not have the integrity or desire to free others abroad. -- Emma Goldman

@ArgonGruber If you know p, and you also believe you know p, do you act rationally in blocking counter-evidence from those over whom you exercise influence or power?

@alanigolanski Hmmm. That part doesn’t follow. Believing that p is known does not imply knowledge.

Saul Kripke described the "dogmatism paradox" whereby if one knows that p, then one knows that any alleged evidence against p must be misleading, hence by the dogmatist attitude one resolves either not to look at, read, &c such evidence, or if looked at to ignore such evidence ->

@DrDavidAEvans Kripke was unresolved about the dogmatist attitude, okay when the alleged evidence is of the moon's being made of cheese &c, not okay when counter-evidence is mostly reasonable

@alanigolanski Can you really know that 'P' until the alleged evidence against is verified. Knowledge is subject to falsification and it cannot stand notwithstanding this.

Jürgen Habermas (2017) distinguished participation in the democratic public sphere -- no requirement there to express convictions in a way that's accessible to differently-oriented participants -- from public officials' decisions, which ought to be reasonably accessible to all.

The top seven downloaded SSRN papers concern, respectively: 1) investment advice; 2) trading strategies; 3) generative AI teamwork; 4) using math to make money; 5) generative AI in job posting; 6) financial machine learning; 7) how AI destroys institutions.

Bertrand Russell ends this volume by lauding the habit of impersonal observation and inference divested of local and temperamental bias as much as possible, all of which hopefully engendering a lessening of fanaticism and increased capacity of sympathy and mutual understanding.

Weak, artificial beings spread corruption through the whole mass of society. The education of the rich tends to render them vain and helpless, and the unfolding mind is not strengthened by the practice of those duties which dignify the human character. -- Mary Wollstonecraft 1792

@McCormickProf @irwinlomnos What a false equivalence you make here.

When Charlie Kirk was murdered, those of us on the conservative side rightly chastised those of our political adversaries who cheered and celebrated his death. We accused them--again rightly--of shameful callousness and of polluting public discourse and coarsening social life. What President Trump does here merits the same chastisement, for the same reasons.

@TiltingatM3 It seems again you're speaking of what "he himself believes." But if you're really interested, you might like to read this 👇, wherein Taylor explicitly declaims eg that the better Christian way is to allow for "disparate itineraries" rather than a mutilating homogenization.

My questions don’t have anything to do with that as far as I can tell. 1) where does he favorably contrast theories ascribing to regimes multiple, often conflicting, organizing principles to those resting on a single, omnipotent code? This is a request for a citation. 2) how can he make this favorable contrast when presumably he himself believes in a single omnipotent code (Christianity)? There is no “ought” here. I’m asking how he reconciles the position you describe (assuming he holds it) with other of his stated positions

The Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor favorably contrasted theories ascribing to regimes multiple, often conflicting, organizing principles (eg Isaiah Berlin, Tocqueville) to those resting on "the myth of the single, omnipotent code" (eg Rawls, Dworkin).

@TiltingatM3 ? He doesn't say people ought not have beliefs

@alanigolanski Where? Doesn’t he ascribe to one master code (Christianity)?

@USW_PR_HONTata @PeteHegseth @DoW_USW_PR Refusing to be vaccinated, he became an imminent threat to his unit. In Jan 2022 the US had its highest covid surge via the Omicron variant, > 798,000 cases/day, daily cases, record-high hospital admissions. Individuals like Quiroga were rightly "involuntarily separated."

Today, our @DoW_USW_PR team is proud to share the story of another brave warrior who was negatively impacted by the COVID-19 vaccine mandate, Mario Quiroga III. Sergeant Quiroga, an F-35 Fixed-Wing Aircraft Mechanic, was involuntarily separated on January 21, 2022, after refusing to take the COVID-19 vaccine. Following the release of EO 14184, he was contacted by @USMC and worked with the Marine Corps Recruiting Command & the COVID-19 Reinstatement Cell to navigate the reinstatement process. On June 12, 2025, soon after being reinstated, he reenlisted, was promoted to Staff Sergeant & returned to active duty. His rank was backdated to April 1, 2024, and he received duty station preference & backpay. Said SSgt Quiroga, “I never wanted to leave the Marine Corps. I didn’t agree with the vaccine policy, but my commitment to serving never changed. I’m grateful for the opportunity to come back and continue my career. There’s nothing…that compares to the pride and purpose of serving alongside Marines.” Welcome back, SSgt. Semper Fi!

Observing all the "extravagant and ridiculous" things adopted and approved by common consent, Descartes extricated himself from the many errors darkening our natural intelligence and "at length resolved to make myself an object of study."

Descartes's opening para to Discourse on the Method -- we've all got good sense, it's our varied intentionality that results in disagreement "and that diversity of our opinions."

Benhabib on Habermas: “Not only was the task of the philosopher, ‘sapere aude,’ to think for oneself, but the task of critique was to think through the times in which one lived… Habermas is the heir of this tradition.” the1313.law.columbia.edu/2026/03/15/sey…