Showing posts with label Practical Wisdom. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Practical Wisdom. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 9, 2024

Another Attempt At Exorcising Langdell's Tenacious Ghost

My latest attempt at exorcising C.C. Langdell's tenacious ghost is now in print: "Langdell & the Eclipse of Character." I've been trying to dispel this specter for years. https://lawreview.law.pitt.edu/ojs/lawreview/article/view/1001/643


Excerpt from Conclusion: "I will not conclude by calling Langdell a confidence man. I will, however, conclude with a few words from Melville’s THE CONFIDENCE MAN. As Melville reminds us: the false cannot plausibly overclaim perfection. For example, ‘[T]he best false teeth are those made with at least two or three blemishes, the more to look like life.’ A legal formalism which claims mathematical certainty (and which further denies the importance of the slings and arrows of substantial law practice for the law professor) does not even pretend to look like life. Were Langdellianism a con, it could therefore not be a plausible one, and those duped by it should be all the more ashamed . . . ."


Wednesday, May 29, 2019

La Bruyère on Human Inconstancy

It's a shame so many Anglophones don't read or even know of La Bruyère.  Here's some food for thought from his clever pen (as translated by Jean Stewart):  "After making a close and mature study of men, and recognizing the wrongness of their thoughts, their feelings, their tastes and affections, one is forced to admit that they have less to lose by inconstancy than by persistence."