Originalism As Thin Description: An Interdisciplinary Critique

My essay was intended as a critique of originalism from the perspective of intellectual history. I pointed out that originalism lacked a rigorous empirical method for analyzing what texts meant in the past. I suppose in some sense it is flattering that Solum has devoted much of his recent article to an attack on my earlier essay. Of course, flattery aside, it would have been more useful if Solum had stated my thesis correctly. For purposes of clarity, I have juxtaposed Solum’s description of my argument with what my essay actually said. Readers will be able to judge for themselves if Solum correctly captured the original meaning of my words

Wayne A. Davis, Implicature: Intention, Convention, and Principle in the Failure of Gricean Theory

[First Paragraph] In his recent book, Implicature: Intention, Convention, and Principle in the Failure of Gricean Theory (1998), Wayne Davis argues that the Gricean approach to conversational implicature is bankrupt and offers a new approach of his own. Although I disagree with Davis both in general and in detail, I think nonetheless that the problems he raises'or close relatives of them-- are serious and important problems which should give any Gricean pause. This is an extremely worthwhile book, even for those who disagree with it

The question of freedom in Foucault and la boetie

Para lograr entender la cuestión de la libertad en Foucault, es necesario analizar la problemática de la “servidumbre voluntaria”, cuya enigmática condición fue examinada primero por Étienne de La Boétie. Su ensayo, titulado De la Servitude Volontaire, discute el enigma de la política quizá más complejo: ¿por qué los hombres se someten al dominio? A partir de la idea de que la libertad, lejos de significar ausencia de poder, solo se puede entender y realizar por medio de su relación con el mismo poder, el autor pretende demostrar que Foucault, por un lado, se interesa por lo que nos relaciona con el poder respecto de los varios niveles de nuestra subjetivación; por otro lado, por cómo somos capaces de resistir, poner en duda y problematizar este vínculo y de comprometernos con prácticas de auto-constitución que, para él, son “prácticas de libertad”.This paper argues that the key to understanding question of freedom in Foucault lies in the problematic of ‘voluntary servitude’, whose enigmatic condition was first explored in the sixteenth century by Étienne de La Boétie. The essay, De la Servitude Volontaire, comes to grips with what is perhaps the most intractable enigmas in politics: why people freely submit to their own domination. Starting from the idea that freedom, so far from signifying the absence of power, is only intelligible and realizable through its relation to power, the author shows that Foucault is concerned with that which binds us to power at the level of our subjectivities; and, with the other side of this, how we are able to resist, contest and problematize this attachment, and how we are able to engage in practices of self-constitution which are, for him, ‘practices of freedom’

A Proposed Legal Framework for a Comprehensive Free Trade and Investment Agreement Between Canada and the United States

This Article examines some of the more recent problems involving Canadian-Unites States trade, and proposes a legal framework within which to formulate a comprehensive trade and investment agreement