Tillers on Evidence and Inference: Spindle Law Interview: Olivier De Schutter

Friday, December 16, 2011

Unknown said...: I find it interesting that De Schutter credits (among others) David Kennedy, Duncan Kennedy, and Roberto Unger for his intellectual (and moral?) development. I wonder if someone will someday publish a book that tells the "inside story" of Critical Legal Studies (CLS) at Harvard Law School.

Over the years much has been written in a CLS vein. But I am not aware of a book that focuses on the "personal" side of the turbulent story of CLS at Harvard Law School. (There may in fact be such a book. I just don't know of such a book.) There is material there for a humdinger of a book (and most of the protagonists are not yet dead).

Disclosure: Long ago, in a preface to a treatise I revised, I acknowledged Roberto Unger's influence on my thinking and work. But in 1978 my general philosophical orientation began to change. (Although I greatly admired Unger before 1978 -- and I still much admire some aspects of Unger's scholarly activity -- I was never a true-blue member of CLS.) Today -- and for many years now -- my work reflects the influence of British empiricism. But I must confess (a bit grudgingly and warily) that my encounters with German Idealism (mainly Kant and Hegel) also still influence my current thinking in a significant way. See, e.g., http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1079235 and http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1800864; December 17, 2011 at 2:01 PM

Tillers on Evidence and Inference