The Telos Press Podcast: Aryeh Botwinick on Originalism, Skepticism, and Constitutional Theory

In today’s episode of the Telos Press Podcast, David Pan talks with Aryeh Botwinick about his article “Contra Originalism: The Elusive Text” from Telos 195 (Summer 2021). An excerpt of the article appears here. In their conversation, they discussed the doctrine of originalism in constitutional theory, the role of the Bible in Western legal and constitutional history, the relation between originalism and skepticism, Derrida’s weak messianism, the way that Derrida’s skepticism undermines itself through the category of the gift, the relationship of originalism to the paradox of sovereignty, and the reason why Hobbes’s statement that “life is motion” is the only defensible phrase. If your university has an online subscription to Telos, you can read the full article at the Telos Online website. For non-subscribers, learn how your university can begin a subscription to Telos at our library recommendation page. Print copies of Telos 195 are available for purchase in our online store.

Listen to the podcast here.

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Avoiding Civil War, in France and in the United States

These remarks were published in Le Figaro on January 8, 2021, and appear here with permission of the author. Translated by Russell A. Berman. Footnotes have been added for clarification by the translator, whose introductory comments are here.

In a democracy, liberty always goes hand in hand with responsibility. Donald Trump’s responsibility for the outbreak of violence on Capitol Hill is clear. Minimizing that responsibility, as Marine Le Pen did by asserting that the American president did not “gauge the impact of his words” is the false politics: Because it ignores that in our agitated democracies, facing an exhausted people, moderating one’s words constitutes the premier obligation of responsible politicians. It is more than a matter of civility; it is an urgent civic necessity, if we do not want to see the battle of tweets degenerate into a war of all against all.

Yet indignation is not enough. We also have to understand. What do we see on the other side of the Atlantic? An ailing democracy, to be sure. Ailing from an epidemic of anger, of which the violence at the Capitol was by no means the first wave, nor is America the only “cluster” of this epidemic, since it has already spread across the rest of the Western world.

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The Telos Press Podcast: Aryeh Botwinick on Skepticism and the Role of Constitutions

In today’s episode of the Telos Press Podcast, Camelia Raghinaru talks with Aryeh Botwinick about his article “Epistemological Skepticism, Textual Skepticism, and the Role of Constitutions,” from Telos 189 (Winter 2019). An excerpt of the article appears here. If your university has an online subscription to Telos, you can read the full article at the Telos Online website. For non-subscribers, learn how your university can begin a subscription to Telos at our library recommendation page. Purchase a print copy of Telos 189 in our online store.

Listen to the podcast here.

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