(coauthored by Harry Surden)

At least since Jeremy Bentham, legal formalists in the Anglo-American tradition have dreamed of making the law clearer, more precise, and predictable in its application, with the ultimate goal of limiting or eliminating the human subjectivity of judging. The strongest versions of this "legal formalist" project ( Read more... )

(coauthored by Harry Surden)

There is probably no single definition of artificial intelligence that most scholars would agree to. However, one practically useful definition of AI is "using computers to solve problems, make predictions, answer questions, generate creative output, or make automated decisions or actions, on tasks that when done by ( Read more... )

For the Balkinization symposium on Kunal Parker, The Turn to Process: American Legal, Political, and Economic Thought, 1870-1970 (Cambridge University Press, 2023).

Aziz Rana

Kunal Parker’s The Turn to Process is a wonderful reconstruction of intellectual life in the United States over the twentieth century.  It explores how scholars across ( Read more... )

Originalism as practiced by historians, who by "original" mean "authentic," yields different results than originalism as practiced by the Roberts Court, who by "original" seem to mean "novel."  Consider the right to bear arms.

The July 7, 1866, edition of Harper's Weekly, the leading Republican/Union weekly of the Civil War/Reconstruction Era, set ( Read more... )

Although Kunal makes some curious decisions about his narrative structure, including explicitly eliding the ideas of the critics of the “turn to process,” the book’s overall thrust has tremendous implications for today.  The Turn to Process is thus a major scholarly achievement and will be essential reading for anyone interested in modern American ( Read more... )

Harry Surden and I have posted a new paper to SSRN titled "Artificial Intelligence and Constitutional Interpretation." Here is the abstract:

This Article examines the potential use of large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT in constitutional interpretation. LLMs are extremely powerful tools, with significant potential to improve the quality and ( Read more... )

For the Balkinization symposium on Kunal Parker, The Turn to Process: American Legal, Political, and Economic Thought, 1870-1970 (Cambridge University Press, 2023).

Paul Gowder

It surprised me that the most interesting part of The Turn to Process was the conclusion, in which Parker turns his gaze from law, political science, and economics to ( Read more... )

For the Balkinization symposium on Kunal Parker, The Turn to Process: American Legal, Political, and Economic Thought, 1870-1970 (Cambridge University Press, 2023).

Amalia D. Kessler

Kunal Parker’s The Turn to Process is a sweeping intellectual history of great ambition. Spanning the period between 1870 and 1970, the book draws on a remarkable ( Read more... )

      Whatever else one might say about this election, it certainly represents a monumental failure of persuasion.  Low- and moderate-income families troubled by inflation were not persuaded that President Trump’s proposed tariffs would raise prices or reduce employment.  Servicemembers and veterans that literally risked their lives for the country ( Read more... )

             Yet dealing directly in substantive truths, alluring as it may be, quickly runs into difficulties of its own.  In legal theory, substantive visions for how we should live together run headlong into a problem of justification.  In his book’s stage-setting sections, Parker tries to sketch an old world of foundations and substance.  But ( Read more... )