Brian Leiter (born 1963) is an American philosopher and legal scholar who is currently John Wilson Professor of Law at the University of Chicago, and Director and founder of Chicago's new Center for Law, Philosophy, and Human Values. He taught from 1995 to 2008 at the University of Texas at Austin. Before this he taught for two years in the law school at the University of San Diego, and was also a visiting assistant professor of philosophy at the University of California, San Diego. He earned his Bachelor of Arts in philosophy from Princeton University and both his J.D. and Ph.D. (in philosophy) from the University of Michigan.
At Texas, Leiter was Founder and Director of the Law and Philosophy Program. He was also the youngest chair-holder in the history of the law school at Texas. He has been a visiting professor at Yale Law School, University College London, and University of Chicago Law School. He edited the journal Legal Theory for seven years and is also editor of the Routledge Philosophers, a new series of introductions to major philosophers, and (with Leslie Green) Oxford Studies in the Philosophy of Law. He gave the 'Or 'Emet Lecture at Osgoode Hall School of Law at York University, Toronto in 2006, and the Fresco Lectures at the University of Genoa and the Dunbar Lecture in Law and Philosophy at the University of Mississippi in 2008.
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Philosophy
Leiter's scholarly writings have been in two main areas: legal philosophy and Continental philosophy. Philosophical naturalism has been an abiding theme in both contexts. In legal philosophy, he has offered a reinterpretation of the American Legal Realists as prescient philosophical naturalists and a general defense of what he calls "naturalized jurisprudence." This work is reflected in his book Naturalizing Jurisprudence: Essays on American Legal Realism and Naturalism in Legal Philosophy (Oxford University Press, 2007). In his writing on German philosophy, Leiter defends a reading of Nietzsche as a philosophical naturalist, most notably in Nietzsche on Morality (London: Routledge, 2002) and in subsequent papers, including one with Joshua Knobe on "The Case for Nietzschean Moral Psychology" in Nietzsche and Morality (Oxford University Press, 2007). He has also published work on meta-ethics, social epistemology, the law of evidence, and on philosophers such as Marx, Heidegger, and Dworkin. He is notorious as an especially harsh critic of Dworkin's jurisprudence.
His other publications include several dozen articles and several edited collections. These include Nietzsche (Oxford Readings in Philosophy, 2001) (with John Richardson), Objectivity in Law and Morals (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), The Future for Philosophy (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2004), and Nietzsche and Morality (Oxford University Press, 2007) (with Neil Sinhababu). His characterization of the contemporary philosophical scene as divided between "naturalists" and "quietists" was endorsed by Richard Rorty in an article in Rorty's final collection of papers, though Rorty sides with the quietists.
Some of Leiter's articles include "Determinacy, Objectivity, and Authority" (University of Pennsylvania Law Review) (co-authored with Jules Coleman), "Rethinking Legal Realism: Toward a Naturalized Jurisprudence" (Texas Law Review), "Nietzsche and the Morality Critics" (Ethics), "Legal Realism and Legal Positivism Reconsidered" (Ethics), "Naturalized Epistemology and the Law of Evidence" (Virginia Law Review) (co-authored with Ronald Allen), "Beyond the Hart/Dworkin Debate: The Methodology Problem in Jurisprudence" (American Journal of Jurisprudence), and "Moral Facts and Best Explanations" (Social Philosophy & Policy).
Other projects
Leiter is the editor of the Philosophical Gourmet Report, an influential and controversial ranking of graduate programs in philosophy in the English-speaking world. He has also produced a rankings of U.S. law schools, and was recently retained by Macleans magazine in Canada to produce a ranking of Canadian law schools.[1] Starting in 2003, Leiter also became a blogger on topics including philosophy, rankings, and politics. His political blogging featured critiques on proponents of intelligent design, the 2003 Invasion of Iraq, Bush economic and social policies, and various conservative figures. Since 2007, however, his blog has returned to its original focus on mostly academic topics.
See also
References
- ^ Law Schools Ranked Maclean's, September 12, 2007
External links
- Official sites
- Profile at the University of Chicago Law School website.
- Brian Leiter Personal homepage.
- The Leiter Reports. Formerly Brian Leiter's solo weblog, currently a group weblog with Leiter among others as posters.
- Leiter's Law School Reports. Leiter's companion blog on Law schools.
- Brian Leiter's Nietzsche Blog.
- Brian Leiter's Legal Philosophy Blog.
- Leiter's Law School Rankings. Leiter's ranking of Law schools.
- The Philosophical Gourmet Report. See separate article: Philosophical Gourmet Report
- Online publications
- Social Science Research Networks. Includes several recent papers.
- Naturalism in Legal Philosophy. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
- Nietzsche's Moral and Political Philosophy. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
- Publications edited
- Legal Theory Journal edited by Larry Alexander, Jules Coleman, and Leiter.
- Routledge Philosophers Book series edited by Leiter.
- Media appearances
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