Thanks to everyone who has contributed responses to my question about missing influences in the legal academy. I have a few reflections prompted by the comments to date.
Some of the back-and-forth has gestured toward the difference between citations and influence. (I know this is a much-debated topic, but I thought it sufficiently relevant to the comments to raise it here). Citations can’t really get to “influence” in the spirit of my question, i.e., “intellectual engagement by a broader section of the legal academy.” For example, as one of the comments to my earlier post pointed out, Wittgenstein draws plenty of citations for throwaway mentions of “language games” and “forms of life” (and I would add to the list “family resemblances,” “private language,” and the relationship between meaning and use). But those citations don’t correspond to widespread intellectual engagement. The legal academy would be a different place if we all read Wittgenstein (and the same goes for a number of the other names mentioned, albeit in very different ways).
I assume that most people who offered responses have spent substantial time reading, reflecting upon, and perhaps even writing about the authors they nominated. That kind of familiarity can’t be easily replicated, and in the real world, it won’t be. This means that for the “missing influences,” we’ll likely be left with name recognition rather than intellectual engagement—thin citations in articles and “thoughtful nods” at workshops and conferences (the ones that convey the appearance of “I think that’s a very perceptive interpretation of [x]” to mask the reality of “I’ve never read anything by [x]”). And with today's effortless access to information, more of us will convince ourselves that we have transcended name recognition with intellectual engagement when in fact all we have done is taken a few minutes to read a summary on Wikipedia.
Is there anything we can do about this? Some of us benefit from assigning authors we’d like to know better in seminars, but that can be risky if we pass along half-baked interpretations to our students. Another possibility is the virtual reading group, like the one currently underway at Public Reason on Amartya Sen’s The Idea of Justice. But virtual reading groups offer little accountability for consistent reading or mutual participation—participants are likely to check in and out of the discussion and thus minimize the benefits of sustained engagement with a text and community of readers.
Of course, there
is also that forgotten practice of the non-virtual reading group, where people
read a common text and meet together to talk about it, maybe even over good
beverages. Anyone in the Triangle
want to read Wolin, Wittgenstein, or Hauerwas this summer? I’ll bring the beer—it’ll
probably be Duck Rabbit.
For my part, I referenced citations in a presumptive manner, so it's defeasible with regard to any possible correlation or causation in relation to meaningful intellectual engagement (i.e., dependent upon further argument and evidence).
Posted by: Patrick S. O'Donnell | June 16, 2010 at 10:28 AM
Incidentally, and if you're not already familiar with it, Robert E. Goodin's conception of deliberative democracy "from within" (i.e., as an internal mental process) revolves around the role that "good" literature (presumably fiction and non-fiction) can play in making our "preferences" more rational and reflective, as well as more responsive to such emotions as empathy, compassion, sympathy and the like. See his book, Reflective Democracy (2003). Reading groups of a kind could certainly play a role in this regard.
Posted by: Patrick S. O'Donnell | June 16, 2010 at 10:44 AM
John,
I'll admit to never having read any Wolin. While I won't be able to make it to NC for beers and discussion, what piece by Wolin would you recommend to someone who was interested?
Posted by: Matt | June 16, 2010 at 10:22 PM
Matt,
The best thing to read is the expanded edition of Politics and Vision. For shorter introductions, I’d recommend his essays “Political Theory as a Vocation” (APSR, 1969) and “Fugitive Democracy” (Constellations, 1994). Let me know what you think!
Posted by: John Inazu | June 17, 2010 at 12:00 PM