Daniel Johnson responds to Noel Malcolm
I was interested in your initial philosophical analysis of this process as a sort of pseudo-science. But in the eyes of continental thinkers, perhaps they really do think it is a science. You know, you took it for granted that because from our more empirical, practical, common law tradition, we don’t believe that laws are discovered in this way, that they are just waiting to be found. Isn’t the continental vision slightly different? It starts with Roman law, and in a sense the last 2,000 years are a steady commentary on an existing codex. I’m just wondering: French tradition certainly, but perhaps more widely, the continental tradition, is very rationalist and does believe that law is a science. You know, the Germans would use Wissenschaft to describe what they’re doing. I’m just wondering whether what we’re dealing with are two very different mentalities? I remember Hayek tried to defend common law against this kind of rationalism. He doesn’t even talk about human rights in the Constitution because it simply hadn’t yet emerged in the way that it has since then. It really is a recent phenomenon.
Daniel Johnson responds to Keith Windschuttle
It suddenly struck me that there have been only two men who became the President of the United States who could be described as academics. The first was Woodrow Wilson, who invented the League of Nations and all that we know that followed from that, and the