The Profound Philosophies of Philosopher Leiter

There has been a lot of hating on Philosopher/Professor Leiter, and it has been unfair. Cruel even. The way people talk, if he were in a Harry Potter book he would be called Professor Dumbledumb. But we should not be juvenile. Others have addressed his legal views, but I think we should address his status as a philosopher, because our professor is both. I think a proper comparison can be made to show that he is capable of hanging with the biggest boys of Académie. Leiter's work clearly stands firm and hard, even against the so-called great philosophers of the past. The scam has truly brought the best from our man, and his blog is a gold mine of metaphysical and moral insights. Please compare and contrast Philosopher Leiter with the other guys, and you will see:

There can be no doubt that all our knowledge begins with experience. 

—Kant, Critique of Pure Reason

I do think we law professors, and especially those with blogs, have been far too tolerant of malicious and unprofessional conduct by usually anonymous or pseudonymous lawyers and students. 

—Leiter, "We Get Mail: Thomas R. Grover, Esq. Edition"

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I see very clearly that one has to exist in order to think 

—Descartes, Discourse on Method

. . . even Paul Campos has realized that his blog didn't have much content, apart from insulting and deriding Deans, faculty and anyone else who contested his claims. 

—Leiter, "Paul Campos's final bit of revisionist history"

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I am responsible for everything ... except for my very responsibility, for I am not the foundation of my being. Therefore everything takes place as if I were compelled to be responsible. I am abandoned in the world ... in the sense that I find myself suddenly alone and without help, engaged in a world for which I bear the whole responsibility without being able, whatever I do, to tear myself away from this responsibility for an instant.

—Satre, Being and Nothingness

. . . by Campos's own admission, there really isn't much content to his routine. 

—Leiter, "Paul Campos admits he doesn't "even [know] what it means" to think like a lawyer"

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In our reasonings concerning matter of fact, there are all imaginable degrees of assurance, from the highest certainty to the lowest species of moral evidence. A wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence.

—Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

The article does include one dangerous innuendo, namely, that somehow the current difficulties in the job market and the current need for more differentiation in models of legal education can somehow be laid at the doorstep of "tenured" faculty.  In fact, the lack of differentiation in models of legal education can be laid at only one doorstep, that of the ABA, and the dismal economy might be blamed on a variety of parties, from the deregulation of banking that began in the Clinton era, to miscreants on Wall Street.   Tenure remains an important feature of all serious academic institutions, and it would be a travesty were the current "crisis" mentality to undermine it.

—Leiter, "'Drastic changes' in how we educate new lawyers?"

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If a person is stupid, we excuse him by saying that he cannot help it; but if we attempted to excuse in precisely the same way the person who is bad, we should be laughed at.

—Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation 

And in other breaking news, a failed legal academic who refers to legal education tout court as a "scam" complains when someone points out that it is absurd to say getting a law degree is worthless.  One can't make this kind of stuff up, as they say.

—Leiter, "Cato Gets in on Law School Bashing"

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Education has for its object the formation of character. To curb restive propensities, to awaken dormant sentiments, to strengthen the perceptions, and cultivate the tastes, to encourage this feeling and repress that, so as finally to develop the child into a man of well proportioned and harmonious nature — this is alike the aim of parent and teacher.

—Spencer, Social Statics

The last paragraph encapsulates the juvenile irrationality of these folks quite well, and it is the theory that has underlay the lawsuits against law schools, which have been uniformly dismissed by the courts outside California.  With the legal strategy apparently having failed, "Law School Transparency," which made common cause with the plaintiffs' lawyers in those cases, has now switched gears to filing frivolous complaints against law schools with the ABA. 

—Leiter, "Why most faculty steer clear of engaging the irrationality of the "scam" bloggers"