List topic

[Anthony Paul Farley]

On Wed, 10 Dec 1997 18:15:39 PST Eugene Volokh <VOLOKH at LAW.UCLA.EDU>
wrote:


>     This list is fortunate to have many top experts in the law of
> government and religion; I'd wager, though, that most list members
> are *not* particularly expert in sociology or even theology.
> Discussions of these topics are therefore likely to be at best at
> an intelligent lay level.  Discussions of the law of government and
> religion, on the other hand, may be at a professional level, and
> often at an extremely high professional level.  And my sense is that
> many people have subscribed to this list to hear a professional
> discussion, not just an intelligent lay discussion.

Hi Eugene

It is not possible, in my humble opinion, to have an intelligent
conversation about law and government without discussing "sociology or
even theology."  That is, discussions in the field in which we are all
probably more expert in, "the law of government and religion," cannot
be productive without including those other topics.

Why?

Because in the end, when it comes to legal doctrine, "there's no there
there."  Our *arguments* about legal doctrine are always and only based
on some other unacknowledged idea imported from somewhere else,
"sociology" or "theology" perhaps. It is better to discover these
unacknowledged ideas than to pretend that they do not exist.  I think
that some of the most productive discussions of legal doctrine on this
list have been productive because we have, in the end, revealed the
real ideas -- the lay ideas -- that exist behind the legal curtain.

Not in Kansas,
Anthony

p.s.
by the way, like emily and others, i want to commend you on the work
and thought you've put into the list!

----------------------
Anthony Paul Farley
Assistant Professor
Boston College Law School
885 Centre Street
Newton, MA 02159
Tel:  (617) 552-4397
Fax:  (617) 552-2615
Net:  farleya at bc.edu