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Original Meaning Without Originalism, James E. Fleming
Original Meaning Without Originalism, James E. Fleming
Faculty Scholarship
Is it possible for a constitutional theorist to give due regard to original meaning in constitutional interpretation without being an originalist? Narrow originalists, such as Robert H. Bork and Justice Antonin Scalia, have asserted that it is not.' On their view, it is hypocritical for anyone who is not a narrow originalist to make recourse to original meaning-a clear case of the devil quoting scripture. Their view is bogus. Nevertheless, constitutional theorists who are not narrow originalists have not paid sufficient attention to how arguments based on original meaning function in constitutional law. One of the many virtues of Michael …
Conservatives, Liberals, Romantics: The Persistent Quest For Certainty In Constitutional Interpretation, Frederick Mark Gedicks
Conservatives, Liberals, Romantics: The Persistent Quest For Certainty In Constitutional Interpretation, Frederick Mark Gedicks
Faculty Scholarship
Despite their considerable ideological differences, "conservative originalists" such as Robert Bork and "progressive originalists" such as Michael Perry both divide the process of understanding into cognitive (or "objective") and normative (or "subjective") aspects. The determination of the original meaning of the Constitution is methodologically separated from the question how this predetermined meaning should be applied in a particular case. This places both conservative and progressive originalists squarely in the tradition of Romantic hermeneutics, which sought to overcome the uncertainty and imprecision of textual interpretation by developing a "science of interpretation" which purported to be as epistemologically reliable as the methods …