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Full-Text Articles in Law
An Ethnography Of Abstractions?, Annelise Riles
Defensor Fidei: The Travails Of A Post-Realist Formalist, Lyrissa Barnett Lidsky
Defensor Fidei: The Travails Of A Post-Realist Formalist, Lyrissa Barnett Lidsky
Lyrissa Barnett Lidsky
This Article explores common formalist themes, asking not whether formalism's aspirations are attainable but why formalists still struggle to attain them in the face of sustained attacks by anti-formalists. After briefly sketching the tenets of formalism in Section I, this Article turns to an examination of Summers' "post-realist formalism." Finally, this Article probes the philosophical and psychological attractions of formalism and suggests that formalism's promise of stability and order may be essential to the effective functioning of the legal system, even if this promise can never be realized.