Prior to August 4th, 1914, the date when Canada entered that fateful “war to end all wars”, a vigilant Parliament, a diverse array of unwritten civil rights, and an independent judiciary promised to shield the…

The British North America Act (1867): Emergency Power and Implied Rights A meaningful discussion of the use of emergency power to suspend citizen-rights during the Implied Rights era cannot take place without first considering the…

In “Book II” of The Republic, Glaucon and Adeimantus present two crude images of the completely unjust and just person exemplifying the belief that appearing just is more advantageous than being just. The modifier complete…

I’m reading sections of Thomas Aquinas’ “Treatise on Law”. In the first section of the text, Aquinas defines the law as “a rule or measure of action by which one is led to action or…

I Reality and sensuousness is “human sensuous activity, practice”. Human activity is an “objective activity”. Practice, especially revolutionary practical-critical activity, is extremely significant. II The only way to know whether objective truth is attributable to…

Part 5: The Problem Stated: Glaucon and Adeimantus’ challenge to Socrates (357a-367e) By the end of Book 1, Socrates has not only logically defeated and “tamed” the sophist Thrasymachus. He has foreshadowed how he will…

In State of Exception (2005), Agamben advances three theses. 1) The modern state of exception, a legal institution rooted in the democratic-revolutionary tradition, has gradually become the paradigmatic form of government in the twentieth century….

The inaugural post of this blog is a summary of Book 1 of the Plato’s Republic, the first of ten installments in a series which summarizes the Republic.  You might rightly wonder why the first work I have chosen…