Monday, February 17, 2014

Saturday, February 15, 2014

Proust on Richard Epstein

My friend and fellow Epstein enthusiast Brian Denton emailed this to me, and it's too good not to share. This is from Proust writing about Beethoven, but I think it applies just as well to Epstein:
The reason why a work of genius is not easily admired from the first is that the man who has created it is extraordinary, that few other men resemble him. It is his work itself that, by fertilising the rare minds capable of understanding it, will make them increase and multiply. It was Beethoven's quartets themselves (the Twelfth, Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth) that devoted half a century to forming fashioning and enlarging the audience for Beethoven's quartets, thus marking, like every great work of art, an advance if not in the quality of artists at least in the community of minds, largely composed today of what was not to be found when the work first appeared, that is to say of persons capable of appreciating it.

Proust, Marcel. Remembrance of Things Past, Volume 1. Translated by C.K. Mocrieff and Terence Kilmartin (New York: Vintage Books,1982), 572.

NYU Symposium on Richard Epstein's Book

NYU recently hosted a symposium on Epstein's new book, The Classical Liberal Constitution. The critiques are some of the smartest and most thoughtful I've heard. Ultimately I think Epstein survives the gauntlet intact and vindicated, but not for a lack of worthy challenges. So far I haven't found any video of Epstein's response, but if you find it please let me know. Enjoy!



Sunday, February 9, 2014

Epstein Symposium at NYU Law

NYU Law is hosting a symposium celebrating Richard Epstein's new book The Classical Liberal Constitution tomorrow (2/10/2014). It is an all-day event at the law school, with panels focusing on three main aspects of the book. If you're a fan of Epstein and you live in NY you'd be a fool to miss it! Click here to check out the event page for more info.