LawTalk Ep. 58 - The Perennial Dialectic and a Baseline Theory of State Law

Welcome to LawTalk, a podcast series produced by the University of Minnesota Law School featuring events, webinars, and panel discussions about diverse topics at the intersection of law, policy, and education. This episode, The Perennial Dialectic and a Baseline Theory of State Law, features a lecture from Professor Brian Tamanaha, the John S. Lehmann University Professor at Wash U Law. Professor Tamanaha’s lecture addresses the theoretical perspective on jurisprudence and state law through three themes: The first theme conveys an age-old dialectic between abstract, idealized accounts of law as reason, justice, and peaceful social order versus skeptical responses grounded in reality that challenge these idealizations. The second theme articulates five baseline propositions about state law derived from the dialectic that most legal theorists agree with notwithstanding many other disagreements. The third theme shows how attention to these baseline propositions and the perennial dialectic helps analyze the rule of law in America and the challenges it faces today. > This event was recorded on March 4, 2026, and was part of the 2026 John Dewey Lecture in the Philosophy of Law series. You can watch the entire event recording on the Minnesota Law YouTube channel. (https://youtu.be/tdvO_VoFOoI) Subscribe to the Minnesota Law podcast feed on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, SoundCloud, or via your preferred podcast application by searching ‘University of Minnesota Law School’, for more LawTalk episodes. Also find Minnesota Law’s newest podcast, Minnesota Law Now, by following the links in the show notes or searching Minnesota Law Now on your preferred podcast application. YouTube - youtu.be/2j9F5v7heD0?si=G2rq8EOElIRUI6pw Apple Podcasts - podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/minn…ow/id1880466287 Spotify - open.spotify.com/show/1TeLpTboaXw…dc95363f57074f5a A transcript of this episode is available here: z.umn.edu/Ep58Transcript Learn more about the University of Minnesota Law School by visiting law.umn.edu