Brian Leiter (born 1963) is an American philosopher and legal scholar who is Karl N. Llewellyn Professor of Jurisprudence at the University of Chicago Law School, founder and Director of Chicago's Center for Law, Philosophy, and Human Values, and founder of the Philosophical Gourmet Report.

Career

Originally from New York, he earned his Bachelor of Arts in philosophy from Princeton University and both his J.D. and Ph.D. (in philosophy) from the University of Michigan.^{[citation needed]} He taught for two years at the University of San Diego School of Law, and was also a visiting assistant professor of philosophy at the University of California, San Diego.^{[citation needed]} Leiter taught from 1995 to 2008 at the University of Texas School of Law.^{[citation needed]}

At Texas, Leiter was Founder and Director of the Law and Philosophy Program. He has been a visiting professor at Yale Law School, University College London, University of Chicago Law School, University of Paris X-Nanterre, University of California, San Diego, and Oxford University.^[1] He edited the journal Legal Theory for seven years and is also editor of the Routledge Philosophers, a series of introductions to major philosophers, and (with Leslie Green) Oxford Studies in the Philosophy of Law.^[1]

Philosophy

Leiter's scholarly writings have been in two main areas: legal philosophy and Continental philosophy. Philosophical naturalism has been an abiding theme in both contexts. In legal philosophy, he has offered a reinterpretation of the American Legal Realists as prescient philosophical naturalists and a general defense of what he calls "naturalized jurisprudence." This is reflected in his book Naturalizing Jurisprudence: Essays on American Legal Realism and Naturalism in Legal Philosophy (Oxford University Press, 2007). In his writing on German philosophy, Leiter defends a reading of Nietzsche as a philosophical naturalist, such as in Nietzsche on Morality (London: Routledge, 2002) and in later papers, including one with Joshua Knobe on "The Case for Nietzschean Moral Psychology" in Nietzsche and Morality (Oxford University Press, 2007).

He has also published work on meta-ethics, social epistemology, the law of evidence, and on philosophers such as Karl Marx, Martin Heidegger, and Ronald Dworkin. Why Tolerate Religion?, was published by Princeton University Press in October 2012.^[2]

Other projects

In 1989, Leiter made a list of what he believed to be the top 25 graduate philosophy programs in the United States. Called the Philosophical Gourmet Report, these lists came to be known as "the Leiter Report" and have been circulated since the early 1990s by philosophy departments and individuals.^{[citation needed]} Published by Wiley-Blackwell,^[3] they are a controversial ranking of graduate programs in philosophy in the English-speaking world.^{[citation needed]}

He has also produced a ranking of U.S. law schools, and was hired by Maclean's magazine in Canada to produce a ranking of Canadian law schools.^[4] In addition to compiling academic rankings, Leiter blogs under the title, "Leiter Reports" on philosophy and academic rankings. Leiter's philosophy blog includes both professional news and polemics, for example, critiques of proponents of intelligent design,^[5] the 2003 Invasion of Iraq, George W. Bush's economic and social policies, and various conservative figures.^{[citation needed]} He has also written critiques of journalists and philosophers, including Carlin Romano,^[6] Thomas Nagel,^[7] Leon Wieseltier,^[8] and Paul Campos.^[9]

Controversy

Leiter is among the more controversial voices in the philosophical blogosphere, and he has come in for criticism for both his communication style and for comments made to other philosophers.^[10] Leiter has defended himself against the charges.^[11]

In this context there has been concern about Leiter's continued management of the Philosophical Gourmet Report. In this regard, over 600 philosophers, including 30 members of his 54-member Advisory Board, requested in 2014 that Leiter relinquish control over its management.^[12] In response, Leiter appointed a co-editor for the 2014 report and agreed to step down as editor after its publication, an arrangement supported by the Advisory Board.^[13]

See also

• List of American philosophers
• Philosophy of law

Notes

External links

• Brian Leiter Personal homepage.

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