In his post OK, So What Have I Been Up to These Last Four Years?, Gene Callahan notes he has almost finished his PhD dissertation, so one assumes his PhD is imminent. The dissertation also looks very interesting, in particular this part:
Chapter VIII examines some post-founding American history in light of Oakeshott’s contention that the rationalist can never really proceed as he purports to do. This chapter presents evidence suggesting that the ‘failure to follow the letter of the Constitution’ is not, as some contemporary, ‘strict constructionists’ contend, a peculiarly modern phenomenon, beginning, depending on which strict constructionist to which one is attending, with Lincoln and the American Civil War, with Roosevelt and the New Deal, with the Cold War, or with George W. Bush and the ‘War on Terror’, but is, instead, something that began almost as soon as the U. S. Constitution was adopted, and is not (primarily) a symptom of bad faith, but, rather, an inevitable consequence of the fact that no such rationalist design can ever dictate subsequent practice in the way that it is meant to do.
Congrats to Gene.
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Haha, good ol’ minarchist bashing.