2026 John Dewey Lecture in the Philosophy of Law: The Perennial Dialectic and a Baseline Theory of State Law

Join the University of Minnesota Law School for the 2026 Dewey Lecture in the Philosophy of Law with Professor Brian Tamanaha, John S. Lehmann University Professor at Wash U Law.

Professor Tamanaha’s lecture will address the theoretical perspective on jurisprudence and state law conveyed in this lecture is substantially indebted to John Dewey, 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 lecture honors John Dewey, American philosopher, educator, and scholar. A proponent of legal realism, Dewey’s philosophy of pragmatism related his conception of a moral life to a variety of contemporary social, economic, and political issues. Dewey lived from 1859 to 1952 and spent one year as a professor of philosophy at the University of Minnesota. The John Dewey Lecture in the Philosophy of Law is funded by a grant from the John Dewey Foundation and is sponsored by the University of Minnesota Law School to provide a forum for significant scholarly contributions to the development of jurisprudence.

About Our Speaker

Brian Z. Tamanaha
John S. Lehmann University Professor
Washington University  

Professor Brian Z. Tamanaha is a renowned jurisprudence and law and society scholar, and the author of twelve books and over seventy-five articles and book chapters. His latest books are Truth About Natural Law: History, Theory, Consequences (Oxford University Press 2026); Sociological Approaches to Theories of Law (Cambridge 2022); and Legal Pluralism Explained: History, Theory, Consequences (Oxford 2021).

One of his previous books, A Realistic Theory of Law (Cambridge 2017), received the 2019 IVR Book Prize from the International Association of the Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy for best legal philosophy book published in 2016-18, as well as an Honorable Mention for the 2018 Prose Awards in Law by the Association of University Presses. Four of his books have received international awards, including A General Jurisprudence of Law and Society (Oxford 2001), which won a law and society prize and a legal theory prize (award of $50,000 AUS). On the Rule of Law (Cambridge 2004) has been translated into nine languages, and altogether his publications have been translated into twelve languages. He has delivered eight named lectures at home and abroad, including the Kobe Memorial Lecture in Tokyo, the Julius Stone Address in Sydney, the Cotterrell Lecture in London, and the Montesquieu Lecture in Tilburg. He spent a year in residence as Member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, where he wrote Beyond the Formalist-Realist Divide (Princeton 2010). His work has been the subject of four published symposia, and his books have been reviewed in many venues, including the Harvard Law Review, Michigan Law Review, Cambridge Law Journal, Law and Society Review, Law and History Review, American Ethnologist, Legal Theory, and the Washington Post.

In 2013, a National Jurist poll of 300 law deans and professors voted Professor Tamanaha #1 Most Influential Legal Educator, owing to his critical examination of the legal academy, Failing Law Schools (Chicago 2012). Professor Tamanaha has twice been selected Professor of the Year by student vote. Before becoming a law professor, he clerked for the Hon. Walter E. Hoffman, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, was an Assistant Federal Public Defender in Hawaii, was an Assistant Attorney General for Yap State in Micronesia, and was Legal Counsel at the 1990 Micronesian Constitutional Convention.