It’s a Wonderful Originalism! Lawrence Solum and the Thesis of Immaculate Recovery

It’s a Wonderful Originalism! Lawrence Solum e la tesi dell’Immaculate Recovery

Abstract

Abstract: It’s a Wonderful Originalism! Lawrence Solum e la tesi dell’Immaculate Recovery – This essay criticizes the “thesis of immaculate recovery” implied by Lawrence Solum’s account of originalism, which presupposes that constitutional meaning exists in the past as an object that can be recovered wholly untouched by concerns of the present. Using a classic American film to illustrate its points, the essay argues that the meaning produced by originalist method is neither immaculate nor even a recovery, and that present concerns are not obstacles to understanding the past, but the very ground of that understanding.

Keywords: Gadamer, Heidegger, Hermeneutics, It’s a Wonderful Life, Originalism