Law and Philosophy

Castles in the Air

Jessie Allen, School of Law, University of Pittsburgh Book the Second, Chapter the Sixth.  Of  the Modern ENGLISH TENURES. Okay, I finally get it.  I get why it’s such a big deal to ‘own...

Sing in me, oh Muse!

  Jessie Allen, School of Law, University of Pittsburgh Book the Second.  Chapter the Fifth.  Of the Antient ENGLISH TENURES. This self-consciously historical chapter describes a kind of land ownership that was, as the chapter’s...

Law in the Ruins

  Jessie Allen, School of Law, University of Pittsburgh Book the Second.  Chapter the Fourth.  Of the FEODAL SYSTEM. For Blackstone it is an article of faith that the way things are can be...

Theater of the Invisible

  Jessie Allen, School of Law, University of Pittsburgh Book the Second.  Chapter the Third.  Of Incorporeal Hereditaments. Blackstone isn’t famous for making something out of nothing, but for giving a new twist to...

The Symbols of Property

Jessie Allen, School of Law, University of Pittsburgh   Book II.  Chapter the second.  Of REAL PROPERTY; and, first, of CORPOREAL HEREDITAMENTS. This chapter is about things that last.  Blackstone’s property law is obsessed with...

Money Talks

Jessie Allen, School of Law, University of Pittsburgh Blackstone Weekly needs to pause to mark the moment. The last post of 2010 (on corporations, death and the Second Circuit’s provocative Kiobel decision) completed Volume I...

For Christine

Jessie Allen, School of Law, University of Pittsburgh BOOK I.  Chapter the eighteenth.  Of CORPORATIONS. This chapter is about death — and the attempt to outlaw it. Blackstone puts it right out there in his first...