David Janssens

Assistant Professor

Room D 243
P.O. Box 90153
NL-5000 LE Tilburg, The Netherlands

Phone +31 13 466 2709
Fax +31 13 466 2892
E-mail: D.Janssens@uvt.nl

Expertise
Keywords
News and Events
Curriculum Vitae
Publications
Current Research Projects
External Recognition
Teaching
Other activities

Expertise

My main expertise is in classical political and legal philosophy. My research focuses on the relationship between ancient and modern legal and political thought. More specifically, it explores divergences and continuities between the ancient and the modern understanding of a number of basic politico-legal concepts: natural law, sovereignty, identity, unity, and place.

Justice as Illusion and as Idea: Hans Kelsen and Leo Strauss on Plato and the Unity of a Legal Order.
This project consists in a comparative analysis of the positions of Hans Kelsen and Leo Strauss regarding Plato and the notion of Naturrecht. Their divergent readings lead to strikingly different views on the question concerning the unity of the legal order. Whereas Kelsen's notion of the basic norm as a formal principle of unity must be viewed in the light of his critical dismissal of earlier 'essentialist' or 'substantialist' accounts such as Plato's, Strauss's reading reveals a Plato that is more a Socratic sceptic than an essentialist, and whose notion of natural right serves as a critical standard that brings to light the spurious unity of every human legal order.

Legal and political space, unity and identity in classical philosophy and poetry.
Taking its cue from the interpretation of classical philosophical and poetic texts developed by Leo Strauss, Seth Benardete, Michael Davis and others, this project probes the way in which classical authors bring to light key questions regarding fundamental characteristics of the polity.

Keywords

Nomos
Ancient law
Leo Strauss
Plato
Aristotle

News and events

Curriculum Vitae

Degrees

1989-1994: Philosophy studies at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and the Université Libre de Bruxelles.
1994-1998: Research Assistant of the Fund for Scientific Research - Flanders. PhD in 1998.
1998-2001: Postdoctoral Researcher of the Fund for Scientific Research - Flanders.
1999: Postdoctoral Fellow the Committee on Social Thought, University of Chicago.
2001-present: Assistant Professor in Philosophy of Law, Department of Philosophy, Tilburg University.

Career

Publications

Key Publications

(2009) Seeing Together: Aristotle's Political Optics. Forthcoming in The Review of Politics
(2008). Between Athens and Jerusalem: Philosophy, Prophecy, and Politics in Leo Strauss's Early Thought (New York: State University of New York Press, 2008)
(2006). A Change of Orientation: Leo Strauss's "Comments" on Carl Schmitt Revisited. Interpretation 33(1), 93-104.
(2006). Habeas Corpus? Pierre Manent and the Politics of Europe. European Journal of Political Theory 5(2), 171-190.
(2005). La part d'Athènes: l'Europe et la loi. Carrefour: revue de réflexion interdisciplinaire (24-2), 5-19.
(2003). The Problem of the Enlightenment: Strauss, Jacobi, and the Pantheism Controversy. The Review of Metaphysics: A Philosophical Quarterly 56, 605-632.

Other Selected Publications

(2007). The Law of the Stranger: Waldenfels, Plato, and the Origin of the Legal Order. Ethical Perspectives 13(3), 383-410.
(2003). A Lovers' Quarrel: Philosophy, Law and Mimesis. In J. Stuy, J. van Bellingen & M. van den Bossche (Eds.), De precisie van het lezen (Brussel: VUBPRESS), pp. 243-258.
(2003). Law's Wish: the Minos on the Origin and the Unity of the Legal Order. Nederlands tijdschrift voor rechtsfilosofie en rechtstheorie, 32(1), 26-40.
(2002). Weimar Revisited: Judaism, Zionism, and Enlightenment in Leo Strauss's Early Work. Iyyun 51, 108-110.
(2002). Tussen Athene en Jeruzalem. Filosofie, profetie en politiek in het werk van Leo Strauss. Amsterdam: Boom.
(2000). Questions and Caves: Philosophy, Politics and History in Leo Strauss's Early Work. The Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy 10, 111-114.

Current Research Projects

Leo Strauss in the European-American Conversation" (Tilburg University, May 29-30, 2008).
Financial support from the NWO (Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research) for publication of Tussen Athene en Jeruzalem. Filosofie, profetie en politiek in het werk van Leo Strauss (Amsterdam: Boom 2002).

Teaching

Philosophy of Law A (Law School)
Introductory course in philosophy of law for law students. The course's point of departure is a world famous case devised by the great American jurist and philosopher Lon. L. Fuller in 1949: in order to survive a cave-in, four explorers have killed and eaten one of their companions, albeit in mutual consent. Now they're accused of murder and are in great risk of receiving the death penalty, unless their last request of appeal is granted by the Supreme Court of Newgarth. As readers, we listen in on the deliberations of the Court's five judges, who feel compelled to express their deepest convictions on law, state and society in order to substantiate their decision. During the course, the opinions of all five judges will be clarified and elaborated in two ways: - On the one hand, by discussing a number of important contemporary cases representing legal philosophical issues similar to those encountered by Fuller's judges. On the other hand, by discussing the theories of a series of living legal philosophers whose position is closely related to those of Fuller's judges. We will draw connections with the cases discussed as well. By taking these two paths, the course offers insight in the main contemporary approaches in legal philosophy, as well as in the ways in which legal practice automatically provokes questions of legal philosophy.

Philosophy of Law (School of Humanities, Department of Philosophy)
Introductory course in philosophy of law for philosophy students. This course provides a systematic introduction to the most prominent philosophical problems in the relation between positive law, ethics and politics. The starting point is Lon Fullers classic text 'The Case of the Speluncean Explorers' (1949), a fictional case on cannibalism, which provides a forum for four judges to clarify their deepest convictions on law, state and society, as a means to justify their respective votes. In relation to these opinions, texts by four contemporary legal philosophers will be discussed: G. Radbruch, J. Habermas, R. Posner and P. Scholten. The discussion of these texts will take into account the philosophical context and general theories of their authors. The themes discussed in the course will also be illustrated by way of a number of legal texts.

Modernities, Identities, and Evil (Liberal Arts and Sciences, with Dr. Alkeline van Lenning)
This course explores the connections between three central topics - modernity, identity and evil - from three different methodological and substantial perspectives: sociology, psychology and philosophy. These perspectives applied to a number of case studies, state of the art texts and audiovisual material.

Law in Society (Liberal Arts and Sciences, together with Prof. Dr. Willem Witteveen, Dr. Koen van Aeken and Prof. Dr. Maurice Adams)
This course provides a reflective introduction to law in society by using materials from both philosophy of law and sociology of law. These are two different research traditions. In combination they offer an actively inquired insight into the problem of instrumentalism: the expectation that law can be used as an instrument to solve social problems. The course will teach students to identify a number of philosophical problems in the relationship between positive law, morality and politics and it will enable students to explore these problems from different philosophical perspectives (natural law, legal positivism, legal realism). In the second part of the course which is sociological in nature, the participants will get to know theoretical and empirical research relating to instrumentalism and to the social working of law, with applications to anti-smoking laws, anti-discrimination laws and regimes relating to euthanasia. They will confront the nature of empirical and comparative research, its opportunities and pitfalls.

Middle Ages: At the Theological-Political Crossroads (Liberal Arts and Sciences, with Dr. Wolfert van Egmond)
This course explores the decisive yet elusive European Middle Ages through the lens of their defining tensions, confrontations and conflicts: by discussing major events and developments, by studying key primary and secondary texts, and, last but not least, by looking at them from the perspective of what are often called their "Others": classical Antiquity, Judaism, and Islam. This approach will enable us to assess the continuities and discontinuities between medieval and contemporary Europe as a theological-political crossroads.

Antiquity: Homer's Army: The Legacy of Antiquity's Unacknowledged Legislator (Liberal Arts and Sciences)
This course explores the work of Homer as the "unacknowledged legislator" of Antiquity. The Iliad and the Odyssey are examined both from the inside and from the outside. From the inside, we look at various literary devices used by Homer to convey his ideas (composition, the use of meter, rhythm, similes etc...). From the outside, we look at the impact of the two poems on Antiquity, by studying some samples from ancient poetry, history and philosophy. Moreover, we address some questions that have puzzled readers through the ages, such as: who was Homer? Did he really exist at all? And what about the historical accuracy of his poems?

Humanities 2 - Het verhaal van de grote verhalen (The Story of Great Stories) (Faculty of Humanities, with Prof. Dr. Odile Heynders and Prof. Dr. Erik Borgman)
This course studies a number of classics and traces their influence on and relevance for the development of Western thought and culture: the Bible, Homer's Odyssey, and Shakespeare's The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet.

External Recognition

Review of 'Tussen Athene en Jeruzalem. Filosofie, profetie en politiek in het werk van Leo Strauss' in New York Review of Books (M. Lilla, 'Strauss the European', NYRB, Oct. 21 and Nov. 4, 2004).
Member of the Advisory Board of the Leo Strauss Center, University of Chicago (http://leostrausscenter.uchicago.edu/)

Other activities

Member of the Examination Committee of the Faculty of Humanities, Tilburg University
Member of the Advisory Board of the Center for Science and Values, Tilburg University
Member of Res Mixtae (Center for Ethics, Radboud University Nijmegen)

Tilburg School of Humanities