THE ABSENT MINDED PROFESSOR ASKS A QUESTION

Seven years ago, when Susie and I bought our Paris apartment, I lugged over on a series of plane trips a large number of books to fill the barren bookshelves -- my complete 40 volume set of the works of Marx and Engels in German, that sort of thing. [Always a popular favorite with people who rent the apartment.] On one trip, I brought over thirty or forty books on Kant, thinking [at that time] that I would no longer be writing about philosophy. Now I have this blog, for which I seem to be writing a very great deal about philosophy.

One of the books I brought over was a 1998 collection of new essays on Kant entitled AUTONOMY AND COMMUNITY, in which I published an essay called "The Completion of Kant's Moral Theory in the Tenets of the Rechtslehre." This obscure and little noticed effort actually contains what is, in my judgment, an extremely interesting discussion of the way in which Kant's treatment of property rights in the Rechtslehre fills a serious hole in the argument of the widely read Grundlegung ["Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals"] and also, in a very deep way, explans exactly what the relationship is between Kant's moral theory and Rawls's theory of justice.

So, here is the question: Have I already gone through all of this on my blog? I cannot remember! If not, would anyone be interested in having me essentially reprise that analysis in this venue? If the answer to the second question is yes, then I will bring the volume home when I return to Chapel Hill [I am leaving a new pair of jeans here, so I have room.]

I think this is what is called "having a senior moment."