John Rawls is the towering figure of academic liberalism. A gentle,
dignified, self-effacing man, he taught philosophy at Harvard for more
than thirty years and from his commanding position exerted a decisive
influence on his profession. Through his scholarship and teaching he
played a major role in establishing the now-dominant understanding of
liberalism in the academy and, more generally, of the method and purpose
of the philosophical study of politics.Peter Berkowitz teaches at George Mason University School of
Law and is the Tad and Dianne Taube Senior Fellow at Stanford's
Hoover Institution (berkowitz@hoover.stanford.edu). He is the editor of
the companion volumes Varieties of Conservatism in America
(Hoover Institution Press 2004) and Varieties of Progressivism in
America (Hoover Institution Press 2004).This essay weaves together (and in places corrects) the
argument of “John Rawls and the Liberal Faith,” in The
Wilson Quarterly, Spring 2002, pp. 60–69, and “The
Academic Liberal,” in The Weekly Standard, Dec. 16,
2002.