# The Philosophical Foundations of the Constitution

**URL:** <https://www.libertarianism.org/podcasts/free-thoughts/the-philosophical-foundations-of-the-constitution>

**By** Roger Pilon, Aaron Ross Powell, Trevor Burrus

**Published:** June 17, 2016

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Roger Pilon joins us to discuss the United States's founding documents and the philosophy of the men that drafted them.

How are constitutions adopted? Did the Founders get it right? What is originalism and why do constitutional interpretations matter when studying founding texts? By what standards do we judge a theory of constitutional interpretation to be correct?  
  
Roger Pilon joins us this week for a discussion about originalism and the U.S. Constitution. This episode is continued [in a followup episode about how the Constitution has been interpreted over the years](https://www.libertarianism.org/podcasts/free-thoughts/the-philosophical-foundations-of-the-constitution).