Legal Theory and Philosophy by Maciej Dybowski
Routledge eBooks, Nov 16, 2022
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Synthese, 2022
The aim of this paper is to show that the meaning and significance of legal evidence is being con... more The aim of this paper is to show that the meaning and significance of legal evidence is being constituted throughout the course of a singular instance of legal proceedings. This is to be achieved by describing what legal agents do while appealing to different propositions of fact and inferring from them throughout the course of legal proceedings. The authors claim that the process of applying the law is ultimately rooted in the inferential discursive practices of exchanging reasons on the part of the participants of legal proceedings. Therefore, they set forth a model of legal proceedings that consists of an interplay between three types of reasons, which are exchanged by the participants of legal proceedings: i.e. legal reasons, epistemic reasons and stake reasons. To illustrate this interplay, the authors deploy a metaphor of law as a game, and provide a description of legal proceedings as a particular instance of playing a game of law. The conclusion is that the legal concept of evidence is (at least in part) constituted by the role that evidence plays in affecting which reasons for action the participants to legal proceedings choose to act on. The other final assumption of this paper is metatheoretical: authors want to show that when analyzing what legal evidence is, one should begin from the perspective of a singular instance of legal proceedings, rather than from the perspective of law in general.
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Theory of Legal Evidence - Evidence in Legal Theory, 2021
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Theory of Legal Evidence - Evidence in Legal Theory
The volume “Theory of Legal Evidence: Evidence in Legal Theory” deals with theoretical and philos... more The volume “Theory of Legal Evidence: Evidence in Legal Theory” deals with theoretical and philosophical problems of legal evidence. The concept of evidence is expected to fill a number of distinct roles in science, philosophy, but also in legal theory and law. Some of these roles are complementary, while others stand in tension or have little in common. The title of this volume suggests two types of problems. Chapters authored by legal theorists experienced in different legal cultures, including Europe, but also Latin America and the United States, address those problems and the need for an interdisciplinary approach to the study of standards of proof and evidence-taking in law. This interdisciplinary approach is put to work in the present volume with regard to two specific dimensions of integration of legal scholarship. First, the authors differ in their theoretical profiles and methodologies but share the interdisciplinary and externally-integrating view of legal scholarship, calling for the inclusion of social sciences and humanities in order to grasp the complex picture of law in action, and evidence functioning within it. Second, the contributors track down the problem of evidence within argumentation and thinking of legislators, judges, lawyers and legal scholars as calling for a side by side internal integration of legal sciences, which has to do with rethinking the strengths and weaknesses of ‘the new evidence scholarship' movement. The chapters are ordered in such a way that they start with more general and theoretical ones questions, zooming in to more specific theoretical questions put in context with philosophical concepts, and finally end with practical questions of legal evidence as they occur during legal proceedings.
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RUCH PRAWNICZY, EKONOMICZNY I SOCJOLOGICZNY Rok LXXXII -zeszyt 1, 2020
The article presents the key ideas of Czesław Znamierowski’s 1911 doctoral dissertation on the co... more The article presents the key ideas of Czesław Znamierowski’s 1911 doctoral dissertation on the concept of truth in pragmatism (Der Wahrheitsbegriff im Pragmatismus), thus far not discussed in the literature, and the impact it had on some of his later ideas in the philosophy and theory of law. His polemic against pragmatism reinforced his later views on science and logic, and in particular on the problem of the truth-value of sentences. This founding insight of Znamierowski’s anti-psychologism in the philosophy of law, namely the independence of logic from mental states, provides a deeper explanation of a dualism in his theory of the legal norm: the ascription of both truth-value and validity, mutually independent, to legal norms. When analysed with regard to Znamierowski’s epistemological oscillation between empiricism and apriorism, Wahrheitsbegriff may also enable a better understanding of the origins of his objectivist social ontology and of such legal-theoretical concepts as ‘construction norm’ and ‘thetic act’.
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Cały tekst dostępny tutaj: http://avant.edu.pl/wp-content/uploads/Dybowski-O-intuicji-w-analitycz... more Cały tekst dostępny tutaj: http://avant.edu.pl/wp-content/uploads/Dybowski-O-intuicji-w-analitycznych-teoriach-prawa.pdf
Abstract in English
Contemporary analytic theories of law attempt to provide hermeneutic answers to the meta- physical question about the nature of law with intuition playing a pivotal role in these at- tempts. It is doubtful, however, whether intuition can meet metaphysical and hermeneutic expectations of such theories. The article points out divergent ways of understanding intui- tion in analytic theories of law. Moreover, such theories face a dilemma of choosing between the „hard” ontology of law, to which intuition would have a privileged epistemic access, and „soft” ontology which entails multiple types of intuition. If collective consciousness, to which the intuitions that constitute the concept of law allegedly belong, is indeed the meta- physical foundation of contemporary analytic theories, they are hardly discernible from em- piricism. A promising complementary approach to such a way of theorizing about law— where the vocabulary of intuitions is prioritized—can be provided by analytic pragmatism extending analysis to the practices in which words acquire their meanings.
Abstrakt
Współczesne analityczne teorie prawa próbują udzielać hermeneutycznej odpowiedzi na metafizyczne pytanie o naturę prawa, a kluczową rolę w realizacji tego zadania pełni intuicja. Wątpliwe jest jednak, czy intuicja jest w stanie spełnić metafizyczne i herme- neutyczne aspiracje takich teorii. W artykule wskazuje się na niejednorodne rozumienie intuicji w analitycznych teoriach prawa. Teorie te stoją ponadto przed dylematem wyboru między „twardą” ontologią prawa, do której intuicja miałaby uprzywilejowany dostęp poznawczy, a „miękką” ontologią, która wymusza rozbicie intuicji na poszczególne jej ro- dzaje. Jeśli kolektywna świadomość, do której miałyby należeć intuicje konstytuujące pojęcie prawa, rzeczywiście jest dla współczesnych teorii analitycznych metafizyczną podstawą, to trudno powiedzieć, czym różnią się one od empiryzmu. Obiecującej korekty dla takiego podejścia w teoretyzowaniu o prawie, które uprzywilejowuje słownictwo intuicji, mógłby być może dostarczyć pragmatyzm analityczny, postulujący rozszerzenie analizy o praktyki, w których słowa uzyskują znaczenie.
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Abstract:
The chapter is based on a claim that irreconcilable accounts of ratio legis in legal sc... more Abstract:
The chapter is based on a claim that irreconcilable accounts of ratio legis in legal science s are disconnected from practical reasoning, and most of the discussion is predominantly concerned with legal interpretation, at the expense of practical reasoning. The different one-sided views of ratio legis are by-products of one-sided semantics which, in one way or another, are adopted by theories of legal interpretation. The first, diagnostic, part of the chapter identifies three types of one-sided semantics – upstream, midstream and downstream – and shows how they translate into respective accounts of legal interpretation and ratio legis. The diagnosis is followed by an account based on inferential pragmatism considered as alternative to one-sided semantics in legal theory. Drawing on Brandom’s ideas, an approach which combines semantics and practical reasoning in legal theory is developed. The final part of the chapter tests the usefulness of inferential pragmatism in legal theory with regard to the problem of ratio legis. An inferentialist account of ratio legis provided by Canale and Tuzet is extended by a model of agent’s actions and reasons, and their impact on the reasoning of interpreters and decision-makers.
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The book edited by Verena and myself is dedicated to the theoretical problems concerning ratio le... more The book edited by Verena and myself is dedicated to the theoretical problems concerning ratio legis. In the contexts of legal interpretation and legal reasoning, the two most important intellectual tools employed by lawyers, ratio legis would seem to offer an extremely powerful argument. Declaring the ratio legis of a statute can lead to a u-turn argumentation throughout the lifespan of the statute itself – in parliament, or in practice during court sessions, when it is tested against the constitution.
Though the ratio legis argument is widely used, much about it warrants further investigation. On the general philosophical map there are many overlapping areas that concern different approaches to human rationality and to the problems of practical reasoning. Particular problems with ratio legis arise in connection with different perspectives on legal philosophy and theory, especially in terms of the methods that lawyers use for legal interpretation and argumentation. These problems can be further subdivided into particular aspects of activities undertaken by lawyers and officials who use the ratio legis in their work, and the underlying theories. In short, this book examines what ratio legis is, what it could be, and its practical implications.
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The content of legal concepts as applied by legal professionals is highly debatable as far their ... more The content of legal concepts as applied by legal professionals is highly debatable as far their determinacy is concerned. It requires particular attention if additional circumstances occur in a given discursive practice, i.e., the practice of using concepts. Political, economic and cultural changes, all of which have to do with transition, have an impact
on any discursive practice. Assuming that legal discursive practice forms part of universal discursive practice, the subjects of analysis are those legal concepts which have remained in legal practice throughout a given political transformation. This is illustrated by the use of the legal term ‘freedom of conscience and religion’. This analysis is built on the model of
responsibility for the content inherited from past users, and responsibility towards future users, based on Brandom’s inferential semantics.
Introduction Transition, as applied to legal matters, is a broad and interdisciplinary concept. Here it is applied as referring to the changes involved in a democratic transition, taking place in a legal system under circumstances which occur in the political, economic and cultural setting of that system. Intuitively, from the recent historical perspective of Central and Eastern Europe, a transition can be understood as ‘an interval between two political regimes, such as a period between the fall of an old, undemocratic regime and the consolidation of a new, democratic political system’ (Maldini 2007, 7). During such a period, many transformation processes usually take place. This paper is concerned with only one of them: the legal transformation.
A useful point of view from which one could grasp what happens in the functioning of a legal system undergoing transition can be provided by the model of what institutional legal practitioners – and judges in particular – do when they use legal concepts (which is what I believe to be constitutive of law as practice). First, I will introduce the philosophical terminology applied; second, I will provide some illustrations of what I have in mind, taken from Polish legal history as revealed through case- law; and third, I will try to put the model to work in an account of what happens to legal concepts in periods of transition.
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The article is a metaphilosophical and metatheoretical discussion relating to the theory of law p... more The article is a metaphilosophical and metatheoretical discussion relating to the theory of law pursued in the mainstream of the classical project of analysis. The purpose of these remarks is to show the challenges which philosophical pragmatism, and especially analytical pragmatism, poses to classical analysis. The first part of the text is devoted to the presentation
of the mainstream of postwar Polish law theory as the implementation of the analysis program, with the conception of Z. Ziembinski serving as an example. The next part characterizes analytical pragmatism of R. Brandom and the challenges addressed to such research programs as classical analysis. The last part examines philosophical benefits that classical
analysis could obtain by embracing the challenges of analytical pragmatism. These include the ability to overcome the cognitive dualism, better justification of rationality and extending the anthropological perspective.
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Celem szkicu jest sformułowanie paru uwag uzupełniających derywacyjną koncepcję wykładni w odnies... more Celem szkicu jest sformułowanie paru uwag uzupełniających derywacyjną koncepcję wykładni w odniesieniu do definicji legalnych. Pierwsza z tych uwag sprowadza się do rozwinięcia twierdzenia o specyfice definicji legalnej jako dyrektywy interpretacyjnej. Specyfika ta polega na tym, że definicja legalne nie pełni roli apragmatycznej (przynajmniej w tym sensie, iżby wskazywała tylko, jak na gruncie danego języka rozumie się zwrot definiowany), lecz nakazuje interpretatorowi rozumienie definiowanego zwrotu w określony sposób. Pierwsza część tekstu (pkt 3) poświęcona będzie wykazaniu przy pomocy trzech argumentów, że również na gruncie ustaleń M. Zielińskiego, a wbrew niektórym jego twierdzeniom, definicja legalna nie pełni żadnej istotnej z punktu widzenia wykładni prawa roli apragmatycznej. W drugiej części tekstu (pkt 4) zaproponowane zostanie takie, inspirowane koncepcją nazw S. Kripkego, uzupełnienie ujęcia definicji legalnej, które pozostaje kompatybilne z derywacyjnym modelem wykładni, lecz rzuca nowe światło na problemy związane z interpretacją definicji legalnych. Drugie uzupełnienie derywacyjnej koncepcji wykładni w odniesieniu do definicji legalnych będzie wiązało się z próbą wykazania, że w wykładni takich definicji nie powinno się automatycznie przyjmować zwykłych dyrektyw interpretacyjnych, w szczególności zaś reguł, które uruchamiałyby reguły apragmatyczne, jakimi są definicje w słowniku języka powszechnego. Na koniec sformułowane zostaną pewne postulaty odnoszące się do sformułowania specjalnej reguły wykładni definicji legalnych, nakazującej interpretatorowi dokonanie wyboru między możliwymi sposobami rozumienia zwrotu definiującego w takich definicjach w oparciu o kryteria omawiane w tych rozważaniach.
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The good news is that we are not as dead as we think we are, or so says physics. The bad news, fo... more The good news is that we are not as dead as we think we are, or so says physics. The bad news, for liberalism, is that taking rights of the dead people seriously (as we should) proves the liberal theory of freedom wrong.
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The authors reconstruct the key elements of the conception of global law proposed by Rafael Domin... more The authors reconstruct the key elements of the conception of global law proposed by Rafael Domingo, a world-recognised Spanish Roman law specialist, offer its interpretation, as well as recommend application of that law in the creation of a conception of material sources of law. The starting point for the discussion on the above is a critical assessment of subject-reductionism in public international law, and the principles of territoriality and sovereignty in particular. The authors argue that overcoming the current regulatory and academic crisis in international law will not be possible unless its existing paradigm is changed. Anthroparchy – a term coined by the authors – should become a constructive element of the new paradigm, meaning that a person with its intrinsic dignity and equality should be put in place of the state's sovereignty . The characteristics of such person, relevant for the axiological conditioning of the legal system, is then proposed, introducing to the legal deliberations an interdisciplinary approach to philosophical anthropology. The presented conception belongs to non-positivism in law, and its explanatory force concerns questions of law 's teleology and autonomy with regard to state.
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The authors reconstruct the key elements of the conception of global law proposed by Rafael
Domin... more The authors reconstruct the key elements of the conception of global law proposed by Rafael
Domingo, a world-recognised Spanish Roman law specialist, offer its interpretation, as well as
recommend application of that law in the creation of a conception of material sources of law. The
starting point for the discussion on the above is a critical assessment of subject-reductionism in
public international law, and the principles of territoriality and sovereignty in particular. The
authors argue that overcoming the current regulatory and academic crisis in international law
will not be possible unless its existing paradigm is changed. Anthroparchy – a term coined by
the authors – should become a constructive element of the new paradigm, meaning that a person
with its intrinsic dignity and equality should be put in place of the state’s sovereignty. The characteristics
of such person, relevant for the axiological conditioning of the legal system, is then
proposed, introducing to the legal deliberations an interdisciplinary approach to philosophical
anthropology. The presented conception belongs to non-positivism in law, and its explanatory
force concerns questions of law’s teleology and autonomy with regard to state.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
This paper aims to explain the relationship between power and the creation of norms, based on the... more This paper aims to explain the relationship between power and the creation of norms, based on the
conception of a joint enactment of norms developed by Czesław Znamierowski. The joint enactment is
supposed to result in non-individual norms of general prohibition. Three interpretations of such
norms have been developed in order to shed light on some power-related issues. It is further claimed
that political and legal power can be explained in terms of a joint enactment of norms.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Uploads
Legal Theory and Philosophy by Maciej Dybowski
Abstract in English
Contemporary analytic theories of law attempt to provide hermeneutic answers to the meta- physical question about the nature of law with intuition playing a pivotal role in these at- tempts. It is doubtful, however, whether intuition can meet metaphysical and hermeneutic expectations of such theories. The article points out divergent ways of understanding intui- tion in analytic theories of law. Moreover, such theories face a dilemma of choosing between the „hard” ontology of law, to which intuition would have a privileged epistemic access, and „soft” ontology which entails multiple types of intuition. If collective consciousness, to which the intuitions that constitute the concept of law allegedly belong, is indeed the meta- physical foundation of contemporary analytic theories, they are hardly discernible from em- piricism. A promising complementary approach to such a way of theorizing about law— where the vocabulary of intuitions is prioritized—can be provided by analytic pragmatism extending analysis to the practices in which words acquire their meanings.
Abstrakt
Współczesne analityczne teorie prawa próbują udzielać hermeneutycznej odpowiedzi na metafizyczne pytanie o naturę prawa, a kluczową rolę w realizacji tego zadania pełni intuicja. Wątpliwe jest jednak, czy intuicja jest w stanie spełnić metafizyczne i herme- neutyczne aspiracje takich teorii. W artykule wskazuje się na niejednorodne rozumienie intuicji w analitycznych teoriach prawa. Teorie te stoją ponadto przed dylematem wyboru między „twardą” ontologią prawa, do której intuicja miałaby uprzywilejowany dostęp poznawczy, a „miękką” ontologią, która wymusza rozbicie intuicji na poszczególne jej ro- dzaje. Jeśli kolektywna świadomość, do której miałyby należeć intuicje konstytuujące pojęcie prawa, rzeczywiście jest dla współczesnych teorii analitycznych metafizyczną podstawą, to trudno powiedzieć, czym różnią się one od empiryzmu. Obiecującej korekty dla takiego podejścia w teoretyzowaniu o prawie, które uprzywilejowuje słownictwo intuicji, mógłby być może dostarczyć pragmatyzm analityczny, postulujący rozszerzenie analizy o praktyki, w których słowa uzyskują znaczenie.
The chapter is based on a claim that irreconcilable accounts of ratio legis in legal science s are disconnected from practical reasoning, and most of the discussion is predominantly concerned with legal interpretation, at the expense of practical reasoning. The different one-sided views of ratio legis are by-products of one-sided semantics which, in one way or another, are adopted by theories of legal interpretation. The first, diagnostic, part of the chapter identifies three types of one-sided semantics – upstream, midstream and downstream – and shows how they translate into respective accounts of legal interpretation and ratio legis. The diagnosis is followed by an account based on inferential pragmatism considered as alternative to one-sided semantics in legal theory. Drawing on Brandom’s ideas, an approach which combines semantics and practical reasoning in legal theory is developed. The final part of the chapter tests the usefulness of inferential pragmatism in legal theory with regard to the problem of ratio legis. An inferentialist account of ratio legis provided by Canale and Tuzet is extended by a model of agent’s actions and reasons, and their impact on the reasoning of interpreters and decision-makers.
Though the ratio legis argument is widely used, much about it warrants further investigation. On the general philosophical map there are many overlapping areas that concern different approaches to human rationality and to the problems of practical reasoning. Particular problems with ratio legis arise in connection with different perspectives on legal philosophy and theory, especially in terms of the methods that lawyers use for legal interpretation and argumentation. These problems can be further subdivided into particular aspects of activities undertaken by lawyers and officials who use the ratio legis in their work, and the underlying theories. In short, this book examines what ratio legis is, what it could be, and its practical implications.
on any discursive practice. Assuming that legal discursive practice forms part of universal discursive practice, the subjects of analysis are those legal concepts which have remained in legal practice throughout a given political transformation. This is illustrated by the use of the legal term ‘freedom of conscience and religion’. This analysis is built on the model of
responsibility for the content inherited from past users, and responsibility towards future users, based on Brandom’s inferential semantics.
Introduction Transition, as applied to legal matters, is a broad and interdisciplinary concept. Here it is applied as referring to the changes involved in a democratic transition, taking place in a legal system under circumstances which occur in the political, economic and cultural setting of that system. Intuitively, from the recent historical perspective of Central and Eastern Europe, a transition can be understood as ‘an interval between two political regimes, such as a period between the fall of an old, undemocratic regime and the consolidation of a new, democratic political system’ (Maldini 2007, 7). During such a period, many transformation processes usually take place. This paper is concerned with only one of them: the legal transformation.
A useful point of view from which one could grasp what happens in the functioning of a legal system undergoing transition can be provided by the model of what institutional legal practitioners – and judges in particular – do when they use legal concepts (which is what I believe to be constitutive of law as practice). First, I will introduce the philosophical terminology applied; second, I will provide some illustrations of what I have in mind, taken from Polish legal history as revealed through case- law; and third, I will try to put the model to work in an account of what happens to legal concepts in periods of transition.
of the mainstream of postwar Polish law theory as the implementation of the analysis program, with the conception of Z. Ziembinski serving as an example. The next part characterizes analytical pragmatism of R. Brandom and the challenges addressed to such research programs as classical analysis. The last part examines philosophical benefits that classical
analysis could obtain by embracing the challenges of analytical pragmatism. These include the ability to overcome the cognitive dualism, better justification of rationality and extending the anthropological perspective.
Domingo, a world-recognised Spanish Roman law specialist, offer its interpretation, as well as
recommend application of that law in the creation of a conception of material sources of law. The
starting point for the discussion on the above is a critical assessment of subject-reductionism in
public international law, and the principles of territoriality and sovereignty in particular. The
authors argue that overcoming the current regulatory and academic crisis in international law
will not be possible unless its existing paradigm is changed. Anthroparchy – a term coined by
the authors – should become a constructive element of the new paradigm, meaning that a person
with its intrinsic dignity and equality should be put in place of the state’s sovereignty. The characteristics
of such person, relevant for the axiological conditioning of the legal system, is then
proposed, introducing to the legal deliberations an interdisciplinary approach to philosophical
anthropology. The presented conception belongs to non-positivism in law, and its explanatory
force concerns questions of law’s teleology and autonomy with regard to state.
conception of a joint enactment of norms developed by Czesław Znamierowski. The joint enactment is
supposed to result in non-individual norms of general prohibition. Three interpretations of such
norms have been developed in order to shed light on some power-related issues. It is further claimed
that political and legal power can be explained in terms of a joint enactment of norms.
Abstract in English
Contemporary analytic theories of law attempt to provide hermeneutic answers to the meta- physical question about the nature of law with intuition playing a pivotal role in these at- tempts. It is doubtful, however, whether intuition can meet metaphysical and hermeneutic expectations of such theories. The article points out divergent ways of understanding intui- tion in analytic theories of law. Moreover, such theories face a dilemma of choosing between the „hard” ontology of law, to which intuition would have a privileged epistemic access, and „soft” ontology which entails multiple types of intuition. If collective consciousness, to which the intuitions that constitute the concept of law allegedly belong, is indeed the meta- physical foundation of contemporary analytic theories, they are hardly discernible from em- piricism. A promising complementary approach to such a way of theorizing about law— where the vocabulary of intuitions is prioritized—can be provided by analytic pragmatism extending analysis to the practices in which words acquire their meanings.
Abstrakt
Współczesne analityczne teorie prawa próbują udzielać hermeneutycznej odpowiedzi na metafizyczne pytanie o naturę prawa, a kluczową rolę w realizacji tego zadania pełni intuicja. Wątpliwe jest jednak, czy intuicja jest w stanie spełnić metafizyczne i herme- neutyczne aspiracje takich teorii. W artykule wskazuje się na niejednorodne rozumienie intuicji w analitycznych teoriach prawa. Teorie te stoją ponadto przed dylematem wyboru między „twardą” ontologią prawa, do której intuicja miałaby uprzywilejowany dostęp poznawczy, a „miękką” ontologią, która wymusza rozbicie intuicji na poszczególne jej ro- dzaje. Jeśli kolektywna świadomość, do której miałyby należeć intuicje konstytuujące pojęcie prawa, rzeczywiście jest dla współczesnych teorii analitycznych metafizyczną podstawą, to trudno powiedzieć, czym różnią się one od empiryzmu. Obiecującej korekty dla takiego podejścia w teoretyzowaniu o prawie, które uprzywilejowuje słownictwo intuicji, mógłby być może dostarczyć pragmatyzm analityczny, postulujący rozszerzenie analizy o praktyki, w których słowa uzyskują znaczenie.
The chapter is based on a claim that irreconcilable accounts of ratio legis in legal science s are disconnected from practical reasoning, and most of the discussion is predominantly concerned with legal interpretation, at the expense of practical reasoning. The different one-sided views of ratio legis are by-products of one-sided semantics which, in one way or another, are adopted by theories of legal interpretation. The first, diagnostic, part of the chapter identifies three types of one-sided semantics – upstream, midstream and downstream – and shows how they translate into respective accounts of legal interpretation and ratio legis. The diagnosis is followed by an account based on inferential pragmatism considered as alternative to one-sided semantics in legal theory. Drawing on Brandom’s ideas, an approach which combines semantics and practical reasoning in legal theory is developed. The final part of the chapter tests the usefulness of inferential pragmatism in legal theory with regard to the problem of ratio legis. An inferentialist account of ratio legis provided by Canale and Tuzet is extended by a model of agent’s actions and reasons, and their impact on the reasoning of interpreters and decision-makers.
Though the ratio legis argument is widely used, much about it warrants further investigation. On the general philosophical map there are many overlapping areas that concern different approaches to human rationality and to the problems of practical reasoning. Particular problems with ratio legis arise in connection with different perspectives on legal philosophy and theory, especially in terms of the methods that lawyers use for legal interpretation and argumentation. These problems can be further subdivided into particular aspects of activities undertaken by lawyers and officials who use the ratio legis in their work, and the underlying theories. In short, this book examines what ratio legis is, what it could be, and its practical implications.
on any discursive practice. Assuming that legal discursive practice forms part of universal discursive practice, the subjects of analysis are those legal concepts which have remained in legal practice throughout a given political transformation. This is illustrated by the use of the legal term ‘freedom of conscience and religion’. This analysis is built on the model of
responsibility for the content inherited from past users, and responsibility towards future users, based on Brandom’s inferential semantics.
Introduction Transition, as applied to legal matters, is a broad and interdisciplinary concept. Here it is applied as referring to the changes involved in a democratic transition, taking place in a legal system under circumstances which occur in the political, economic and cultural setting of that system. Intuitively, from the recent historical perspective of Central and Eastern Europe, a transition can be understood as ‘an interval between two political regimes, such as a period between the fall of an old, undemocratic regime and the consolidation of a new, democratic political system’ (Maldini 2007, 7). During such a period, many transformation processes usually take place. This paper is concerned with only one of them: the legal transformation.
A useful point of view from which one could grasp what happens in the functioning of a legal system undergoing transition can be provided by the model of what institutional legal practitioners – and judges in particular – do when they use legal concepts (which is what I believe to be constitutive of law as practice). First, I will introduce the philosophical terminology applied; second, I will provide some illustrations of what I have in mind, taken from Polish legal history as revealed through case- law; and third, I will try to put the model to work in an account of what happens to legal concepts in periods of transition.
of the mainstream of postwar Polish law theory as the implementation of the analysis program, with the conception of Z. Ziembinski serving as an example. The next part characterizes analytical pragmatism of R. Brandom and the challenges addressed to such research programs as classical analysis. The last part examines philosophical benefits that classical
analysis could obtain by embracing the challenges of analytical pragmatism. These include the ability to overcome the cognitive dualism, better justification of rationality and extending the anthropological perspective.
Domingo, a world-recognised Spanish Roman law specialist, offer its interpretation, as well as
recommend application of that law in the creation of a conception of material sources of law. The
starting point for the discussion on the above is a critical assessment of subject-reductionism in
public international law, and the principles of territoriality and sovereignty in particular. The
authors argue that overcoming the current regulatory and academic crisis in international law
will not be possible unless its existing paradigm is changed. Anthroparchy – a term coined by
the authors – should become a constructive element of the new paradigm, meaning that a person
with its intrinsic dignity and equality should be put in place of the state’s sovereignty. The characteristics
of such person, relevant for the axiological conditioning of the legal system, is then
proposed, introducing to the legal deliberations an interdisciplinary approach to philosophical
anthropology. The presented conception belongs to non-positivism in law, and its explanatory
force concerns questions of law’s teleology and autonomy with regard to state.
conception of a joint enactment of norms developed by Czesław Znamierowski. The joint enactment is
supposed to result in non-individual norms of general prohibition. Three interpretations of such
norms have been developed in order to shed light on some power-related issues. It is further claimed
that political and legal power can be explained in terms of a joint enactment of norms.