Download or read book Rhetoric and The Rule of Law written by Neil MacCormick and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2005-07-28 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is legal reasoning rationally persuasive, working within a discernible structure and using recognisable kinds of arguments? Does it belong to rhetoric in this sense, or to the domain of the merely 'rhetorical' in an adversative sense? Is there any reasonable certainty about legal outcomes in dispute-situations? If not, what becomes of the Rule of Law? Neil MacCormick's book tackles these questions in establishing an overall theory of legal reasoning which shows the essential part 'legal syllogism' plays in reasoning aimed at the application of law, while acknowledging that simple deductive reasoning, though always necessary, is very rarely sufficient to justify a decision. There are always problems of relevancy, classification or interpretation in relation to both facts and law. In justifying conclusions about such problems, reasoning has to be universalistic and yet fully sensitive to the particulars of specific cases. How is this possible? Is legal justification at this level consequentialist in character or principled and right-based? Both normative coherence and narrative coherence have a part to play in justification, and in accounting for the validity of arguments by analogy. Looking at such long-discussed subjects as precedent and analogy and the interpretative character of the reasoning involved, Neil MacCormick expands upon his celebrated Legal Reasoning and Legal Theory (OUP 1978 and 1994) and restates his 'institutional theory of law'.
Download or read book Legal Reasoning written by Melvin A. Eisenberg and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-09-29 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The common law, which is made by courts, consists of rules that govern relations between individuals, such as torts (the law of private wrongs) and contracts. Legal Reasoning explains and analyzes the modes of reasoning utilized by the courts in making and applying common law rules. These modes include reasoning from binding precedents (prior cases that are binding on the deciding court); reasoning from authoritative although not binding sources, such as leading treatises; reasoning from analogy; reasoning from propositions of morality, policy, and experience; making exceptions; drawing distinctions; and overruling. The book further examines and explains the roles of logic, deduction, and good judgment in legal reasoning. With accessible prose and full descriptions of illustrative cases, this book is a valuable resource for anyone who wishes to get a hands-on grasp of legal reasoning.
Download or read book Justice Scalia written by Brian G. Slocum and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2019-03-06 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Justice Antonin Scalia (1936–2016) was the single most important figure in the emergence of the “new originalist” interpretation of the US Constitution, which sought to anchor the court’s interpretation of the Constitution to the ordinary meaning of the words at the time of drafting. For Scalia, the meaning of constitutional provisions and statutes was rigidly fixed by their original meanings with little concern for extratextual considerations. While some lauded his uncompromising principles, others argued that such a rigid view of the Constitution both denies and attempts to limit the discretion of judges in ways that damage and distort our system of law. In this edited collection, leading scholars from law, political science, philosophy, rhetoric, and linguistics look at the ways Scalia framed and stated his arguments. Focusing on rhetorical strategies rather than the logic or validity of Scalia’s legal arguments, the contributors collectively reveal that Scalia enacted his rigidly conservative vision of the law through his rhetorical framing.
Download or read book Doing What Comes Naturally written by Stanley Fish and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 1989 with total page 628 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In literary theory, the philosophy of law, and the sociology of knowledge, no issue has been more central to current debate than the status of our interpretations. Do they rest on a ground of rationality or are they subjective impositions of a merely personal point of view? In Doing What Comes Naturally, Stanley Fish refuses the dilemma posed by this question and argues that while we can never separate our judgments from the contexts in which they are made, those judgments are nevertheless authoritative and even, in the only way that matters, objective. He thus rejects both the demand for an ahistorical foundation, and the conclusion that in the absence of such a foundation we reside in an indeterminate world. In a succession of provocative and wide-ranging chapters, Fish explores the implications of his position for our understanding of legal, literary, and psychoanalytic interpretation, the nature of professional and institutional culture, and the place of reason in a world that is rhetorical through and through."--Publisher description.
Download or read book The Rhetoric of Law written by Austin Sarat and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 1996-01-23 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: DIVAn interdisciplinary critique of the relationship between words and the law /div
Download or read book Legal Reasoning and Legal Theory written by Neil MacCormick and published by Clarendon Press. This book was released on 1994-08-11 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What makes an argument in a law case good or bad? Can legal decisions be justified by purely rational argument or are they ultimately determined by more subjective influences? These questions are central to the study of jurisprudence, and are thoroughly and critically examined in Legal Reasoning and Legal Theory, now with a new and up-to-date foreword. Its clarity of explanation and argument make this classic legal text readily accessible to lawyers, philosophers, and any general reader interested in legal processes, human reasoning, or practical logic.
Download or read book Rhetoric for Legal Writers written by Kristen Konrad Tiscione and published by West Academic Publishing. This book was released on 2009 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This new book is intended for use by writing professors who want to inject more substance into their first-year legal research and writing course, as well as advanced legal writing students and upper-class students taking a seminar on rhetoric. The book is divided into two main sections: The first section examines rhetorical theory and its impact on legal argument from the time of ancient Greece to date. The second section, organized by the canons of classical rhetoric, discusses practical applications of rhetorical theory to the specific task of learning to think and write like a lawyer in the twenty-first century. By fusing theory and practice, a legal writer acquires depth-the ability to analyze an issue effectively using all available resources-as well as breadth-the ability to transfer her talent from one context to another. Each chapter includes questions for consideration by the students as well as samples exercises and suggested answers.
Download or read book Law s Stories written by Peter Brooks and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 1996-01-01 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The law is full of stories, ranging from the competing narratives presented at trials to the Olympian historical narratives set forth in Supreme Court opinions. How those stories are told and listened to makes a crucial difference to those whose lives are reworked in legal storytelling. The public at large has increasingly been drawn to law as an area where vivid human stories are played out with distinctively high stakes. And scholars in several fields have recently come to recognize that law's stories need to be studied critically. This notable volume--inspired by a symposium held at Yale Law School--brings together an exceptional group of well-known figures in law and literary studies to take a probing look at how and why stories are told in the law and how they are constructed and made effective. Why is it that some stories--confessions, victim impact statements--can be excluded from decisionmakers' hearing? How do judges claim the authority by which they impose certain stories on reality? Law's Stories opens new perspectives on the law, as narrative exchange, performance, explanation. It provides a compelling encounter of law and literature, seen as two wary but necessary interlocutors. Contributors J. M. Balkin Peter Brooks Harlon L. Dalton Alan M. Dershowitz Daniel A. Farber Robert A. Ferguson Paul Gewirtz John Hollander Anthony Kronman Pierre N. Leval Sanford Levinson Catharine MacKinnon Janet Malcolm Martha Minow David N. Rosen Elaine Scarry Louis Michael Seidman Suzanna Sherry Reva B. Siegel Robert Weisberg
Download or read book Character Evidence in the Courts of Classical Athens written by Vasileios Adamidis and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2016-11-25 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There has been much debate in scholarship over the factors determining the outcome of legal hearings in classical Athens. Specifically, there is divergence regarding the extent to which judicial panels were influenced by non-legal considerations in addition to, or even instead of, questions of law. Ancient rhetorical theory and practice devoted much attention to character and it is this aspect of Athenian law which forms the focus of this book. Close analysis of the dispute-resolution passages in ancient Greek literature reveals striking similarities with the rhetoric of litigants in the Athenian courts and thus helps to shed light on the function of the courts and the fundamental nature of Athenian law. The widespread use of character evidence in every aspect of argumentation can be traced to the Greek ideas of ‘character’ and ‘personality’, the inductive method of reasoning, and the social, political and institutional structures of the ancient Greek polis. According to the author’s proposed method of interpretation, character evidence was not a means of diverting the jury’s attention away from the legal issues; instead, it was a constructive and relevant way of developing a legal argument.
Download or read book Critical and Comparative Rhetoric written by Elizabeth Berenguer and published by Policy Press. This book was released on 2023-06-30 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Through the lenses of comparative and critical rhetoric, this book theorizes how alternative approaches to communication can transform legal meanings and legal outcomes, infusing them with more inclusive participation, equity and justice. Viewing legal language through a radical lens, the book sets aside longstanding norms that derive from White and Euro-centric approaches in order to re-situate legal methods as products of new rhetorical models that come from diasporic and non-Western cultures. The book urges readers to re-consider how they think about logic and rhetoric and to consider other ways of building knowledge that can heal the law’s current structures that often perpetuate and reinforce systems of privilege and power.
Download or read book Justice Law and Argument written by Ch. Perelman and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection contains studies on justice, juridical reasoning and argumenta tion which contributed to my ideas on the new rhetoric. My reflections on justice, from 1944 to the present day, have given rise to various studies. The ftrst of these was published in English as The Idea of Justice and the Problem of Argument (Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1963). The others, of which several are out of print or have never previously been published, are reunited in the present volume. As justice is, for me, the prime example of a "confused notion", of a notion which, like many philosophical concepts, cannot be reduced to clarity without being distorted, one cannot treat it without recourse to the methods of reasoning analyzed by the new rhetoric. In actuality, these methods have long been put into practice by jurists. Legal reasoning is fertile ground for the study of argumentation: it is to the new rhetoric what mathematics is to formal logic and to the theory of demonstrative proof. It is important, then, that philosophers should not limit their methodologi cal studies to mathematics and the natural sciences. They must not neglect law in the search for practical reason. I hope that these essays lead to be a better understanding of how law can enrich philosophical thought. CH. P.
Download or read book Rhetorical Processes and Legal Judgments written by Austin Sarat and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2016-09-01 with total page 159 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the last several decades legal scholars have plumbed law's rhetorical life. Scholars have done so under various rubrics, with law and literature being among the most fruitful venues for the exploration of law's rhetoric and the way rhetoric shapes law. Today, new approaches are shaping this exploration. Among the most important of these approaches is the turn toward history and toward what might be called an 'embedded' analysis of rhetoric in law. Historical and embedded approaches locate that analysis in particular contexts, seeking to draw our attention to how the rhetorical dimensions of legal life works in those contexts. Rhetorical Processes and Legal Judgments seeks to advance that mode of analysis and also to contribute to the understanding of the rhetorical structure of judicial arguments and opinions.
Download or read book The Cambridge Companion to the Rule of Law written by Jens Meierhenrich and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-08-12 with total page 715 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Cambridge Companion to the Rule of Law introduces students, scholars, and practitioners to the theory and history of the rule of law, one of the most frequently invoked-and least understood-ideas of legal and political thought and policy practice. It offers a comprehensive re-assessment by leading scholars of one of the world's most cherished traditions. This high-profile collection provides the first global and interdisciplinary account of the histories, moralities, pathologies and trajectories of the rule of law. Unique in conception, and critical in its approach, it evaluates, breaks down, and subverts conventional wisdom about the rule of law for the twenty-first century.
Download or read book Syllogism and Defeasibilty written by Giovanni Sartor and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Practical Reason in Law and Morality written by Neil MacCormick and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2008-12-18 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The concept of practical reason is central to contemporary thought on ethics and the philosophy of law - acting well means acting for good reasons. Explaining this requires several stages. How do reasons relate to actions at all, as incentives and in explanations? What are values, how do they relate to human nature, and how do they enter practical reasoning? How do the concepts of 'right and wrong' fit in, and in what way do they involve questions of mutual trust among human beings? How does our moral freedom - our freedom to form our own moral commitments - relate to our responsibilities to each other? How is this final question transposed into law and legal commitments? This book explores these questions, vital to understanding the nature of law and morality. It presents a clear account of practical reason, valuable to students of moral philosophy and jurisprudence at undergraduate or postgraduate levels. For more advanced scholars it also offers a reinterpretation of Kant's views on moral autonomy and Smith's on self-command, marrying Smith's 'moral sentiments' to Kant's 'categorical imperative' in a novel way. The book concludes and underpins the author's Law, State, and Practical Reason series. Taken together the books offer an overarching theory of the nature of law and legal reason, the role of the State, and the nature of moral reason and judgement.
Download or read book Rhetoric and Law in Early Modern Europe written by Victoria Ann Kahn and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bringing together the work of social and legal historians, literary scholars, and historians of rhetoric and political theory, this is an interdisciplinary study of the relation of law and rhetoric in the early modern period in Europe.
Download or read book Introduction to Classical Legal Rhetoric written by Michael H. Frost and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-03-02 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lawyers, law students and their teachers all too frequently overlook the most comprehensive, adaptable and practical analysis of legal discourse ever devised: the classical art of rhetoric. Classical analysis of legal reasoning, methods and strategy is the foundation and source for most modern theories on the topic. Beginning with Aristotle's Rhetoric and culminating with Cicero's De Oratore and Quintilian's Institutio Oratoria, Greek and Roman rhetoricians created a clear, experience-based theoretical framework for analyzing legal discourse. This book is the first to systematically examine the connections between classical rhetoric and modern legal discourse. It traces the history of legal rhetoric from the classical period to the present day and shows how modern theorists have unknowingly benefited from the classical works. It also applies classical rhetorical principles to modern appellate briefs and judicial opinions to demonstrate how a greater familiarity with the classical sources can deepen our understanding of legal reasoning.
