Archiwum
Filozofii Prawa
i Filozofii Społecznej

Journal of the Polish Section of IVR (ISSN:2082-3304)

IVR

Narrativity of Legal Language in Law-Making Processes

Dr Paweł Skuczyński

University of Warsaw

English abstract: The paper concerns the relation between argumentative and narrative features of legal texts and the question whether legal texts can be perceived as narrative texts. A narrative text is understood as transferring a story to the recipient through a given medium. The story, being the content of a narrative text, constitutes a specific way of manifesting the plot. The latter is a sort of internal logic of the story. The very same plot might be told in many different ways. Hence, the narrative text does not depict events directly, but through a story that requires a storytelling agent – the narrator. Certainly, there are different kinds of narrators, who can be more or less exposed within the text. In consequence, there are at least five positions concerning the relation between argumentation and narration in law: 1) sceptic – narration is a negation of the reasonableness of law; 2) narration is a structure of presentation of facts; 3) narration is a means of rhetoric persuasion; 4) narration is a meta-argumentative structure; 5) narration is a subject of critical analysis as it reveals the identity of an author. The theory of narration is applied to a particular problem of participation of professional self-governments in law-making.

Keywords: legal narrative, legal argumentation, legal language, law-making, professional self-governments

Language: Original printed in Polish, English translation available below

Published: Number 1(22)/2020, pp. 66-83.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36280/AFPiFS.2020.1.66ENG

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Coherence Model of Legal Reasoning

Dr Michał Araszkiewicz

Jagiellonian University


English abstract: The aim of the article is to present a model of legal reasoning based of the concept of coherence, as this concept is understood in recent developments of cognitive science. More precisely, the model, hereafter referred to as CMLR (Coherence Model of Legal Reasoning) is based on the constraint satisfaction theory of coherence, elaborated and defended by Paul Thagard. The claim of the author is that CMLR appears very satisfactory when assessed against criteria typically employed for evaluation of legal-theoretical models of argumentation. It is able to represent legal reasoning either as a neural network or, more traditionally, as a formal dialogue game. In consequence, CMLR offers a plausible “third road” between traditional deductive and non-deductive models of legal thinking.

Keywords: legal argumentation, legal reasoning, coherence, cohesion

Language: Polish

Published: Number 1(1)/2010, pp. 19-38.

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Number of downloads: 213

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