Bocconi University in Milan

English abstract: The paper has three sub-topics: legal knowledge, legal norms, and evolutionary systems. The three are interconnected. A reflection on the nature of legal knowledge throws light on the nature of legal norms. Legal knowledge is largely a posteriori and it is so because norms are largely contingent. Being a realm of continual change, law has novelty as a fundamental feature. The process of legal change is not driven by chance but by the attempt to face ever new problems and changing circumstances. This supports a view of legal systems as adaptive and evolutionary, as classical pragmatism suggested. However, inference can give some a priori legal knowledge.

Keywords: inference, legal knowledge, legal norms, novelty, pragmatism

Language: English

Published: Number 2(27)/2021, pp. 108-122.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36280/AFPiFS.2021.2.108

Download: Download
Number of downloads: 411

This text is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution – Non Commercial – No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.