This book engages in an analytical and realistic enquiry into legal interpretation and a selection of related matters including legal gaps, judicial fictions, judicial precedent, legal defeasibility, and legislation. Chapter 1 provides an outline of the central theoretical and methodological tenets of analytical realism. Chapter 2 presents a conceptual apparatus concerning the phenomenon of legal interpretation, which it subsequently applies to investigate the truth-in-legal-interpretation issue. Chapters 3 to 6 argue for a theory of legal interpretation - pragmatic realism - by (...) outlining a theory of interpretive games, revisiting the debate between literalism and contextualism in contemporary philosophy of language, and underscoring the many shortcomings of the container-retrieval view and pragmatic formalism. In turn, Chapter 7, focusing on comparative legal theory, advocates an interpretation-sensitive theory of legal gaps, as opposed to purely normativist ones. Chapter 8 explores the connection between judicial reasoning and judicial fictions, casting light on the structure and purpose of fictional reasoning. Chapter 9 provides an analytical enquiry into judicial precedent, examining a variety of ideal-typical systems in terms of their normative or de iure relevance. Chapter 10 addresses defeasibility and legal indeterminacy. In closing, Chapter 11 highlights the central tenets of a realistic theory of legislation. (shrink)

The paper purports to provide an analytical treatment of the truth and legal interpretation issue. In the first part, it lays down a conceptual apparatus meant to capture the main aspects of the legal interpretation phenomenon, with particular attention paid to the several kinds of linguistic outputs resulting from interpretive activities. In the second part, it recalls three different notions of truth, focussing, so far as systemic truth is concerned, on the difference between deductive and rhetorical normative systems. In the (...) third, and last, part, it shows in which ways the phenomenon of legal interpretation encompasses truth-apt entities, leaving the choice between austere and liberal alethic pluralism to the reader. A few, final remarks address the formalism/scepticism problem. (shrink)

In a series of essays published from the late 1920s up to the mid-1960s, Hans Kelsen carried out a radical critique of natural law theory. The present paper purports to provide an analytical reconstruction and critical assessment of such a critique. It contains two parts. Part one surveys the fundamentals of Kelsen’s argumentative strategy against natural law and its theorists. Part two considers, in turn, two critical reactions to Kelsen’s criticisms: by Edgar Bodenheimer, on behalf of traditional natural law theory; (...) by Robert P. George, on behalf of “the new natural law theory”. As the analysis suggests, Kelsen’s critique stands up to the criticisms. (shrink)

The paper offers a comparison between the legal theory of normative facts on the one hand, and Bruno Celano’s theory of pre-conventions on the other, suggesting two ways that the latter may be of use to well-meaning jurists.

Brian Bix, Damiano Canale, Timothy Endicott, Alessio Sardo, Frederick Schauer, and Giovanni Tuzet did me the honour of reading and critically commenting Interpretation without Truth (in the followi...

V nizu razprav, objavljenih med koncem dvajsetih in sredino šestdesetih let prejšnjega stoletja, je Hans Kelsen v naravnopravniško teorijo uperil radikalno kritiko. Avtor te razprave skuša to kritiko analitično obnoviti in kritično ovrednotiti. Njegov zapis je sestavljen iz dveh delov. V prvem se posveča temeljem Kelsnove argumentacijske strategije zoper naravno pravo in naravnopravniške teoretike. V drugem delu pa se osredotoči na dva kritična odgovora na Kelsnov napad. Enega je v imenu tradicionalne naravnopravniške teorije podal Edgar Bodenheimer, drugega pa je v (...) imenu »Nove naravnopravniške teorije« izoblikoval Robert P. George. Avtorjeva analiza nakazuje, da se Kelsnova kritika uspešno zoperstavlja tem kritičnim odgovorom. (shrink)

Abstract. The paper argues for the following points: (1) Marmor's own understanding of "legal positivism" is different from the understanding defended, e.g., by Herbert Hart and Norberto Bobbio, and apparently misleads him into the wrong track of a theoretical inversion; (2) Marmor's two-stages model of (legal) interpretation—the understanding-interpretion model—provides no support for Marmor's own positivistic theory of law; (3) Marmor's concept of interpretation is at odds both with the basic tenets of Hartian and Continental methodological legal positivism, on the one (...) hand, and with the actual practice of legal interpretation in the Western world, on the other hand; (4) Marmor's concept of an easy case is likewise objectionable. (shrink)

Chapter I of The Concept of Law raises a fourth, capital, issue, besides the three well-known ones: i.e., the meta-philosophical issue concerning the point, the matter, and the method of legal theory. The paper purports to present Hart’s philosophy of jurisprudence in its best light, also by referring to some of its theoretical pay-offs, and to defend it, so far as possible, against a few criticisms by supporters of different outlooks (Raz, Leiter, and Dworkin)Resumen:El capítulo 1 de El concepto de (...) derecho plantea una cuarta cuestión fundamental, además de las otras tres bien conocidas: a saber, la cuestión meta-filosófica relacionada con el objeto, materia y método de la teoría jurídica. El propósito de este artículo es exponer la filosofía del derecho hartiana en su mejor versión, mediante la referencia a algunas de sus ventajas teóricas, con el fin de defenderla, en la medida de lo posible, de algunas de las críticas formuladas por los defensores de otros enfoques (Raz, Leiter y Dworkin). (shrink)

Among contemporary forms of constitutionalism, Luigi Ferrajoli’s Garantismo may be considered as the rather unfashionable attempt to build up a comprehensive and multi-layered theory, which still takes seriously the positivist heritage. This paper offers, in brief outline, a synthetic view of the social setting, the philosophical background, and the basic features of this conception of constitutionalism, when compared with legal positivism and other mainstream forms of (neo)constitutionalism.