The role of pragmatics in (re)constructing the rational law-maker
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 20484133 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Alessandro Capone (0000-0001-6584-9767, University of Messina, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2013 |
| Volume | 21 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 399-414 |
| Publication date | 2013-12-31 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Pragmatics & Cognition (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0929-0907 • E-ISSN: 1569-9943 |
| Publisher | John Benjamins Publishing Company (PUBLISHER • NL) |
| DOI | 10.1075/pc.21.2.08cap |
| OpenAlex | W4237453096 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 30 |
The recent debate on pragmatics and the law has found ways to circumvent an important distinction, originally drawn by Dascal and Wróblewski (1991), between the historical law-maker, the current law-maker, and the ideal/rational law-maker.1 By insisting on the relationship between the rational law-maker and contextualism and textualism (see Manning 2005, 2006), I want to redress this fault in current discussions. In this paper, I start with general considerations on pragmatics, intentionality in ordinary conversation, and intentionality in the context of judiciary proceedings and legal texts. I then move on to considerations on rationality as a prerequisite for understanding the law and on the rational law-maker, an ideal construct proposed by Dascal and Wróblewski (1991). I argue that contextualism (of the moderate kind) is the best way to carry out the program by Dascal and Wróblewski on interpretation and the rational law-maker (also see considerations by Fish 2005); (on contextualism see Dascal and Weizman 1987). I argue that bearing in mind the rational law-maker postulated by Dascal and Wróblewski is a guidance to interpretation of statutes whose texts create interpretative difficulties. I conclude by saying that the considerations on the rational law-maker constitute a compromise between Scalia’s (1997) textualism and contextualism (see Manning 2005, 2006 on the divide between textualism and contextualism)
Comparative law · Contextualism · Epistemology · Intentionality · Linguistics · Philosophy of law · Political science · Pragmatics · Sociology · Law · Law in Society and Culture · Legal Language and Interpretation · linguistics and terminology studies · Philosophy
Perspectival Thought
Anaphora
Impoliteness
Thoughts and Utterances
Meaning and Relevance
Simulating Minds
Positivism and the Separation of Law and Morals
Philosophical Investigations
Indirect reports as language games
Are explicatures cancellable? Toward a theory of the speaker's intentionality
Understanding Pragmatics
Radical interpretation
The rational law-maker and the pragmatics of legal interpretation
On the social practice of indirect reports (further advances in the theory of pragmemes)
| Unique citing works | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,33 |
| Citation span | 2017 - 2023 (7) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 3 |