The Language of Law
The close connection between philosophy of
language and philosophy of law has been recognized for decades through the work
of many influential legal philosophers. This volume brings recent advances in
philosophy of language to bear on contemporary debates about the nature of law
and legal interpretation.
The book builds on recent work in pragmatics
and speech-act theory to explain how, and to what extent, legal content is
determined by linguistic considerations. At the same time, the analysis shows
that some of the unique features of communication in the legal domain - in
particular, its strategic nature - can be employed to put pressure on certain
assumptions in philosophy of language. This enables a more nuanced picture of
how semantic and pragmatic determinants of communication work in complex and
large-scale systems such as law.
Chapters build on explanations of key
elements of statutory language, such as the distinction between what is said and
what is implicated, the possibility of ascribing truth-values to legal
prescriptions and the structure of legal inferences, the various forms of
vagueness in the law, the distinctions between vagueness, ambiguity, and
polysemy in legal language, and the distinction between concept and conceptions,
mostly in the context of constitutional interpretation. The book demonstrates
that paying close attention to the kind of speech acts legal directives are, and
how they determine the content of the law, enables a better understanding of the
boundaries between normative and linguistic determinants of legal content
