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International Journal for the Semiotics of Law, vol. XI no. 31 (1998), 57-58

Introduction: Propositional Logic and Decisions

by

Dragan Milovanovic

Northeastern Illinois University

This debate section focuses on a recent semiotic critique by Touchie(1) of Jackson's analysis(2) of propositional logic and the requirements of decisions. The focus is on how distinctive semiotic spheres such as law may or may not constrain decision-making. If constraints do exist, are they exact or does "fuzziness" exist? The issue of referentiality becomes a key in this inquiry. Do decisions necessary require reference? Is propositional logic much like an exact science, constrained by rigorous calculus? If so, is there a place for "decision"? For Agency? In the opposite direction, if premises within propositional logic are enthymemes,(3) and reality constructions semiotic variable, then how to account for stability in decisions in law?

A number of other questions are raised. What semiotic interpretive activity mediates between pure propositional law and the "real world"? Does there remain further interpretive activity of interpretive activity itself, when, for example, a judgment is made that the initial interpretive activity is within the bounds of a semiotic sphere such as law (or chess, or racquetball, or tennis, etc.)? Does this become an infinite regress? Where does the question of validity find its final resting point in interpretive spheres? To what extent are universalities assumed in the very construction of propositional logic? Does semiosis preclude constructions of definitive boundaries? Referents? Does a dialogic semiosis undermine a monolithic semiosis and hence make uncertainties ubiquitous? Does a distinction between semantics and pragmatics and competence and performance in semiotic analysis sufficiently clarify distinct spheres in semiotic activity and their effects in decision-making?

In legal decision making, do other more informal semiotic activities such as inductive and abductive logic combine with the other wise assumed syllogistic reasoning and deductive logic? To what extent? Because of contingencies, are decisions always necessarily implicated in the exercise of propositional logic? Since decisions are semiotic constructions, and since the free play of signification at the unconscious level interact with more formal narrative constructions in law, does propositional logic meet its Waterloo? If this is so, have we traveled full circle to the early legal realist arguments in law about the nature of decision-making?

The importance of this debate is for its contribution in shedding light on the nature of syllogistic reasoning and deductive logic, claimed to be central to legal decision-making. Assumed in legal training and practice is that linear, logical discursive constructions lead clearly to a decision in law. The debate here presents a number of critiques of this conventional wisdom. This debate becomes particularly enlightening when key thinkers from several dominant semiotic and law perspectives are represented here: Lacanian (Arrigo), Peircean (Kevelson), Greimassian (Jackson), and the Italian Analytical School (Jori).

The debate over the nature of decision-making as it relates to propositional logic certainly will raise questions for the reader. And one measure of a good debate is the extent to which it further encourages more focused and critical inquiry which clarifies the issue at hand. Accordingly, I look forward to and encourage written responses to the debate. In future issues of the journal other debates will appear. The field of semiotics and law will certainly have its contours and its focus further developed in the process.

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