[HOME] [BOOKS]
[ORDERING] [JOURNALS]
[ABSTRACTS] [LINKS]
[SPECIAL OFFERS]
Deborah Charles
Publications
International Journal for the Semiotics
of Law
Revue Internationale de Sémiotique
Juridique
Abstracts of articles appearing in Vol. XI
no.31 (1998)
Bruce A. Arrigo, "Reason and Desire in Legal Education:
A Psychoanalytic-Semiotic Critique", International Journal for the
Semiotics of Law / Revue Internationale de Sémiotique Juridique
Vol. XI no.31 (1998), 3-24: Critiques of legal education have become commonplace.
Selected essays are now exploring the role of language in the process of
transmitting knowledge in the instructional milieu. Missing from these assessments,
however, has been any consideration of the unconscious mechanisms activated
and at work which already encode juridical discourse. This paper applies
a Lacanian-inspired psychoanalytic-semiotics of law to the method of legal
education. Several of Lacan's conceptualizations on discourse and knowledge
are presented in detail in order to explain what reason and desire are embedded
in legal education. The paper demonstrates how the argot of law-speak unconsciously
privileges its own discourse while invalidating and de-legitimizing all
other ways of knowing, all other voices, and, in the process, limiting one's
understanding of juridical knowledge. This paper concludes by suggesting
several Lacanian-based strategies which might make possible a deeper appreciation
for the law while participating in legal education.
Jarkko Tontti, "Law, Tradition and Interpretation",
International Journal for the Semiotics of Law / Revue Internationale de
Sémiotique Juridique X/31 (1998), 25-38: The paper seeks to construct
answers to the ontological and epistemological problems of legal philosophy
from the basis of continental hermeneutics as it has been developed by Martin
Heidegger and Hans-Georg Gadamer. First it is argued that the ontological
status of law is constituted by a dialectical interplay of tradition and
interpretation. The scope of hermeneutics is widened from the interpretation
of legal texts (legal sources) to the interpretation of the whole tradition
of law, including e.g. practical legal work. The tradition of law is an
on-going process of conflicting interpretations, where different interpreters
(courts, the legislator, advocates, scholars) compete to get through their
views. Secondly it is suggested that the epistemology of law must start
from a reconsideration of the Is-Ought distinction: every proposition contains,
at least implicitly, a normative demand that the claim ought to be accepted
by others. A correct proposition about law has two requirements: it must
be in coherence with the tradition and answer the present interpretative
question adequately. An adequate decision results when the tradition of
law enters into a dialectical relationship with creative and critical interpretation,
which guarantees dynamism and the change of the tradition. Tradition only
gives the framework or the context in which every interpretative question
of law must be answered. There are no non-contextual criteria to distinguish
correct interpretations from incorrect ones. e-mail: Jarkko.Tontti@Helsinki.fi
Colin Perrin, "The Silent Responsibility of Law",
International Journal for the Semiotics of Law / Revue Internationale
de Sémiotique Juridique Vol. XI no.31 (1998), 39-47: Following
Jacques Derrida's argument, from the first part of his 'Force of Law: 'The
Mystical Foundation of Authority'', this research note takes up the problem
of law's responsibility. Eliciting the background to Derrida's argument
in his earlier work, ' we signify when the present cannot be presented'.
And it is this responsibility that is considered here, in the relation between
signification and presentation, through what Maurice Blanchot calls 'the
silence of the word silence'. Law cannot be responsible. This word cannot
be silent. But it is in the inadequacy of this word - in its inadequacy
to 'itself - that it is silent because it speaks. And this is how silence
is: in the passivity of a response that cannot be passive, and in the responsibility
of a law that cannot be responsible. e-mail: s9701974@pop3.unsw.edu.au
Norman Markel, "A Semiotic Contribution to Libel
Action Law", International Journal for the Semiotics of Law / Revue
Internationale de Sémiotique Juridique Vol. XI no.31 (1998),
49-56: Four words in a newspaper article gave rise to a libel action against
the newspaper that published the article and the reporter who wrote it.
In preparing their case, attorneys for the newspaper requested the opinion
of the author, who applied semiotic concepts to operationally define the
legal terms defamatory and false. By applying semantic and pragmatic principles
the author developed a Fairness-Test and an Accuracy-Test that provide objective
methods for determining whether or not a report of a written document is
fair and accurate. Addresss: Department of Communication Sciences, University
of Florida, Gainesville, FL USA, markel@csd.ufl.edu
Controversies: Editor's introduction (click here for full text)
Mario Jori, "On Touchie, Logic and the Universe",
International Journal for the Semiotics of Law / Revue Internationale
de Sémiotique Juridique Vol. XI no.31 (1998), 59-65: My bottom
line is the following. I think that Touchie's central argument against Jackson
is wrong, but in being wrong he raises several important points about Jackson's
epistemology and legal theory. Touchie's central argument is that Jackson
cannot argue both that reference always requires individual choices, and
at the same time that (pure) propositional logic, being a rigorous calculus,
does not require such choices or decisions. According to Touchie, Jackson
can either be "sceptic" or "non-sceptic" about both
logic and reference. On the contrary, Jackson says that interpretive decisions
are required only by reference, the applying or interpreting or ascribing
words and sentences to actual facts. Where Touchie
in my opinion is wrong is about formal logic. Pure formal logic is indeed
a rigorous calculus involving no choices apart from accepting the rules
of the logic game. On the other hand, I agree with the other part of Touchie's
argument, that the amount of choice required by concrete acts of reference
(ascribing language to things) can be variably reduced by making the language
more precise. I agree that such interpretive choices can be reduced to a
practical nil for the normal purposes of particular kinds of descriptions
(the easy cases in jurisprudence and the normal cases in ordinary life and
language). e-mail jori@fildir.unimi.it
Roberta Kevelson, "Discussion on J. Touchie's Response
to B. Jackson's 'MacCormick on Logical Justification in Easy Cases: A Semiotic
Critique'", International Journal for the Semiotics of Law / Revue
Internationale de Sémiotique Juridique Vol. XI no.31 (1998),
67-71: The title tells the story of this paper. Here Kevelson contributes
a Peircean point of view, especially on points which touch upon the Peircean
understanding of the roles of different kinds of reasoning in different
kinds of discourses. The focus here is on the interplay of reasoning types
in the general concept of legal reasoning. E.g., the symbolic form of the
syllogism, it is pointed out, has become a rhetorical device which persuades
that it is truth-bearing. Additional commentary discusses Kevelson's agreement
with both Touchie and MacCormick, in opposition to Jackson, but for different
reasons than they each offer. e-mail: bobbieke@earthlink.net
Bruce Arrigo, "Language, Propositional Logic, and
Real World Applications: A Comment on Ascription", International
Journal for the Semiotics of Law / Revue Internationale de Sémiotique
Juridique Vol. XI no.31 (1998), 73-77: The Jackson-Touchie debate concerning
language, propositional logic, and real world applications raises some interesting
questions about ascription. This article offers some explanation on the
phenomenon by invoking a psycho-semiotic framework. Three matters are addressed:
(1) the operation of linguistic coordinate systems (LCS), (2) the process
of refuting particular truth claims as a decisive act of agency, and (3)
the formation of liberatory and discursive discourse production while speaking
from within an LCS. The analysis offered challenges the several assumptions
about the nature of speech production in particular and semiosis in general
as they relate to what Jackson and Touchie have addressed thus far. e-mail:
barrigo@mail.cspp.edu
Bernard S. Jackson, "With Reference to Touchie",
International Journal for the Semiotics of Law / Revue Internationale
de Sémiotique Juridique Vol. XI no.31 (1998), 79-93: In response
to John C.W. Touchie, "Jackson on the "Decisions" Underlying
the Application of Rules", International Journal for the Semiotics
of Law / Revue Internationale de Sémiotique Juridique Vol. X
no.30 (1997), 317-335, Jackson argues that Touchie's critique overlooks
Jackson's fundamental starting point in his original critique of MacCormick's
account of the justification of legal decisions (once rendered "easy")
through the normative syllogism. This starting point is the distinction
between semantics and pragmatics, and the nature of "reference"
within pragmatics. Prompted by Touchie's observation that "one could
not be within the sphere of "pure" grammar and at the same time
not obey the rules of grammar", Jackson restates his position using
the Chomskian distinction between competence and performance. While logic
as a system operates without the intervention of "decisions",
logic in use is part of the pragmatic dimension of language, which requires
consideration of the identity and purposes of its users. e-mail: Bernard.Jackson@man.ac.uk
Adrian Howe, Review of Judith Butler, Excitable Speech,
International Journal for the Semiotics of Law / Revue Internationale
de Sémiotique Juridique Vol. XI no.31 (1998), 95-104: In this
review, a dedicated follower of Judith Butler follows the labyrinthine path
of the brilliant North American philosopher's book-length argument against
the regulation of hate speech. Along the way the reviewer encounters illocutionary
and perlocutionary speech acts and renews her acquaintance with non-sovereign
power, subversive resignifications and iterable models of the performative.
Austin, Nietzsche, Foucault and Derrida are all on hand to keep her on track.
At journey's end she is left to ponder the connections and/or gap between
Butler's theorisation of linguistic pain and the injurious effects of hate
speech on subjugated social groups. e-mail A.Howe@latrobe.edu.au
Roshan de Silva Wijeyheratne, Review of John Caputo, Deconstruction
in a Nutshell: A Conversation with Jacques Derrida, International
Journal for the Semiotics of Law / Revue Internationale de Sémiotique
Juridique Vol. XI no.31 (1998), 105-112: In this book Caputo provides
a lucid introductory discussion of deconstruction. Caputo reveals how Derrida's
strategy of philosophical interruption is not rigidly tied to the twin 'origin'
of deconstruction, Heidegger's analytic of ontological finitude and Saussure's
structural linguistics. Instead, as far as Derrida's 'ethical turn' is concerned,
Caputo argues that the central theme of deconstruction, the relation to
the 'other', owes more to the post-ontological ethics of Levinas and Blanchot.
In this respect, Caputo reveals how deconstruction offers promise, (a promise
that is always 'to come'), of an infinite responsibility to the 'other'.
As such, in Caputo's analysis, deconstruction offers an alternative vision
of the political, beyond both liberalism and communitarianism.
[HOME] [BOOKS]
[ORDERING] [JOURNALS]
[ABSTRACTS] [LINKS]
[SPECIAL OFFERS]