Full Description
This title was first published in 2003. Leading contemporary essays on interpretation are assembled in this volume, which offsets them against a small number of "classical" works from earlier periods. It has long been recognized that textual sources (constitutions, statutes, precedents, commentaries) are central to developed systems of law and that interpretation of such texts is one highly important element in adjudication, legal practice and legal scholarship. Scholars have also contended that the totality of legal activity is "interpretive" in a wider sense and debates about objectivity have raged. The reasons for this development are here critically scrutinized.
Contents
Acknowledgements, Series Preface, Introduction, PART I. INTERPRETATION AND LAW: WHY IS INTERPRETATION IMPORTANT FOR LAW?, 1. 'Law, Philosophy and Interpretation', ARSP, 80, pp. 463-75, 2. 'Why Interpret?', Ratio Juris, 9, pp. 349-63, PART II. INTERPRETATION AND LEGAL REASONING: LAW AND MORALITY, 3. 'Law as Practical Reason', Cambridge Law Journal, 48, pp. 436-71, 4. 'Legal Reasoning and Legal Theory Revisited', Law and Philosophy, 18, pp. 537-77, 5. 'A Natural Law Theory of Interpretation', Southern California Law Review, 58, pp. 277-398, PART III. INTERPRETATION AND APPLICATION OF LEGAL RULES, VAGUENESS AND DEFEASIBILITY, 6. 'Justification and Application of Norms', Ratio Juris, 6, pp. 157-70, 7. 'Critical Remarks on Robert Alexy's "Special-Case Thesis'" , Ratio Juris, 6, pp. 143-56, 8. 'Law, Love and Computers', Edinburgh Law Review, 1, pp. 25-42, 9. 'On Law and Logic', Ratio Juris, 9, pp. 331-48, PART IV. LEGAL INTEPRETATION AND POLITICS, 10. 'Legal Analysis as Institutional Imagination', Modern Law Review, 59, pp. 1-23, 11. The Inertia of Institutional Imagination: A Reply to Roberto Unger', Modem Law Review, 59, pp. 377-97, PART V. INTERPRETATION AND OBJECTIVITY, 12. 'Law and Metaphysics', Yale Law Journal, 96, pp. 613-36, 13. 'Kripke's Case: Some Remarks on Rules, their Interpretation and Application', Rechtstheorie, 19, pp. 39-49, 14. 'Working on the Chain Gang: Interpretation in Law and Literature', in Stanley Fish, Doing What Comes Naturally, Durham and London: Duke University Press, pp. 87-102, 559-62, PART VI. INTERPRETING THE LAW, 15. 'Normative and Narrative Coherence in Legal Decision Making', ARSP-Beiheft, 69, pp. 194-205, 16. 'On Justification and Interpretation', ARSP-Beiheft, 53, pp. 255-68, 17. 'Authority Reasons in Legal Interpretation and Moral Reasoning', ARSP Supplementa (III), pp. 144-52, 18. 'Two Types of Substantive Reasons: The Core of a Theory of Common-Law Justification', Cornell Law Review, 63, pp. 707-88, 19. 'Reasonableness and Objectivity', Notre Dame Law Review, 74, pp. 1575-603, Name Index
