Law, Narrative and Reality: An Essay in Intercepting Politics

✍ Scribed by Bert Van Roermund (auth.)

• Publisher: Springer Netherlands
• Year: 1997
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 240
• Series: Law and Philosophy Library 30
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This book is at odds with the presuppositions behind a received view on law as a systematic solution to social problems in the name of justice. It argues that neither do facts in law represent social reality, nor do norms represent a moral ideal. Representationalism as such, in its various legal guises, is put to the test of what is called here `the interception hypothesis'. Although it is derived from the theory of literature (the theory of narrative) and corroborated by several close reading analyses of legal texts (both decisions and statutory rules), this hypothesis aims, in the first part, at providing an alternative model for the structure and the value of legal knowledge. The second part shows how this knowledge is operative in fundamental concepts like democracy, punishment and (contractual) obligation.

✦ Table of Contents

Front Matter....Pages i-ix
Introduction....Pages 1-18
A Hypothesis about Narratives....Pages 19-35
Narrative Coherence and the Facts of the Case....Pages 37-48
Narrative Coherence and the System of Legal Norms....Pages 49-73
Ascription of Normative Consequences to Facts....Pages 75-93
Narratives, Law and Representation: Towards an Epistemological Account of the Interception Hypothesis....Pages 95-124
The Guises of Legalism....Pages 125-143
Democracy and Representation....Pages 145-169
Law as Punishment — Punishment as Law....Pages 171-194
The Law of Obligations — And the Fun of Seeing Places....Pages 195-216
Epilogue....Pages 217-217
Back Matter....Pages 219-238

✦ Subjects

Theories of Law, Philosophy of Law, Legal History; Philosophy of Law; Political Philosophy; Philosophy of Language