scholarly journals Nieostrość języka prawnego w świetle filozoficznych koncepcji nieostrości

2021 ◽  
pp. 27-42
Author(s):  
Tomasz Gizbert-Studnicki
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Legal Interpretation ◽  
Theory Of Meaning ◽  
Legal Texts

The purpose of the paper is to discuss the usefulness of application of various philosophical conceptions of vagueness to the problem of vagueness in law. Although it cannot be expected that any philosophical conception may solve the practical problems of interpretation and application of vague terms in legal texts, the philosophy of language may help lawyers to better understand their problems. The paper describes main philosophical conceptions of vagueness and in particular metaphysical, epistemic, semantic, and pragmatic theories. It is argued that the pragmatic conception of vagueness has the best explanatory force with respect to the problem of vagueness in law. The application of this conception, however, must be based on acceptance of internalistic theory of meaning and on the assumption that the purpose of legal interpretation is to reveal the intention of the legislator. Both assumptions are controversial.

The Structure of Truth

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald Davidson
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Logical Form ◽  
Historical Document ◽  
Truth Theory ◽  
Ontological Commitments ◽  
Theory Of Meaning ◽  
First Time

Donald Davidson’s 1970 Locke Lectures appear in print for the first time in this volume, accompanied by an introduction highlighting their significance as a snapshot of his evolving views in the philosophy of language and describing their relationship to the work he published during his lifetime. The lectures comprise an invaluable historical document that illuminates how Davidson was thinking about the theory of meaning, the role of a truth theory therein, the ontological commitments of a truth theory, the notion of logical form, and so on, at a pivotal moment in the development of his thought. Unlike Davidson’s previously published work, they are written so as to be presented to an audience as a fully organized and coherent exposition of his program in the philosophy of language. Had these lectures been widely available in the years following 1970, the reception of Davidson’s work, especially in the philosophy of language, might have been very different. Given the systematic nature of the presentation of Davidson’s semantic program in these lectures, it is hoped that they will be of use to those encountering his thought for the first time.

Interpreting Multilingual Legislation

2019 ◽  
pp. 183-208
Author(s):  
Janny H.C. Leung
Keyword(s):  
Legal Interpretation ◽  
Legal Texts ◽  
Constituent Group ◽  
Legal Outcomes ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Cost

This chapter discusses the intricacies of interpreting multilingual legal texts. Multiplicity of legal languages potentially amplifies linguistic indeterminacy, which in turn contributes to legal indeterminacy. It would be a nightmare for a bilingual or multilingual jurisdiction if the application of two or more language versions of the law to the same case leads to two or more different legal outcomes. Such legal indeterminacy could give rise to chaos. Indeed, these nightmares have periodically haunted bilingual and multilingual jurisdictions. Established rules of legal interpretation, having been derived with the assumption that there is only one official text of the law, are not always helpful in resolving interpretation problems in a multilingual jurisdiction. In multilingual jurisdictions, the authority of the law is shifted away from the text that represents it. The cost of linguistic inclusivity is that each constituent group of a multilingual jurisdiction has to surrender predictability of legal outcome derivable from a single version of the law.

scholarly journals What is interpretation? A dilemma for Davidson

Conceptus ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 40 (98) ◽  
pp. 54-66
Author(s):  
Nils Kürbis
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Empirical Theory ◽  
The Core ◽  
Theory Of Meaning ◽  
Core Idea ◽  
Radical Interpreter

AbstractThe core idea of Davidson’s philosophy of language is that a theory of truth constructed as an empirical theory by a radical interpreter is a theory of meaning. I discuss an ambiguity that arises from Davidson's notion of interpretation: it can either be understood as the hypothetical process of constructing a theory of truth for a language or as a process that actually happens when speakers communicate. I argue that each disambiguation is problematic and does not result in a theory of meaning.

Berkeley’s Theory of Meaning

1975 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 191-206 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen K. Land
Keyword(s):  
General Theory ◽  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Fundamental Principle ◽  
Traditional View ◽  
Linguistic Meaning ◽  
General Terms ◽  
Theory Of Meaning ◽  
Human Understanding ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Contextual Meaning

Summary Recent scholars disagree over whether Berkeley’s theory of meaning constitutes a radical departure from Locke in the direction of current philosophy of language or offers no real alternative to the semantics of Locke’s Essay concerning Human Understanding. Berkeley agrees with Locke that linguistic meaning consists in the transmission of ideas from speaker to hearer by means of words, but he does not accept the Lockean account of this transmission. Specifically he departs from Locke at two fundamental points: he insists that ideas themselves have meanings and stand in need of interpretation, and he holds that the meanings of ideas may vary with the contexts in which they occur. To accommodate Berkeley’s principle of contextual meaning the account of communication must relate not individual ideas to individual words but strings of ideas to strings of words. Words and ideas, moreover, are not isomorphic as Locke implies they are: Berkeley indicates in particular the cases of general terms and names for spiritual substances, for neither of which Corresponding ideas can be discovered. To accommodate such cases within the general theory that meaning depends upon corresponding ideas an encoding process must be introduced into the account of the verbal transmission of ideas, a process whereby verbal structures including such terms as universals and names for spirits can be related to different ideational structures in which no such terms appear. The conclusion is that Berkeley accepts from Locke the fundamental principle that meaning depends upon corresponding ideas in the mind but that he holds this relation of correspondence to be much more complex than Locke allowed: in particular Berkeley introduces structural considerations by abandoning the traditional view that words and ideas correspond on a one-to-one basis, and he requires the mind to perform certain interpretative encoding procedures in translating between verbal and ideational structures.

scholarly journals Dummett’s Legacy: Semantics, Metaphysics and Linguistic Competence

Disputatio ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 7 (41) ◽  
pp. 207-229
Author(s):  
Massimiliano Vignolo
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Semantic Analysis ◽  
Linguistic Competence ◽  
Central Position ◽  
Important Lesson ◽  
Philosophical Inquiry ◽  
Michael Dummett ◽  
Theory Of Meaning

Abstract Throughout his philosophical career, Michael Dummett held firmly two theses: (I) the theory of meaning has a central position in philosophy and all other forms of philosophical inquiry rest upon semantic analysis, in particular semantic issues replace traditional metaphysical issues; (II) the theory of meaning is a theory of understanding. I will defend neither of them. However, I will argue that there is an important lesson we can learn by reflecting on the link between linguistic competence and semantics, which I take to be an important part of Dummett’s legacy in philosophy of language. I discuss this point in relation to Cappelen and Lepore’s criticism of Incompleteness Arguments.

scholarly journals Dennis Patterson on Wittgenstein

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 99-106
Author(s):  
V. V. Ogleznev ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Legal Theory ◽  
Full Scale ◽  
Legal Philosophy ◽  
Legal Interpretation ◽  
Rule Following ◽  
Philosophical Investigations ◽  
Special Approach ◽  
Legal Theorist

Dennis Patterson, modern American legal theorist, is one of the active supporters of the importance and significance of later Wittgenstein’s ideas for resolving legal philosophy problems, including legal indeterminacy problem. On the basis of Wittgenstein’s ideas about rule-following and acting in accordance with rule, he developed his own special approach to law and legal interpretation. Although there are some doubts and possible objections that he understood and interpreted «Philosophical Investigations» correctly, it should be recognized that Patterson made a full-scale (and sometimes very convincing) attempt to explicate Wittgenstein’s thoughts in a quite different context, namely, in the context of legal theory. His treatment of wittgensteinian philosophy of language continues to be interesting and sound, despite the criticisms that have been made against his approach. It is in fact very hard to find among modern legal philosophers or theorists someone who could interpret Wittgenstein in a more sophisticated way than Patterson has done

Möchte Chomsky erklären, was Wittgenstein beschreibt?

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 105-123
Author(s):  
Melanie Uth
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
The Other ◽  
Rule Following ◽  
Philosophical Investigations ◽  
Complementary Distribution ◽  
Linguistic Research ◽  
Theory Of Meaning ◽  
Basic Concepts ◽  
The One ◽  
Language Meaning

AbstractThis article examines the relation between the philosophy of language proposed by the later Wittgenstein in his Philosophical Investigations, and his ambition to cure philosophy from the mapping of linguistic expressions to extra-linguistic entities, on the one hand, and Chomsky's statements regarding language, meaning, and thought, and regarding the sense and non-sense of different fields of linguistic research, on the other. After a brief descriptive comparison of both approaches, it is argued that Chomsky's criticism on Wittgenstein's theory of meaning (Chomsky 1974 – 1996), or on Wittgenstein's basic concepts such as e. g. rule-following (Chomsky 2000 onwards), respectively, is (a) unwarranted and (b) caused by a fundamental misconception. Moreover, it is argued that the hypothesis evoked by Grewendorf (1985: 126), according to which „Chomsky would like to explain what Wittgenstein describes“, is misleading since the objects of investigation of Chomsky and Wittgenstein are in complementary distribution one to the other.

Toward a Theory of Legal Interpretation

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott Soames
Keyword(s):  
Legal System ◽  
Legal Interpretation ◽  
Empirical Theory ◽  
Legal Norms ◽  
Ideal System ◽  
Legal Texts ◽  
Moral Theories ◽  
The Law

This chapter is concerned with the content of legal norms governing the interpretation of legal texts by legally authoritative actors in a legal system. As such, a theory of legal interpretation is a theory of the content of the law, codified or uncodified, governing legally authorized interpreters. Thought of in this way, it is a nonnormative empirical theory related to, but distinct from, (a) empirical theories about what the mass of judges in a particular legal system actually do in the cases before them; (b) moral theories about what they morally should do in particular cases; and (c) politically normative theories about what the role of the judiciary should be in an ideal system. The most important question to be answered by such a theory is, what precisely is required of legally authoritative interpreters, how much and what kind of latitude are they allowed, and what factors are they to take into account in their interpretations?

Realism and Antirealism

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Miller
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
External World ◽  
Semantic Realism ◽  
Theory Of Meaning ◽  
Linguistic Understanding

This article questions whether, once the conception of metaphysics as grounded in the philosophy of language has been jettisoned, Dummett's arguments against semantic realism can retain any relevance to the realist/antirealist debate. By focussing on realism about the external world as an example, it reaches the conclusion that even without Dummett's conception of philosophy as grounded in the theory of meaning, his arguments against semantic realism do retain a limited but nevertheless genuine significance for the metaphysical debate. It emerges, though, that a certain key assumption, connecting the notions of linguistic understanding and knowledge, and necessary if Dummett's arguments are to have even this limited significance, is both underexplained and underdefended. The article concludes with some brief remarks on the cogency of the manifestation argument against semantic realism.

Simplicius on the Meaning of Sentences: A Commentary on In Cat. 396,30-397,28

Phronesis ◽  
1998 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Declarative Sentence ◽  
Theory Of Meaning ◽  
De Interpretatione ◽  
Stoic Philosophy

AbstractAt Categories 12b5-16 Aristotle appears to regard the referents of declarative sentences, such as "Socrates is sitting," as what later writers were to call complexe significabilia, i.e., items such as that Socrates is sitting. Simplicius' discussion of this passage in his commentary on the Categories clearly shows the influence of Stoic philosophy of language; but, if we follow the text printed by Kalbfleisch, Simplicius' commentary is seen to be a muddle of Stoic and Aristotelian elements, neither properly understood. It is possible, however, by making a crucial emendation to the text, to preserve the Aristotelian integrity of Simplicius' theory of meaning. On that line Simplicius would be adopting the view that a declarative sentence refers to a thought in the first instance and a complexe significabile in the second instance. This view is plausibly the upshot of combining the Categories text with the first chapter of De Interpretatione.

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