Moerman1973
Moerman1973 | |
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BibType | ARTICLE |
Key | Moerman1973 |
Author(s) | Michael Moerman |
Title | The Use of Precedent in Natural Conversation: A Study in Practical Legal Reasoning1 |
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Tag(s) | EMCA, Legal reasoning, Thai |
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Year | 1973 |
Language | English |
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Journal | Seminotica |
Volume | 9 |
Number | 3 |
Pages | 193-218 |
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Abstract
Students of legal reasoning commonly observe that its results and procedures are neither arbitrary nor accounted for by formal deductive logic. All students, whether they react with despair and " 'an inferiority complex* " (..) or by glorying in the life of experience, seem convinced that there is a gap, some Other than' or 'more than' relationship between formal logic and legal reasoning. This gap has been given various names, like 'material logic' (..) and some have tried to map all (..) or part (..) of it. But I doubt that any of the distinguished scholars who have worked in this field would daim that the gap has been closed, that we can explicate the workings of actual argument either as well as we can formal logic, or sufficiently to describe how judges reason. (...) This paper claims that the goals, procedures, and accomplishments of the formal analysis of natural conversation permit us to do these things and thereby to close, or at least map, the gap between formal and practical reasoning. By pointing my discussion toward showing that and how precedent, a central and fairly technical legal notion, was used in an actual Thai conversation, I will illustrate my conviction that practical reasoning is substantially identical with legal reasoning.
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