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What is the relationship between the general, abstract norm and the singular, concrete case that sometimes affirms a parallel, contrasting, norm? The present essay engages with this question. The argument stems from an analysis of extraordinary singular cases that sometimes emerge, sometimes are “produced” or “promoted” as exemplary (for strategic reasons, like in law). In this essay Angela Condello argues that approaching normativity in art and law from the perspective of the singular case also illustrates the theoretical importance of interdisciplinary legal scholarship, since the singularity creates room for extra-legal values to emerge as legitimate demands, desires, and needs.
Law and images are generally not regarded as having much in common, since law is based on textual and images are based on visual information. The paper demonstrates that quite to the contrary, legal norms can be understood as models of intended moral behaviour and hence as images, in the same way as images can be said to have a normative and hence regulatory effect. Following an interdisciplinary approach along the lines of cultural research, the paper explains how images “function” to lawyers and how the law “works” to those trained in the visual sciences. In addition, laying the foundations for a research field “Law and Images” in parallel to the well-established “Law and Literature”, the paper describes the main avenues for future research in this field. Also, the paper contains a brief systematization of images in law, of law and for law.
This book offers an introduction to the language of law from the perspective of logical semantics. As a logical tool, Boguslaw Wolniewicz’s formal ontology of situations is adapted. The central issue addressed is the meaning of normative statements, primarily legal norms. The main outcome of the book consists in explications of several legal notions (including legal events, legal acts and legal rules) in terms of the formal ontology of situations. In addition, the book concludes that legal norms are sentences in a logical sense, so some are true, while others are false, and that their logical value does not depend on whether or not they were adopted in the law-making process. Lastly, the b...
This book proposes an interdisciplinary methodology for developing an intercultural use of law so as to include cultural differences and their protection within legal discourse; this is based on an analysis of the sensory grammar tacitly included in categorizations. This is achieved by combining the theoretical insights provided by legal theory, anthropology and semiotics with a reading of human rights as translational interfaces among the different cultural spaces in which people live. To support this use of human rights’ semantic and normative potential, a specific cultural-geographic view dubbed ‘legal chorology’ is employed. Its primary purpose is to show the extant continuity betw...
This book offers an original philosophical perspective on exemplarity. Inspired by Wittgenstein’s later work and Derrida’s theory of deconstruction, it argues that examples are not static entities but rather oscillate between singular and universal moments. There is a broad consensus that exemplary cases mediate between singular instances and universal concepts or norms. In the first part of the book, Mácha contends that there is a kind of différance between singular examples and general exemplars or paradigms. Every example is, in part, also an exemplar, and vice versa. Furthermore, he develops a paracomplete approach to the logic of exemplarity, which allows us to say of an exemplar ...
Does fiction enhance reality, or threaten our sense of what is real? What, if anything, is special about experiencing fictional works and worlds? Today we speak casually of parallel universes and virtual reality; how much do we really know about what these phenomena involve? In Fictionality, Karen Petroski explains how philosophers and literary theorists have approached these questions in the Western literary tradition, from Greek antiquity to the present day. The book introduces readers to both long-running and contemporary debates about: The value and dangers of engagement with fiction The origins of fictional artworks, especially literary works, in Western literature The role played by im...
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In legal interpretation, where does meaning come from? Law is made from language, yet law, unlike other language-related disciplines, has not so far experienced its "pragmatic turn" towards inference and the construction of meaning. This book investigates to what extent a pragmatically based view of l linguistic and legal interpretation can lead to new theoretical views for law and, in addition, to practical consequences in legal decision-making. With its traditional emphasis on the letter of the law and the immutable stability of a text as legal foundation, law has been slow to take the pragmatic perspective: namely, the language-user 's experience and activity in making meaning. More accus...
The book presents a comprehensive reconceptualization of Geert Hofstede’s well-known concept of power distance, applying the theory to the specific case of judge–witness courtroom interactions in Polish regional courts. In the light of the detailed critique of Hofstede’s original approach to power distance, the book first carefully develops a three-level concept of power distance, including personal preferences concerning the realization of power relations (subjective level); rules, practices and spatio-architectural arrangements underlying power relations (organizational level); and individual demeanors that can, in practice, increase or decrease the asymmetry between parties to a pow...