You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
None
None
In The Law of Evidence in Victorian England, which was originally published in 1997, Christopher Allen provides a fascinating account of the political, social and intellectual influences on the development of evidence law during the Victorian period. His book sets out to challenge the traditional view of the significance of Jeremy Bentham's critique of the state of contemporary evidence law, and shows how statutory reforms were achieved for reasons that had little to do with Bentham's radical programme, and how evidence law was developed by common law judges in a way diametrically opposed to that advocated by Bentham. Dr Allen's meticulous account provides a wealth of detail into the functioning of courts in Victorian England, and will appeal to everyone interested in the English legal system during this period.
The present edition of The Book of Fallacies is the first that follows Bentham's own structure for the work, and includes a great deal of material, both in terms of the fallacies themselves and the illustrative matter, that previous versions of the work have omitted. The fallacies that concerned Bentham were not logical errors of the sort identified by Aristotle, or commonplace misunderstandings of matters of fact, but arguments deployed in political debate, in particular in the British Parliament, in order to prevent reform. Bentham not only identified, described, and criticized the fallacious arguments in question, which were all characterized by their irrelevancy, but explained the sinister interests that led politicians to employ them and their supporters to accept them. By exposing these political fallacies, Bentham hoped to prevent their employment in future, and thereby to place political debate on its only proper ground, namely considerations drawn from the principle of utility.