This book focuses on the problems of rules, rule-following and normativity as discussed within the areas of analytic philosophy, linguistics, logic and legal theory. Divided into four parts, the volume covers topics in general analytic philosophy, analytic legal theory, legal interpretation and argumentation, logic as well as AI& Law area of research. It discusses, inter alia, “Kripkenstein’s” sceptical argument against rule-following and normativity of meaning, the role of neuroscience in explaining the phenomenon of normativity, conventionalism in philosophy of law, normativity of rules of interpretation, some formal approaches towards rules and normativity as well as the problem of defeasibility of rules. The aim of the book is to provide an interdisciplinary approach to an inquiry into the questions concerning rules, rule-following and normativity.

The rule-following debate, in its concern with the metaphysics and epistemology of linguistic meaning and mental content, goes to the heart of the most fundamental questions of contemporary philosophy of mind and language. This volume gathers together the most important contributions to the topic, including papers by Simon Blackburn, Paul Boghossian, Graeme Forbes, Warren Goldfarb, Paul Horwich, John McDowell, Colin McGinn, Ruth Millikan, Philip Pettit, George Wilson, Crispin Wright, and Jose Zalabardo. The debate has centred on Saul Kripke's reading of the rule-following sections in Wittgenstein and his consequent posing of a sceptical paradox that threatens our everyday notions of linguistic meaning and mental content. These essays are attempts to respond to this challenge and represent some of the most important work in contemporary theory of meaning. With an introductory essay and a comprehensive guide to further reading this book is an excellent resource for courses in philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, Wittgenstein, and metaphysics, as well as for all philosophers, linguists, and cognitive scientists with interests in these areas.

Table of Contents " Preface " Introductory " The Wittgensteinian Paradox " The Solution and the 'Private Language' Argument " Postscript Wittgenstein and Other Minds " Index.

Methodological and metaphilosophical disputes in the contemporary philosophy of law are very vivid. Basic issues remain controversial. The purpose of the book is to confront approaches of Anglo-Saxon and continental philosophy of law to the following topics: the purpose of legal philosophy, the role of disagreement in legal philosophy, methodology of legal philosophy (conceptual analysis) and normativity of law. We see those areas of legal metaphilosophy as drawing recently more and more attention in the literature. The authors of particular chapters are internationally recognised scholars rooted in various traditions: Anglo-Saxon (Gerald Postema, Dennis Patterson, Kenneth Ehrenberg, Veronica Rodriguez-Blanco); Southern-European (Riccardo Guastini, Manuel Atienza); Nordic (Torben Spaak); German (Ralf Poscher); and Central-European (Jan Wolenski, Tomasz Gizbert-Studnicki, Adam Dyrda). They represent different approaches and different backgrounds. The purpose of the volume is to contribute to the cross-cultural discussions of fundamental issues of philosophy of law.

“Providing up-to-date, in-depth coverage of the central question, and written and edited by some of the foremost practitioners in the field, this timely new edition will no doubt be a go-to reference for anyone with a serious interest in the philosophy of language.” Kathrin Glüer-Pagin, Stockholm University Now published in two volumes, the second edition of the best-selling Companion to the Philosophy of Language provides a complete survey of contemporary philosophy of language. The Companion has been greatly extended and now includes a monumental 17 new essays – with topics chosen by the editors, who curated suggestions from current contributors – and almost all of the 25 original chapters have been updated to take account of recent developments in the field. In addition to providing a synoptic view of the key issues, figures, concepts, and debates, each essay introduces new and original contributions to ongoing debates, as well as addressing a number of new areas of interest, including two-dimensional semantics, modality and epistemic modals, and semantic relationism. The extended “state-of-the-art” chapter format allows the authors, all of whom are internationally eminent scholars in the field, to incorporate original research to a far greater degree than competitor volumes. Unrivaled in scope, this volume represents the best contemporary critical thinking relating to the philosophy of language.

This open access book addresses a palpable, yet widely neglected, tension in legal discourse. In our everyday legal practices – whether taking place in a courtroom, classroom, law firm, or elsewhere – we routinely and unproblematically talk of the activities of creating and applying the law. However, when legal scholars have analysed this distinction in their theories (rather than simply assuming it), many have undermined it, if not dismissed it as untenable. The book considers the relevance of distinguishing between law-creation and law-application and how this transcends the boundaries of jurisprudential enquiry. It argues that such a distinction is also a crucial component of political theory. For if there is no possibility of applying a legal rule that was created by a different institution at a previous moment in time, then our current constitutional-democratic frameworks are effectively empty vessels that conceal a power relationship between public authorities and citizens that is very different from the one on which constitutional democracy is grounded. After problematising the most relevant objections in the literature, the book presents a comprehensive defence of the distinction between creation and application of law within the structure of constitutional democracy. It does so through an integrated jurisprudential methodology, which combines insights from different disciplines (including history, anthropology, political science, philosophy of language, and philosophy of action) while also casting new light on long-standing issues in public law, such as the role of legal discretion in the law-making process and the scope of the separation of powers doctrine. The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com.

Bringing together world-class scholars who have devoted themselves to the study of legal obligation, this book addresses key dimensions of the current debate: providing novel insights and perspectives, as well as critically discussing the leading theories of legal obligation. The notion of legal obligation is widely regarded as fundamental by both legal practitioners and legal theorists. For the language that explicitly refers to obligation is pervasive insofar as paradigmatic legal materials make reference to obligation either directly, by specifying what a subject is obligated to do, or indirectly, by attributing rights, privileges, powers, permissions, and other normative statuses to both single individuals and groups. There is, then, broad agreement that obligation constitutes a central element in legal studies. At the same time, however, there is considerable disagreement among contemporary legal theorists about how legal obligation can or should be elucidated. This book accounts for both the significance of obligation in law and the variety of views of legal obligation championed in legal philosophy today. With contributions from renowned theorists, this book will be invaluable for scholars and students of legal theory, legal philosophy, and jurisprudence.

Exceptions to international obligations can be expressed in several ways and be of fundamental practical importance. Drawing from legal philosophers and scholars of international law, this volume provides theoretical frameworks to the understanding of such exceptions and applies these frameworks to specific areas of international law.

As with almost every other part of our daily lives, information technology is now indispensable in the legal sphere. The variety of applications has grown, keeping pace with developments in the wider field of artificial intelligence: logic and argument have been joined by statistical methods and data, and knowledge engineering has been enriched by machine learning. This book presents the papers delivered at the 29th International Conference on Legal Knowledge and Information Systems – JURIX 2016, held in Nice, France, in December 2016. From the 56 submissions received for the conference, 11 were selected for publication as full papers, 10 as short papers, and 10 as posters, which are included in the proceedings for the first time. The papers address a wide range of topics at the interface of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Law, such as argumentation, norms and evidence, network science, information retrieval, and natural language processing. Many of the theories and technologies explored in the papers are drawn from real-life materials, including cases brought before the European Court of Human Rights, Dutch and Greek legal texts, and international investment agreements and contracts. Reflecting the many facets and the interdisciplinary character of AI and Law, the book will be of interest to all those whose work involves them in these fields.

This handbook addresses legal reasoning and argumentation from a logical, philosophical and legal perspective. The main forms of legal reasoning and argumentation are covered in an exhaustive and critical fashion, and are analysed in connection with more general types (and problems) of reasoning. Accordingly, the subject matter of the handbook divides in three parts. The first one introduces and discusses the basic concepts of practical reasoning. The second one discusses the general structures and procedures of reasoning and argumentation that are relevant to legal discourse. The third one looks at their instantiations and developments of these aspects of argumentation as they are put to work in the law, in different areas and applications of legal reasoning.