Does the use theory of meaning entail legal realism?

Autores

  • Seppo Sajama

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5935/2317-2622/direitomackenzie.v9n19778

Resumo

It is argued that there is a close connection between Wittgenstein’s UseTheory of Meaning (UT) and Legal Realism (LR). Therefore, if you accept one, you can hardly avoid accepting the other, on pain of inconsistency. The alternatives to UT do not appear appealing. Objective theories are committed to semantic essentialism, the view that words have fixed, eternal, and – what is worse, language?independent meanings. Words do have meanings, but they can be neither objective entities, like in Plato (360 B.C.E) and Frege (1892), nor subjective mental states, meaning?intentions. It is not our intentions that give meanings to words, but rather it is the way other people use words that shape our intentions ? if we are rational. It is further argued that UT does not turn semantics into a branch of sociolinguistics. Likewise, if one rejects all juridico?semantic fictions, one has to admit that LR might be a viable option, after all.

Biografia do Autor

Seppo Sajama

Editora Mackenzie

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Publicado

2016-08-22