Does the use theory of meaning entail legal realism?
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5935/2317-2622/direitomackenzie.v9n19778Abstract
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.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
The copyright of the articles published in Mackenzie Law Review belongs to the authors, who grant Mackenzie Presbyterian University the rights of publication of the contents, and the assignment takes effect upon submission of the article, or work in similar form, to the electronic system of institutional publications. The journal reserves the right to make normative, orthographic, and grammatical alterations to the originals, with the aim of maintaining the cultured standard of the language, respecting, however, the style of the authors. The content reported and the opinions expressed by the authors of the articles are their exclusive responsibility.