Book contents
- The Hollow Core of Constitutional Theory
- The Hollow Core of Constitutional Theory
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 The Framers and Contemporary Constitutional Theory
- 2 The Framers’ Intentions
- 3 Original Methods and the Limits of Interpretation
- 4 Original Methods Updating
- 5 The Semantic Summing Problem
- 6 Is Corpus Linguistics Better than Flipping a Coin?
- 7 The Framers’ Intentions Can Solve the Semantic Summing Problem
- 8 Interpretation and Sociological Legitimacy
- 9 Noninterpretive Decisions
- 10 Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
10 - Conclusion
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 January 2021
- The Hollow Core of Constitutional Theory
- The Hollow Core of Constitutional Theory
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 The Framers and Contemporary Constitutional Theory
- 2 The Framers’ Intentions
- 3 Original Methods and the Limits of Interpretation
- 4 Original Methods Updating
- 5 The Semantic Summing Problem
- 6 Is Corpus Linguistics Better than Flipping a Coin?
- 7 The Framers’ Intentions Can Solve the Semantic Summing Problem
- 8 Interpretation and Sociological Legitimacy
- 9 Noninterpretive Decisions
- 10 Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Nearly all of our current debates over constitutional interpretation have happened before, including those involving complex insights from linguistics, philosophy, and history that feel very modern to us. This book, while not intended to be a complete account of judicial decision making, has focused on what it has meant to interpret a legally authoritative text for many generations, and has shown how that traditional definition of interpretation maps onto the creation and interpretation of the US Constitution. It argues that constitutional theory needs to pay considerably more attention to the one constant theme through the various cycles of interpretive methods over the centuries: a search for the will of the lawmaker.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Hollow Core of Constitutional TheoryWhy We Need the Framers, pp. 197 - 205Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021