Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-669899f699-7xsfk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-05-03T14:44:58.689Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

23 - Foundationalism and Ground Truth in American Legal Philosophy: Classical Rhetoric, Realism, and Pragmatism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 July 2009

By
Eileen A. Scallen
Edited by
Francis J. Mootz III
Francis J. Mootz III
Affiliation:
University of the Pacific, California
Get access

Summary

One of the visual clichés in modern newscasts is a clip of a hapless reporter standing in the midst of a hurricane, blizzard, flood, or other natural disaster. I am sure I am not alone in wondering, “What is that idiot doing out there?” It turns out this is a melodramatic representation of a standard concept in meteorology, known as “ground truth.” Ground truth is provided by professional or volunteer spotters who are in a position to observe and report weather conditions as they are being experienced on – well – the ground. Although modern meteorology uses a wide range of sophisticated remote sensing technology, “[o]nly a spotter can see a tornado” (McAuliffe 2007). Ground truth is also used in cartography and military operations, where even high-definition remote sensing devices, including satellite imagery and aerial photographs, can provide misleading or inaccurate information unless compared with and connected to observed conditions on the earth. In the military and international law contexts, ground truth is used in opposition to other kinds of truth, such as “legal truth” (Warren 1996: 50) or “paper truth” (Cárdenas 2004: 1343). In each of these cases, the use of generalized or abstract knowledge is balanced with contextual, firsthand observation and reporting: ground truth.

Advocates of ground truth suggest that it is often more accurate than the abstraction it validates. Yet ground truth makes no claim of perfection. Ground truth can be dead wrong; a spotter can miss the funnel cloud or mischaracterize the condition (e.g., categorizing sleet as hail).

Type
Chapter
Information
On Philosophy in American Law , pp. 195 - 204
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Book purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Allen, Ronald J., and Leiter, Brian. “Naturalized Epistemology and the Law of Evidence.” Va. L. Rev. 87.8 (2001): 1491–550.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cárdenas, Emilio J. “The United Nations Security Council's Quest for Effectiveness.” Mich. J. Int'l L. 25.4 (2004): 1341–8.Google Scholar
Cicero, Marcus Tullius. De Oratore: Book III in Cicero; On the Orator, Book III On Fate, Stoic Paradoxes, Divisions of Oratory. Trans. Rackam, H.. Cambridge MA: Oxford Univ. Press, 1959, pp. 3–185.Google Scholar
Faigman, David L. “To Have and Have Not: Assessing the Value of Social Science to the Law as Science and Policy.” Emory L.J. 38.4 (1989): 1005–95.Google Scholar
Farber, Daniel A., and Sherry, Suzanna. Beyond All Reason: The Radical Assault on Truth in American Law. New York: Oxford Univ. Press: 1997.Google Scholar
Foss, Sonja K., Karen, A. Foss, and Robert, Trapp. Contemporary Perspectives on Rhetoric, 3d ed. New York: Waveland Press, 2001.Google Scholar
Green, Michael Steven. “Legal Realism as Theory of Law.” Wm. & Mary L. Rev. 46.6 (2005): 1915–2000.Google Scholar
Grey, Thomas C. “Holmes and Legal Pragmatism.” Stan. L. Rev. 41.4 (1989): 787–870.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huber, Peter W.Galileo's Revenge: Junk Science in the Courtroom. New York: Basic Books, 1991.Google Scholar
Hull, N. E. H.Roscoe Pound and Karl Llewellyn: Searching for an American Jurisprudence. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1997.Google Scholar
Isocrates, , “Antidosis,” in Isocrates, vol. 2. Trans. Norlin, George. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1929, 185–365.Google Scholar
Kuhn, Thomas S.The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 2d ed. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1970.Google Scholar
Langenbach, Randolph. “Bricks, Mortar, and Earthquakes; Historic Preservation vs. Earthquake Safety.” Apt Bulletin, 21.3–4 (1989): 30–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leiter, Brian. “Rethinking Legal Realism: Toward a Naturalized Jurisprudence.” Tex. L. Rev. 76.2 (1997): 267–315.Google Scholar
Levenson, Laurie, L. “Courtroom Demeanor: The Theater of the Courtroom.” Minn. L. Rev. 92.3 (2008): 573–633.Google Scholar
Macaulay, Stewart. “The New Versus the Old Legal Realism: ‘Things Ain't What They Used to Be.’” Wis. L. Rev. 2005.2 (2005): 365–403.Google Scholar
McAuliffe, Bill. “Weather Spotters Stay in Front of Storms' Siren Call.” Minneapolis Star Tribune, Aug. 22, 2007, A1 (quoting John Wetter, Skywarn operations coordinator, National Weather Service Office, Chanhassen, Minnesota).Google Scholar
Park, Roger C., and Michael, J. Saks. “Evidence Scholarship Reconsidered: Results of the Interdisciplinary Turn.” B.C. L. Rev. 47.4 (2006): 949–1031.Google Scholar
Posner, Richard A.Law and Literature: A Misunderstood Relation. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1988.Google Scholar
Radin, Margaret Jane. “The Pragmatist and the Feminist.” S. Cal. L. Rev. 63.6 (1990): 1699–726.Google Scholar
Radin, Max. “The Theory of Judicial Decision: Or How Judges Think.” A.B.A. J. 11.6 (1925): 357–62.Google Scholar
Richard, Carl J.The Founders and the Classics: Greece, Rome, and the American Enlightenment. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1994.Google Scholar
Rorty, Richard. “The Banality of Pragmatism and the Poetry of Justice.” S. Cal. L. Rev. 63.6 (1990): 1811–19.Google Scholar
Ross, Stephen J., and Roy, S. Malpass. “Moving Forward: Response to Studying Eye Witness Identifications in the Field.” Law & Hum. Behav. 32.1 (2008): 16–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Slobogin, Christopher. Proving the Unprovable: The Role of Law, Science and Speculation in Adjudicating Culpability and Dangerousness. New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 2007.Google Scholar
Smith, Steven D. “The Pursuit of Pragmatism.” Yale L.J. 100.2 (1990): 409–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Twining, William. Karl Llewellyn and the Realist Movement. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1973.Google Scholar
Warren, Marc L. “Operational Law: A Concept Matures.” Mil. L. Rev. 152.1 (1996): 33–73.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×