1. In addition to the essays in this volume, the attraction of Wittgensteinian ideas is evident in: Joan, Williams, “Critical Legal Studies: The Death of Transcendence and the Rise of the New Langdells” (1987), 62 New York University Law Rev. 429;Google Scholar Stephen, Brainerd, “The Groundless Assault: A Wittgensteinian look at Language, Structuralism, and Critical Legal Theory” (1985), 34 American University Law Rev. 1231;Google Scholar Dennis, Patterson, “Interpretation in Law—Toward a Reconstruction of the Current Debate” (1983–84), 29 Villanova Law Rev. 671;Google Scholar Dennis, Patterson, “Wittgenstein and the Code: A Theory of Good Faith Performance and Enforcement under Article Nine” (1988), 137 University of Pennsylvania Law Rev. 335;Google Scholar Margaret Jane, Radin, “Reconsidering the Rule of Law” (1989), 69 Boston University L.R. 781;Google Scholar Peter, Lin, “Wittgenstein, Language, and Legal Theorizing: Towards a Non-Reductive Account Law” (1989), 47 University of Toronto Faculty of Law Rev. 939;Google Scholar James, Penner, “The Rules of Law: Wittgenstein, Davidson and Weinrib’s Formalism” (1988), 46 University of Toronto Faculty of Law Rev. 488;Google Scholar Daniel, Stroud, “Law and Language: Cardozo’s Jurisprudence and Wittgenstein’s Philosophy” (1984), 18 Valpariso University Law Rev. 331;Google Scholar Yablon, CM., “Law and Metaphysics” (1987), 96 Yale L.J. 613.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2. Although when Wittgenstein did briefly discuss the law he had interesting things to say, such as:

“A law is given for human beings, and a jurisprudent may well be capable of drawing consequences for any case that ordinarily comes his way; thus the law evidently has its use, makes sense. Nevertheless its validity presupposes all sorts of things, and if the being that he is to judge is quite deviant from ordinary human beings, then e.g. the decision whether he has done a deed with evil intent will become not difficult but (simply) impossible.” (Wittgenstein, Zettel Anscombe, G.E.M. and von Wright, G.H., eds., Anscombe, trans. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967) para. 350)Google Scholar

See also para. 48 where Wittgenstein makes an interesting remark about governmental intention.

In On Certainty (von Wright, G.H. and Anscombe, G.E.M., eds., Paul, B. and Anscombe, G.E.M., trans. (New York: Harper Torch Books, 1969))Google Scholar Wittgenstein occasionally makes references to procedures in courts of law—see, for example, paras. 335, 441, 485, 604.

3. The famous quotation actually comes from the Philosophical Investigations (Anscombe, G.E.M. trans. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1968) para. 124. On the nature of Wittgenstein’s philosophy see the sources cited infra at n. 49 and text.Google Scholar

4. See the sources discussed in Langille, B. “Revolution Without Foundation: The Grammar of Scepticism and Law” (1988), 33 McGill L.J. 451,Google Scholar especially Mark, Tushnet, “Following the Rules Laid Down” (1982), 96 Harvard Law Rev. 781.Google Scholar For a similar assessment of Tushnet’s views see Don Herzog, “As Many as Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast” (1987), 75 California Law Rev. 609 at 628–360.Google Scholar

5. Allan, Hutchinson, “That’s Just the Way It Is: Langille on Law” (1989), 34 McGill L.J. 145;Google Scholar Rosemary, Coombe, “Same as it Ever Was: Rethinking the Politics of Legal Interpretation” (1989), 34 McGill L.J. 603.Google Scholar

6. Stanley, Fish, “Consequences” in his book Doing What Comes Naturally (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1989).Google Scholar

7. Id. at 321.

8. Id.

9. Id. at 323.

10. Id. at 325.

11. See sources supra n. 4.

12. Hutchinson, supra n. 5; Coombe, supra n. 5.

13. Supra n. 4.

14. See Yablon, , “Law and Metaphysics” supra n. 1;Google Scholar and Radin, , “Rethinking the Rule of Law” supra n. 1.Google Scholar

15. Following, among others, the arguments made by Baker, G. and Hacker, P.M.S. in Scepticism, Rules and Language (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1984).Google Scholar

16. Peter, Lin, “Wittgenstein, Language and Legal Theorizing: Towards a Non-Reductive Account of Law” supra n. 1;Google Scholar Hutchinson, , “That’s Just the Way it Is: Langille on Law” supra n. 5;Google Scholar Coombe “‘Same as It Ever Was’: Rethinking the Politics of Legal Interpretation” supra n. 5;Google Scholar Joel, Bakan, “Constitutional Arguments: Interpretation and Legitimacy in Canadian Constitutional Thought” (1989), 27 Osgoode Hall L.J. 123;Google Scholar Hutchinson, “The Three ‘Rs’: Reading/Rorty/Radically (1989), 103 Harvard Law Re v. 555 at 577.

17. See infra S. II.

18. See infra S. IV.

19. Hutchinson supra n. 5.

20. Coombe supra n. 5.

21. Hutchinson, supra n. 5 at 154.

22. Coombe, supra n. 5 at 638.

23. Readers can review these texts and find a rich diet of similar terms.

24. Hutchinson, supra n. 5 at 146.

25. Ibid, at 419.

26. Saul, Kripke, Wittgenstein on “Rules and Private Language” (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982).Google Scholar

27. First, Hutchinson misunderstands Wittgenstein’s philosophy. He states, for example,

“A major lesson of Wittgenstein was that while meaning is not perennially illusive a text (including his own) it is more a site for the struggle between competing interpretations and not an occasion for the resolution of them; [and,] Wittgenstein … shares the same profound ideological commitments and assumptions as those who seek to rest meaning on textual objectivity; they are mirror images …”. This is completely wrong. Furthermore, Hutchinson equates Wittgenstein’s use of grammar with the ordinary use of that word. Wittgenstein sees that the word grammar has to do with what it makes sense to say, not with what rules we must use in putting together correct sentences. This is a distinction between “depth” grammar and “surface” grammar—see John, Canfield, Wittgenstein. Language and World (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1981).Google Scholar Finally when Hutchinson draws concrete conclusions, he just gets it wrong. He writes, “Doctrinal consistency and regularity are not con–tributable to law, but to the politics of lawyers.” 1 am not entirely certain what this means, but insofar as it says that “consistency” and “regularity” are not attributes of law, I think it is simply wrong. And this does not depend upon the politics of lawyers, but upon the concept of law. Maybe Hutchinson has an argument for a different concept of “law” (or whatever it might be called), but this argument is not made and I doubt whether Hutchinson would wish to make it.

28. See. for example, Langille, , “‘Equal Partnership’ in Canadian Labour Law” (1983), 21 Osgoode Hall L.J. 496 (criticizing the received wisdom in Canadian and American labour law that there are “reserved management rights”);Google Scholar Langille, and Macklem, , “Beyond Belief: Labour Law’s Duty to Bargain” (1988), 13 Queen’s L.J. 62 (criticizing the dominant understanding of the duty to bargain in good faith contained in Canadian labour law legislation).Google Scholar

29. See Nyiri, J.C., “Wittgenstein’s Later Work in Relation to Conservatism” in McGutnness, B. ed. Wittgenstein and His Times” (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1982) at 44;Google Scholar Andrew, Lugg, “Was Wittgenstein a Conservative Thinker?” (1985), 23 Southern Journal of Philosophy 465;Google Scholar Terry, Eagleton, “Wittgenstein’s Friends” in Terry Eagleton ed. Against the Grain (London: Verso Books, 1986) at 99;Google Scholar Paul, Johnston Wittgenstein and Moral Philosophy (London: Rutledge, 1989) c. 1;Google Scholar Sabina, Lovibond Realism and Imagination in Ethics ed. in Clark and Simpson Anti-Theory in Ethics and Moral Conservatism (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989); Google Scholar David, Bloor Wittgenstein: A Social Theory of Knowledge (New York: Columbia University Press, 1983) chapters 8&9;Google Scholar Shulte, J. “Wittgeinstein and Conservatism” (1983), 25 Ratio 69.Google Scholar

30. Supra n. 29.

31. Among the useful contributions making this point see Drucilla, Cornell “Convention and Critique” (1986), 7 Cardozo Law Rev. 679 (“a form of life is not a straightjacket that binds our thoughts …” (at 690)).Google Scholar

32. See Hutchinson’s collected writings in his book Dwelling on the Threshold: Critical Essays on Modern Legal Thought (Toronto: The Carswell Co. Ltd., 1988).Google Scholar

33. Philosophical Investigations. supra n. 3, Part II p. 226.

34. Lugg, supra n. 29 at 468.

35. Eagleton, supra n. 29. See also Coombe supra n. 5 at n. 138.

36. Lugg, supra n. 29 at 468–469.

37. Philosophical Investigations, supra n. 3, Part II, 223.

38. Supra n. 29 at 263.

39. Id.

40. Id. at 278.

41. Id.

42. Supra n. 5.

43. Id. at 620, footnote 63.

44. Id. at 626.

45. Id. at 638, n. 138, quoting Eagleton supra n. 29 at 107.

46. Supra n. 29 at 638–39.

47. Id. at 640–641.

48. Lugg, supra n. 29 at 472.

49. On Wittgenstein’s conception of philosophy see Hacker, P.M.S. Insight and Illusion: Themes in the Philosophy of Wittgenstein (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986)Google Scholar revised éd., ch. 6 “Wittgenstein’s Later Conception of Philosophy”; Anthony, Kenny “Wittgenstein and the Nature of Philosophy” in Anthony, Kenny ed. The Legacy of Wittgenstein (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1984);Google Scholar Johnston Wittgenstein, and Moral Philosophy, supra n. 29; David, Pears The False Prison, The Study of the Development of Wittgenstein’s Philosophy Vol. 1 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987) c. 1.Google Scholar

50. Supra n. 29 at 2.

51. Id.

52. Wittgenstein, supra n. 3, para. 39.

53. Id. para. 116.

54. Supra n. 29 at 8.

55. Id. at 7.

56. Id. at 8.

57. Id.

58. Id. at 10.

59. Id.

60. Id. at 143.

61. Id. at 141.

62. Lovibond supra n. 29 at 282.

63. Id.

64. Lugg, supra n. 29 at 472.

65. As it has been by others such as Eagleton, supra n. 29, at 100 and Lugg supra n. 29 at 472.

66. Marx, Karl, Theses on Feuerhach as edited in Easton, L.D. and Guddat, K.H. (eds.) Writings of the Young Marx on Philosophy and Society (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1967) 400 at 402.Google Scholar

67. Wittgenstein, , Remarks on the Foundation of Mathematics (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 3rd ed. 1978) at 132.Google Scholar

68. Lugg, supra n. 29 at 472.

69. Hutchinson and Coombe, supra n. 5.

70. Lin, supra n. 1; Hutchinson, supra n. 16; Coombe, supra n. 5; Bakan, supra n. 16.

71. Hutchinson, “The Three Rs: Reading/Rorty/Racially” supra n. 16 at 577.

72. He argues that “I claim that our underlying agreement in judgment makes legal interpretations determinate and therefore judicial interpretation legitimate.” Lin, supra n. 1 at 968 n. 62.

73. Langille, “Revolution Without Foundation” supra n. 4 at 453.

74. Langille, supra n. 4 at 499.

75. Langille, , “The Jurisprudence of Despair” (1989), 23 University of British Columbia Law Rev. 549 at 560–561.Google Scholar

76. Cf. Brian Bix, “The Application (and Mis-Application) of Wittgenstein’s discussions on Rule-Following to Legal Theory”. This volume.

77. Wolgast, E., The Grammar of Justice (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1987).Google Scholar

78. Supra n. 29.

79. And it must not be forgotten that Hart’s, H.L.A. The Concept of Law (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1961)Google Scholar owes a great deal to Wittgensteinian theory—see Hacker, “Hart’s Philosophy of Law” in Hacker, P.M.S. and Raz, J. eds., Law and Morality in Society: Essays in Honour of H.L.A. Hart (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977) at 1.Google Scholar Readers should also refer to the articles by Lin and Penner, supra n. 1 and Postema, “‘Protestant’ Interpretation and Social Practices” (1987), 6 Law and Philosophy 281. Indeed all of the sources cited in this article, as well as many not cited, reflect the view that at the very least Wittgenstein is important to those who worry about law.

80. Hutchinson, supra n. 16.

81. Id. at 573.

82. Wittgenstein, , Culture and Value, (Peter Winch trans.) (University of Chicago Press, 1980).Google Scholar

83. Id. at 77.