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Traditions of interpretation and the status of the legal text

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Peter Goodrich
Peter Goodrich*
Affiliation:
University of Newcastle upon Tyne
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Extract

The legal tradition is a written tradition and is consequently centred upon the study of textual meanings. From the earliest times law, both religious and secular, has been inscribed and codified, be it chiselled in stone, carved in wood, scratched on vellum or written in books. While the law codes and law books are certainly not the only forms of law they are in historical terms the dominant ones. The law is ideally promulgated in books and is found in books, it being of the historical essence of sacred and secular legal power to take a written form.

Type
Research Article
Information
Legal Studies , Volume 6 , Issue 1 , March 1986 , pp. 53 - 69
Copyright
Copyright © Society of Legal Scholars 1986

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References

1. M. Foucault, The Birth of the Clinic (1976), preface. On religious exegesis more generally, see St Augustine, On Christian Doctrine (1958); R. Grant, A Short History of the Interpretation of the Bible (1963); T. Todorov, Symbolism and Interpretation (1983); G. Rose, The Dialectic of Nihilism, Post-Structuralism and Law (1984).

2. M. Foucault, The Archaeology of Knowledge (1981), appendix: ‘In short, I suspect one could find a sort of gradation between different kinds of discourse within most societies: discourse “uttered” in the course of the day in casual meetings, and which disappears with the very act which gave rise to it; and those forms of discourse that lie at the origins of a certain number of new verbal acts, which are reiterated, transformed and discussed; in short, discourse which is spoken and remains spoken … and remains to be spoken’.

3. J. Derrida, ‘Scribble (writing-power)’ (1979) 58 Yale French Studies 24. Also, idem, Of Grammatology (1976), Part 1.

4. Summa Theologiae (1964–76) I. qu. 1, a. 10, r. 1. Also B. Jackson, ‘The Ceremonial and the Judicial: Biblical Law as Sign and Symbol’ (1984) 30 Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 25.

5. See, for example, U. Eco, Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language (1984), pp 147–163.

6. For initial analyses of the contemporary profession: P. Carlen, Magistrates' Justice (1976); F. Burton and P. Carlen, Official Discourse (1979), ch 4; R. Unger, ‘The Critical Legal studies Movement’ (1983) 96 Harv LR 516 at 660–670; D. Kairys(ed), The Politics of Law (1982), ch 3; R. Dingwall and P. Lewis, The Sociology of the Professions (1983), ch 5. Historical arguments as to secularisation can be pursued in: W. Ullmann, Law and Politics in the Middle Ages (1975); J. Dawson, The Oracles of the Law (1968); P. Legendre, L'Amour du Censeur (1974).

7. See M. Foucault, Power/Knowledge (1980); G. Therborn, The Power of Ideology and the Ideology of Power (1980), pp 77–89.

8. On the question of the inside and the outside of discourse more generally, see J. Derrida, Of Grammatology (1976), pp 27–44; idem, Positions (1981), pp 37 ff B. Brown and M. Cousins, ‘The Linguistic Fault’ (1980) 9 Economy and Society 251.

9. On historical issues: P. Stein, Regulae Iuris (1966); P. Legendre, ‘Recherches sur les commentaires pre-accursiens’ (1965) 33 Revue d'histoire de droit 353; C. Chevrier, ‘Sur l'art de l'argumentation chez quelques romanistes medievaux’ (1966) Archives de Philosophie du Droit 115; W. Ullmann, Law and Politics (1975); A. Watson, The Civil Law Tradition (1981). Also of interest are: J. Franklin, Jean Bodin and the Sixteenth Century Revolution in the Methodology of Law and History (1966); M. van de Kerchove, L’ Interpretation en Droit (1978); N. Simmonds, The Decline of Juridical Reason (1984); On the more general political history of the glossators and the university law curriculum, see W. Ong, Ramus; Method and the Decay of Dialogue (1958); Q. Skinner, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought (1978), vol I; D. Kelley, The Beginning of Ideology (1981). For later exegetical schools, see Ch. Perelman, Logique Juridique (1976); P. Goodrich, Reading the Law, A Critical Introduction to Legal Method and Techniques (1986), ch 5.

10. See A. Watson, The Civil Law Tradition (1981); also idem, Sources of Law, Legale Cnange and Ambiguity (1984); W. Ullmann, The Medieval Idea of Law (1946); H. Berman, Law and Revolution (1983). For a more detailed study and references, see T. Honore, Tribonian (1978).

11. H. Berman, ‘The Origins of Western Legal Science’ (1977) 90 Harv LR 894; also P. Vinogradoff, Roman Law in Medical Europe (1929); A. Watson, The Civil Law Tradition (1981).

12. See E. Betti, ‘Hermeneutics as General Methodology’, translated in J. Bleicher, Contemporary Hermeneutics (1980), pp 51–95.

13. J. Dawson, The Oracles of the Law (1968) at p 124. See also, Y. Thomas, ‘La Langue du Droit Romain’ (1974) Archives de Philosophie du Droit 103, T. Grey, ‘The Constitution as Scripture’ (1984) 37 Stan LR 1.

14. See W. Ullmann, Law and Politics (1975) at pp 83 ff; Q. Skinner, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought (1978).

15. See for example: P. Legendre, Jouir de Pouvoir (1976); J. Lenoble and F. Ost, Droit, Mythe et Raison (1981).

16. H. Kantorowicz, Studies in the Glossators of the Roman Law (1969) provides the best introduction to the methods and texts of the glossators. For further references to sources see W. Ullmann, Law and Politics (1975); Q. Skinner, The Foundations of political Thought (1978).

17. J. Lenobleand F. Ost, Droit, Myth et Raison (1981) at p 227.

18. P. Legendre, L'Amour du Censeur (1974) at p 274.

19. H. Kantorowicz, op cit n 16 above; J. Franklin, op cit n 9 above; P. Stein, Regulatre Iuris provide useful discussions and references. The object of attack was the monumental Glossa Ordinaria of Accursius written and circulated around 1250. More generally, see, D. Kelley, The Foundation of Modern Historical Scholarship) [1970).

20. M. Foucault, The Archaeology of Knowledge (1981) at p 226. Also R. Debray, Critique of Political Reason (1983). For contemporary debates as to ‘recognition’ see B. Jackson, Semiotics and Legal Thory (1985), ch 5. For an interesting account of linguistics, which deals with this specific issue in terms of the ‘preconstructed’ in discourse, see M. Pecheux, Language, Semantics and Ideology (1982), Part III.

91. See P. Stein (1966), n 19 above; H. Kantorowicz, ‘The Quaestiones Disputatae of the Glossators' (1939) 16 Revue d'Histoire du Droit 1. I cannot here take up the issue of the partial distinctiveness of the common law.

22. P. Legendre, L'Amour du Censeur (1974) at 96. For a later statement of a similar principle, the Dean of the Faculty of Law at Paris, writing in 1857, ‘the whole body of statute law, the spirit as well as the letter of the law, with a broad account of its principles and the most complete treatment of the consequences which flow from it, but nothing but statute law: such has been the motto of the teachers of the Code Napoleon’. cited in Ch. Perelman, Logique Juridique (1976), p 23.

23. The classic modern text is H. Gadamer, Truth and Method (1979); within the Anglo-American tradition of jurisprudence the term hermeneutic has been used infrequently and inconsistently up until the past decade. Concern with law and language is still somewhat of a peripheral interest though we now find the term hermeneutic occasionally debated. See, for example, P. Hacker and J. Raz (eds), Law, Morality and Society (1977), ch I; R. Dworkin, Political Judges and the Rule of Law (1977, British Academy); D. N. MacCormick, Legal Reasoning and Legal Theory (1978), appendix; W. Mitchell, The Politics of Interpretation (1983).

24. A useful guide to the original texts is to he found in H. Schnadrlback, Philosophy in Germany, 1831–1937 (1984); also T. Todorov (1983), n 1 above.

25. W. Dilthey, Selected Writings (1976) at p 258–260.

26. Ibid at 261.

27. Useful works on the common law dimension of this problem are: G. Woodbine, “The Language of English Law’ (1943) 18 Speculum 395; K. Shoeck, ‘Rhetoric and Law in Sixteenth Century England’ (1953) 50 Studies in Philology 110: J. Cairns, ‘Blackstone, An English Institutist’ (1984) 4 Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 318. More generally, see P. Goodrich, ‘Law and Language’ (1984.) Journal of Law and Society 173.

28. Gadamer (1979) n 23 above, at 147.

29. Ibid at p 351–352.

30. Ibid at p 354. On the linguistic aspects to this position see J. Derrida, Of Grammatology (1976); also idem, Margins of Philosophy (1982) pp 307 ff.

31. Contemporary philosophy of law certainly treats legal hermeneutics in this sense. According to D. N. MacCormick, H.L.A. Hart (1981). the hermeneutic viewpoint (or internal aspect of legal rules) entails both a cognitive and a volitional element: the and state produced by thr rule is viewed as desirable by the rule user.

32. E. Betti (1980), n 12 abovr at p 59.

33. See, for example, Fiss, ‘Objectivity and interpretation’ (1982) 34 Stan LR 739; S. Fish ’Fish v Fiss (1984) 36 Stan LR 1325.

34. G. Kennedy, Classical Rhetoric (1980); T. Todorov, Theories of the Symbol (1982); M. Pecheux, op cit n 20 above; T. Eagleton, Walter Benjamin (1981); J. Derrida (1982) at pp 207 ff, are among the more interesting discussions. For an historical account of the jurisprudential relevance of rhetoric, see P. Goodrich, ‘Rhetoric as Jurisprudence’ (1984) 4 Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 88.

35. Aristotle, Rhetoric 1356a.

36. Cicero, Topics (1952) 2.6, 2.7; see also E. Grass, Rhetoric as Philosophy (1980); Tacitus, A Dialogue of Orators (1911) pp 95–103.

37. A category particularly stressed by Ch. Perelman and L. Olbrechts Tyteca, The New Rhetoric (1971). For a critical analysis see, F. Moretti, Signs Taken for Wonders (1983), ch 1.

38. M. Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination (1981) at p 276.

39. Tacitus n 36 above, at pp 115–116.