2/7/18 A legislative bill or other proposal isn’t simply
a string of words on a page. Instead, a legislative bill or other proposal involves
concepts (the signified) to which words (the signifiers) refer with varying
degrees of precision. Legislators debate
the concepts signified and the signifiers as signifying such concepts. Justice Scalia therefore oversimplifies how
language works when he claims that “the only thing one can say for sure was
agreed to by both houses and the President (on signing the bill) is the text of
the statute.” (Reading Law, p. 376) Justice Scalia oversimplifies here
because any such text was adopted as part of a greater whole, as signifiers of
concepts involved in the bill. For example,
a statute reading “All cars must drive on the write side of interstate roads”
adopted by both houses of Congress and signed by the President no doubt likely
means “All cars must drive on the right
side of interstate roads.” It’s hard to believe that both houses and the
President agreed on “write side” instead of “right side” of the road. I at
least cannot “say for sure” that they did. Justice Scalia concedes the same by
acknowledging what he considers “the rare case of an obvious scrivener’s
error.” (Reading Law, p. 57) In the real world, of course, obvious
scrivener’s errors are hardly rare.
The entire text of "Strings of Thought" can be found here.
