My Common Thread

Though the subject matters of my writing may seem quite diverse, there is a common thread. What is it?

That common thread is a hermeneutic pragmatism which explores meaning that is workable (morally and otherwise) through time as more particularly set forth in (for example) my "Making Good Sense: Pragmatism’s Mastery of Meaning, Truth, and Workable Rule of Law." As a philosopher and experienced lawyer, I explore "diverse" matters which on closer examination uniformly involve hermeneutic pragmatism for proper analysis. Such matters include the inseparability of theory and practice in law and life; workable semiotics (including semantics, hermeneutics, and pragmatics) in law and life; originalist claims as to interpretation and construction; conceptual metaphor in law and life; the cognitive nature of emotion in law and life; the role of virtue in legal and other analysis; the interrelation of law and the humanities (including classical rhetoric and parallels between lawyers and poets); and the need for legal education reform consistent with thoughtful explorations of the matters set forth above. 

Addition to "Strings of Thought" (1/30/18)

Legislative Intent

1/30/18  Legislative “intent” lies in legislatures’ speech acts and not legislators’ speech acts.  That is, legislative “intent” is the speaker meaning of legislatures not legislators—confusing the two is a category mistake. For example, when the legislature adopts a rule requiring drivers to drive on the right side of the road, the legislature has performed a directive speech act adopting a rule to some end or purpose (such as changing driving patterns to enhance road safety).  When the legislature censures someone, it has performed an expressive speech act condemning someone for some end or purpose (such as discouraging future bad behavior on the part of public officials).  The different purposes (and the plans involved in such purposes) distinguish the different types of speech acts. Recognizing this distinction between legislature and legislator speech acts avoids pseudo-quandaries such as “How can we ever aggregate the subjective intent of countless legislators to determine legislative intent?” or “How do we include the intent of a legislator who votes for a bill for unrelated reasons?” Instead, we ask: “What is the objective bill or proposal (and the concomitant purpose or plan or both) properly adopted by the legislature?”  We also ask: “What are the objective concepts involved?” while acknowledging such concepts can have yet-to-be explored threads and extensions.

1/30/18 A legislature typically speaks best when it adopts a bill or other proposal (and any concomitant purpose or plan) after reasonable debate by legislators.   Although individual legislators’ speaker meaning in such debates can be highly relevant evidence of the legislature’s speaker meaning, legislators’ speech acts are not legislatures’ speech acts. 

The entire post of "Strings of Thought" can be found here.

"Nature Hath Framed Strange Fellows" William Shakespeare and Natural Law

A. Introduction

             

             Natural law theorists might turn to The History of Troilus and Cressida to start building their case.  They might begin with Ulysses’ lofty outline of the “natural” order:

The heavens themselves, the planets, and this center          

Observe degree, priority, and place,                            

Insisture, course, proportion, season, form,                    

Office, and custom, in all line of order,                       

And therefore is the glorious planet Sol                        

In noble eminence enthroned and sphered                         

Amidst the other; whose med'cinable eye                         

Corrects the influences of evil planets

And posts, like the commandment of a king . . . .[1]                      

Such theorists might then use Ulysses’ further stirring words to blend such “natural physical order” with a “natural order” in law and morality as well:

Take but degree away, untune that string,                      

And hark what discord follows. Each thing meets                

In mere oppugnancy.  The bounded waters                          

Should lift their bosoms higher than the shores              

And make a sop of all this solid globe;                         

Strength should be lord of imbecility,                          

And the rude son should strike his father dead;                 

Force should be right; or rather right and wrong,             

Between whose endless jar justice resides,                    

Should lose their names, and so should justice too.^[2]                             

As far as it goes, it is hard to imagine a more eloquent case for natural law than this.

Gorsuch and Originalism: Some Critiques from Logic, Scripture, and Art

(This blog combines, expands, and end-notes two prior blogs)

Wake Forest Law Review Publishes "Revisiting Langdell: Legal Education Reform & The Lawyer's Craft"

The Wake Forest Law Review has published its 2015 Legal Education Reform Symposium volume entitled Revisiting Langdell: Legal Education Reform & The Lawyer's Craft.  The volume can be purchased here and I hope it will make a positive difference in legal education reform. 

My introductory article in the volume highlights longstanding, substantial damage Christopher Columbus Langdell has inflicted on law schools and legal education. Much of this damage stems from three of Langdell’s wrong and counterintuitive notions: (1) law is a science of principles and doctrines known with certainty and primarily traced through case law; (2) studying redacted appellate cases is “much the shortest and best, if not the only way” of learning such law; and (3) despite Langdell’s own roughly fifteen years of practice experience, practice experience taints one’s ability to teach law. I briefly highlight problems with, and harms resulting from, each of these wrong notions. Among other things, I briefly explore: (A) contradictions, oversights, and wrong assumptions in Langdell’s views; (B) how the very meanings of “theory” and “practice” reject Langdell; (C) how the necessary role of experience in meaning itself rejects Langdell; (D) parallels between Langdell and unworkable Cartesian dualism; and (E) how the necessary role of framing in the law rejects Langdell. I also briefly survey some remedies suggested by reason, experience, common sense, and modern cognitive psychology. These include rejecting the redacted appellate case method as a primary mode of instruction, recognizing the necessary fusion of theory and practice, recognizing the need for practice experience in law professors, recognizing the embodied nature of meaning and the resulting role of practice and simulation in good legal education, embracing the humanities (including classical rhetoric) in legal education, abandoning meaningless distinctions such as distinctions between “doctrinal” and “non-doctrinal” courses, and abandoning “caste” systems demeaning those with law practice experience and elevating those who lack such necessary experience.  My introduction can be found here.

Langdell Defends Langdell With A Villanelle (An Addition To "The Apology Box")

Though I've gone after Langdell several times in prose (Exercising Common Sense, Razing Langdell, and Days of Auld Langdell), I've not attempted it in verse till now.  The Villanelle seemed a good form and I felt he would speak of himself in the third person were he writing it.  Of course, even in the more polished form of a villanelle, I still disagree with Langdell's thoughts on casebooks, experienced teachers, law's nature, and more.  Law is not a certain science.  Law practice experience makes better, not worse law professors.  Theory is blind if separated from practice.  Practice is empty without theory.  Law schools are therefore elevated rather than "dumbed down" by teaching practice and theory both.  The hypocrisy of Langdell's practicing for fifteen years while saying practice taints is of course not lost on me either.  I couldn't bear including a photo of the man so I have instead substituted a page from his infamous contracts casebook.

Justice Scalia, Queen Anne, and the Pragmatics of Interpretation

Archive of Blog Originally Posted 2/18/2016 in The Huffinton Post

From Days of Auld Langdell: Crisis and Reform in Modern Legal Education

Archive of Blog Originally Posted 4/25/14 in The Huffinton Post

Overview of Wake Forest Law Review Legal Education Reform Symposium

Wake Forest Law Review Symposium Overview:

“Revisiting Langdell: Legal Education Reform and the Lawyer’s Craft”

By: Steven Verez

On October 23^rd 2015, The Wake Forest Law Review held a symposium entitled:  “Revisiting Langdell: Legal Education Reform and the Lawyer’s Craft.”  Over 200 persons attended the event.  The symposium was hosted by Wake Forest University School of Law Professors Harold Lloyd, Associate Professor of Legal Analysis and Writing and Christine Coughlin, Director of Legal Analysis, Research & Writing.  A symposium edition published by the Wake Forest Law Review containing articles by most of the speakers will be available soon.  A brief overview of some of the speakers’ topics and discussions is set out below.