Very Nice Little Post on Lawyers & Poets

                                                         From "Lawyer Poets"

                                              https://ahthesea.com/lawyer-poets/

"The description printed on the Lawyer Poet box muses: 'What other profession [than the law] is more concerned with the nuance of language, the intricately-crafted sentence, the passage that needs to be re-read a dozen times to be even remotely understood?' Well, leave it to me to let one cheeky bit of marketing copy send me on a thoughtful journey. What well-known poets have also been lawyers? I wondered. For the curious, here’s what I found (along with links to their poetry) . . . ."  

Hermeneutics and Anselm's Ontological Argument: Lessons for Lawyers and Others On Existential Proof

When lawyers and others explore the limits of logical proof in proving matters of existence, it's quite useful to explore St. Anselm's Ontological Argument purporting to prove God's existence as a matter of pure logic. Grasping how the argument might might work on a purely hermeneutic level while possibly failing on the pragmatic level helps explain the need for meaning to work in the face of experience. We can also gain much insight on these points by exploring how a common objection to Anselm's argument fundamentally fails. As we'll see, hermeneutics must be pragmatic in the sense discussed below, and this straightforwardly makes the case for hermeneutic pragmatism as best philosophy.

Starting with a common objection to Anselm's argument, it seems but common sense that things either exist or they don't apart from pure logic. For example, as the objection might go, my keyboard I'm using now would exist even if no one knew logic. How, then, can pure logic prove anything exists? Well, the objection and example assume that existence as we commonly understand the term is something simply there apart from language. But that is error. Existence is a concept created by our language (or more precisely our semiotics). That is, existence itself is hermeneutic and things can meaningfully "exist" within countless conceptual schemes of the world that we might construct. Hilary Putnam's exploration of "internal realism" sheds further light here. How, then, is existence less subject to logical proof within conceptual schemes than other concepts like that of God offered by St. Anslem? 

All that said, we of course cannot accept that God must transcendentally exist simply because we can deductively prove God's existence within Anselm's (or any one else's) conceptual worldview. First, this ignores the hermeneutics just discussed: we can have countless concepts of God which may or may not be compatible within the countless potential conceptual world schemes we might use. Second, any such purely deductive ontological argument would ignore a critical element of good reasoning. Our concepts must work in the face of all experience: they must help us predict, organize, and improve such experience in ways that sufficiently handle (for the purposes we have) all experience (including moral experience). If we wish to fully "prove" anything, we must therefore not only successfully prove how concepts flow within a conceptual scheme. We must also demonstrate the pragmatic workability just discussed. This is the real lesson of Anselm's argument and the flaws in the common objection to Anslem noted above. Thus, as theologians wishing to prove the existence of God must address both hermeneutics and pragmatism (and thus embrace hermeneutic pragmatism), so must lawyers wishing to prove matters of existential dispute. 

Anselm's no less fascinating Cur Deus Homo also invites useful instruction in hermeneutic pragmatism. Hopefully soon, I plan to sketch out a more modern rewrite also in question form. In addition to allowing such further exploration of good hermeneutic pragmatism, I hope this will also help too-insular lawyers see how deep explorations of areas beyond the law can make them better lawyers.

Balancing Freedom and Restraint: The Role of Virtue in Legal Analysis

                                                                Abstract

Even if one sees the law as “a self-contained system of legal reasoning” from which we deduce “neutral,” non-political conclusions from “general principles and analogies among cases and doctrines” (including formalist claims that judges simply call “balls and strikes” like umpires in a baseball game), one should still consider certain characteristics of the party making such deductions or calling such “balls and strikes.” [Relevant citations to quoted language are in the Article.] If such decision maker has questionable motivations, lacks proper perspective, does not grasp the flexibility in the concepts in play, does not grasp the restraints on concepts in play, does not follow the proper processes involved, and lacks the detail, courage, and tenacity needed to reach the proper “deduction” or “call,” on the face of things the formalist, too, should have reason to re-examine any “deduction” or “call” by such party. Thus, even the formalist should not deny the critical role of virtue when examining legal analysis, a role belying the notion of law as a "self-contained system of legal reasoning."

This Article thus explores basic freedoms and restraints applicable to legal analysis and the role that virtue plays in balancing such freedoms and restraints. Such exploration covers: (i) the origin, nature, and purpose of concepts and categories used in legal analysis; (ii) the experiential nature of the meaning of such concepts and categories used in legal analysis; (iii) the freedoms and restraints applicable to such concepts and categories as a result of either experience or of the concepts or categories themselves; (iv) how workable notions of virtue rightly balance such freedoms and restraints in legal analysis; (v) the distinction between such virtue and skill; (vi) reconceiving the analytically virtuous mean as a proper balance between such applicable freedoms and restraints; and (vii) defining and surveying the particular virtues that lead us to such proper balance and thus to good legal analysis. My hope is that lawyers and law schools in their curricula will follow such explorations as well in a quest to better understand legal analysis and how to teach and perform it well.

Download the full text of this article here.

Keywords: legal analysis, virtue, skill, formalism, character, phronesis, concept, category, hermeneutic pragmatism, Peirce, Rorty, Putnam, deduction, induction, semiotics, legal education, rhetoric