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Studia Paedagogica Ignatiana

Legal Hermeneutics: The Text and Beyond
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Legal Hermeneutics: The Text and Beyond

Authors

  • George Taylor University of Pittsburgh

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.12775/SPI.2015.004

Keywords

legal hermeneutics, critical hermeneutics, judgment, meaning, restorative jurisprudence, Paul Ricoeur

Abstract

This paper discusses legal hermeneutics, the role of interpretation in law. My claim is that legal hermeneutics—and hermeneutics more generally—offers four larger insights. First, legal hermeneutics offers tools for a very sophisticated reading of a text; it allows us to discern more closely what is at work in the text. This discernment requires hermeneutic training in acts of judgment, an acumen that goes beyond the more formulaic and algorithmic resources of much contemporary education. Second, legal hermeneutics requires analysis of the interrelation between meaning and application over time. Often an existing rule cannot be applied mechanically to a new case; hermeneutics shows how the rule must be creatively extended. Third, legal hermeneutics emphasizes the quality of hearing: an attentiveness to the other that demonstrates the humanistic qualities of the law and of legal understanding. Fourth, legal hermeneutics aims to recover insights into human meaning in contrast to more reductive approaches that limit human aspiration to more confining values such as economics. Legal hermeneutics—and hermeneutics as a broader field—is a wager in favor of meaning.

References

Babbitt v. Sweet Home Chapter of Communities, 515 U.S. 687 (1995).

Derrida J., Of Grammatology, transl. G.C. Spivak, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore 1974.

Gadamer H.G., Truth and Method, transl. J. Weinsheimer and D.G. Marshall, 2nd revised edition, Crossroad, New York 1992.

Gier P., “Emerging Med-Mal Strategy: ‘I’m Sorry’”, National Law Journal Online, July 14, 2006. Available at: .

Greely H.T., “Law and the Revolution in Neuroscience”, Akron Law Review 2009, vol. 42.

Jones O.D., “Evolutionary Analysis in Law”, North Carolina Law Review 1997, vol. 75.

Kaplan D.M., Ricoeur’s Critical Theory, SUNY Press, Albany 2003.

Kennedy v. Louisiana, 554 U.S. 407, 419 (2008).

Mootz III F.J., “Hermeneutics and Law”, in: The Blackwell Companion to Hermeneutics, eds. N. Keane, C. Lawn, Wiley-Blackwell, Hoboken, N.J. 2016.

Kahneman D., Thinking, Fast and Slow, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York 2011.

Lattman P., Lobb A., “Victims’ Speeches in Court Influenced Judge’s Ruling”, Wall Street Journal, June 30, 2009. Available at: <http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB124632127336071155>.

Posner R.A., Economic Analysis of Law, 9th edition, Wolters Kluwer Law & Business, New York 2014.

Rakove J.N., Original Meanings, Alfred A. Knopf, New York 1996.

Restorative Justice in Practice, eds. S.M. Murphy, M.P. Seng, Vandeplas Publishing, Lake Mary, FL 2015.

Ricoeur P., Time and Narrative, vol. 1, transl. K. McLaughlin, D. Pellauer, University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1984.

Ricoeur P., Lectures on Ideology and Utopia, ed. G.H. Taylor, Columbia University Press, New York 1986.

Ricoeur P., From Text to Action, transl. K. Blamey and J.B. Thompson, Northwestern University Press, Evanston, IL 1991.

Ricoeur P., “Love and Justice”, in: Figuring the Sacred, ed. M.I. Wallace, transl. D. Pellauer, Fortress Press, Minneapolis 1995.

Ricoeur P., The Just, transl. D. Pellauer, University of Chicago Press, Chicago 2000.

Ricoeur P., Memory, History, Forgetting, transl. K. Blamey, D. Pellauer, University of Chicago Press, Chicago 2004.

Ricoeur P., The Course of Recognition, transl. D. Pellauer, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA 2005.

Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551 (2005).

Scalia A., A Matter of Interpretation: Federal Courts and the Federal Law, Princeton University Press, Princeton 1997.

Taylor G.H., “Law and Creativity”, in: On Philosophy in American Law, ed. F.J. Mootz III, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2009.

Taylor G.H., Ricoeur and the Limits of Law? [forthcoming].

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Available at: .

Studia Paedagogica Ignatiana

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Published

2016-04-18

How to Cite

1.
TAYLOR, George. Legal Hermeneutics: The Text and Beyond. Studia Paedagogica Ignatiana. Online. 18 April 2016. Vol. 18, pp. 81-96. [Accessed 3 July 2025]. DOI 10.12775/SPI.2015.004.
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Vol. 18 (2015)

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Articles and Dissertations

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