The truly tragic part of it all is that, instead of a genuine search for 'justice,' our legal system diverts the efforts of everyone involved into the gobbledy-gook you so clearly describe. It reminds me of members of uncontacted tribes who sacrifice themselves - learn languages, put on 'acceptable' clothing, etc. - so they can advocate for their peoples at international forums like the UN. I can only admire both their and your perseverance.
Fascinating. I can start to make sense of a previous question I asked- if 'legal realism' traces back to Holmes, I'm guessing it is related to philosophical Pragmatism. I always felt Pragmatism, for pragmatic reasons. needed to ground itself in some conception of tradition as the collective wisdom of the species (or at least of a culture) to be coherent and not too free-floating. That did not go over well when I presented a paper defending it at the Society of American Philosophy, to say the least. I think (but could be woefully wrong) that if you mapped that over to law it would be something like a grounding in Common Law (and ultimately, Natural Law), and then interpretation adapting it to current realities (the creative aspect vs. the 'fixed' aspect) would come in. I'm guessing 'legal realists' would resist that move?
No doubt the 'realist' perception has deep roots are in the 'common law' process of judges making decisions that collectively give shape to 'law', without there being a 'code' as such (contra the Continental traditions). And those judges deployed notions of 'natural law' as they sought answers in 'traditions of the people'. Thus Llewellyn's advice to pay attention to the 'trends' in society, etc.
Nice. Sounds like legal realists were better than philosophical pragmatists at tapping into reservoirs of ‘experience’ deeper than the present moment. This stuff is all fascinating to me.
Peter, thanks for the glimpse into a world i know little about. I find interesting the contrast of "higher courts" and "students cannot assume that the cognitive framework is grounded in ordinary common sense or natural human relations", as it makes me wonder how much the "higher courts" consider themselves above and superior to "grounded in ordinary common sense or natural human relations." Also, do you have any idea how/when, linguistically, "legalese" began? When i glance at the e.g. EULA (end-user license agreement) before just clicking 'ok' so i can use the new whatever, it boggles my mind that that's same language used for poetry.
The truly tragic part of it all is that, instead of a genuine search for 'justice,' our legal system diverts the efforts of everyone involved into the gobbledy-gook you so clearly describe. It reminds me of members of uncontacted tribes who sacrifice themselves - learn languages, put on 'acceptable' clothing, etc. - so they can advocate for their peoples at international forums like the UN. I can only admire both their and your perseverance.
Fascinating. I can start to make sense of a previous question I asked- if 'legal realism' traces back to Holmes, I'm guessing it is related to philosophical Pragmatism. I always felt Pragmatism, for pragmatic reasons. needed to ground itself in some conception of tradition as the collective wisdom of the species (or at least of a culture) to be coherent and not too free-floating. That did not go over well when I presented a paper defending it at the Society of American Philosophy, to say the least. I think (but could be woefully wrong) that if you mapped that over to law it would be something like a grounding in Common Law (and ultimately, Natural Law), and then interpretation adapting it to current realities (the creative aspect vs. the 'fixed' aspect) would come in. I'm guessing 'legal realists' would resist that move?
No doubt the 'realist' perception has deep roots are in the 'common law' process of judges making decisions that collectively give shape to 'law', without there being a 'code' as such (contra the Continental traditions). And those judges deployed notions of 'natural law' as they sought answers in 'traditions of the people'. Thus Llewellyn's advice to pay attention to the 'trends' in society, etc.
Nice. Sounds like legal realists were better than philosophical pragmatists at tapping into reservoirs of ‘experience’ deeper than the present moment. This stuff is all fascinating to me.
Peter, thanks for the glimpse into a world i know little about. I find interesting the contrast of "higher courts" and "students cannot assume that the cognitive framework is grounded in ordinary common sense or natural human relations", as it makes me wonder how much the "higher courts" consider themselves above and superior to "grounded in ordinary common sense or natural human relations." Also, do you have any idea how/when, linguistically, "legalese" began? When i glance at the e.g. EULA (end-user license agreement) before just clicking 'ok' so i can use the new whatever, it boggles my mind that that's same language used for poetry.
OED's earliest evidence for legalese is from 1911, in the writing of Charles Hyne, novelist.
Thx for the specificity (a word which sounds like legalese and i wasn't sure if an actual word, so looked and 'tis).