Consequences of Pragmatic Conceptualism: On the Methodology Problem in Jurisprudence

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to address some of the main issues of contemporary jurisprudential methodology by considering the contribution of Jules Coleman to this subject. After a description of Coleman's methodological approach and a clarification of its philosophical background, the paper focuses on some related problems, such as the relation between linguistic meaning and conceptual content, the nature of legal concepts, the different aspects of the normativity of content, and the revisability of conceptual truths.In the past decade the debate on jurisprudential methodology has seen a notable revival of interest. On the one hand, the traditional terms of this debate have been enriched with new argumentative resources, which are meant to clarify whether jurisprudential claims can describe the social reality of law or necessarily aim at modifying it. 1 On the other hand, a further philosophical challenge, namely that of naturalized jurisprudence, has attempted to reframe jurisprudential methodology by claiming that 1 To put it another way, in Anglo-American jurisprudence the methodology problem traditionally concerns the possibility of descriptive jurisprudence as opposed to the idea that an inquiry into the nature of law unavoidably accomplishes a normative task. The fundamental terms of this opposition have been established by the Hart-Dworkin debate. According to Hart, jurisprudence can offer a normatively neutral description of law, which does not necessarily contribute to justify legal contents (Hart 1994); according to Dworkin, a jurisprudential account of law cannot be anything but a normative inquiry into the conditions under which the use of collective force is justified (Dworkin 1986, 53, 67, 90). The Hart-Dworkin debate has triggered off a flourishing discussion on jurisprudential methodology, which aims either at specifying this leading picture or at revising it: cf.

Legal concepts as inferential nodes and ontological categories

“…For criticism, see Fodor and Lepore (2001). For some considerations on the relevance of Brandom's ideas for the law, see recently Canale (2009). These considerations apply particularly to the so-called ''intermediate legal concepts,'' namely, those concepts (like property, contract, citizenship, etc.) through which legal norms convey both legal consequences and preconditions of further legal effects, as we shall see in the following.…”