Contextualism, But Not Enough
This essay examines the pragmatically oriented theory of legal interpretation proposed by Vittorio Villa, arguing that, despite its originality and merits, this theory does not yet recognize the proper place for context. In particular, the author criticizes the thesis according to which meaning is a...
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| Pubblicato in: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/revus, |
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| Autore principale: | |
| Natura: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| Lingua: | Anglais |
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Revus
2013
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| Accesso online: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| Riassunto: | This essay examines the pragmatically oriented theory of legal interpretation proposed by Vittorio Villa, arguing that, despite its originality and merits, this theory does not yet recognize the proper place for context. In particular, the author criticizes the thesis according to which meaning is a stratified concept, arguing that it does not describe actual practice or match with other parts of Villa’s conception. Moreover, the author claims that Villa’s brilliant intuitions about (legal) interpretation would be better developed if he had adhered to a more radical form of contextualism (i.e. a form of contextualism which admits, and which is able to account for the fact, that semantic and pragmatic factors influence each other so much that it is difficult to distinguish them and, in any case, pragmatic factors can overwhelm the semantic ones). According to the author, this would also allow Villa to account for some peculiarities of legal practice that do not seem to find a suitable role within his theory (at least at this stage of its development). |
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