Download PDF Law and Truth Dennis Patterson Books

Product details Paperback 200 pages Publisher Oxford University Press (October 14, 1999) Language English ISBN-10 0195132475

Law and Truth Dennis Patterson Books Reviews

• The question that is the focal point of this book is "What do we mean when we say that a proposition of law is true?" The simplicity of its form belies a mass of difficult issues that require time and space to set out, At the risk of oversimplification, it can be understood by reference to the question of what relationship there is between truth, justice, and law. Even to philosophers and lawyers that issue resounds with extravangant and often nebulous connotations, yielding contradictive and vague meanings. The connundrum in the question (and its sub and related forms) may seem less formidable, and begin to make sense when we examine a more specific question - are there truths or only Truth in law? This question has, in turn, been repackaged by philosophers as the questions of realism or anti-realism, and objectivity or subjectivity (which is an important but different question from realism or anti-realism). We should gain more from our attempts to understand law, justice, and truth and their relationship with each other once we resolve the realism/anti-realism; objectivity-subjectivity questions. That is, whether there is only one truth or many truths; and whether there is one (objective) way of finding the truth or many (subjective) ways of reaching it. Patterson's book is a clear, organised, and learned discourse that explains the problems and how some of the best minds (Hart, Dworkin, Fish, and Weinrib) dealt with them. Finally, he tells us what he thinks the answer is. You may agree with him or you might prefer the others, or you might even have your own propositions. Whichever the case, this book is an excellent starting point.
• Many of my favorite books in philosophy follow a common pattern the author will pose a problem or question, canvass its historically and/or presently available resolutions, say straightforwardly what he believes to be lacking in each, and offer a resolution of his own (or the beginning of one) that avoids the difficulties he has identified in the others.
  I will not say that _all_ philosophy books should be written to this plan. But the ones that are tend to fulfill a dual purpose they provide a useful and nontrivial introduction/overview for a newcomer to the topic in question, and they genuinely advance the discussion among professionals who have long dealt with it. This isn't easy to pull off, and authors who manage to do it command my respect quite apart from whether I agree with their conclusions.
  Prof. Dennis Patterson of Rutgers University School of Law is such an author, and _Law and Truth_ is such a book. And the topic with which it deals is one that is, or should be, central to the philosophy of law "What does it mean," as Patterson himself puts it, "to say that a proposition of law is _true_?"
  Patterson sorts helpfully through the array of proposed answers to this question in contemporary juridprudence. In particular, he deals in turn with Ernest Weinrib's account of the immanent rationality of law; the moral realism of Michael Moore and David O. Brink; the legal positivism of H.L.A. Hart; the interpretation-based approaches of Ronald Dworkin and Stanley Fish; and the "modal" account of Philip Bobbitt. In each case he deftly, clearly, and fairly summarizes the account in question and proceeds to raise his own objections. (All his discussions are well executed, but I especially enjoyed his brilliant and occasionally wry reply to Fish.)
  He concludes with a chapter on "Postmodern Jurisprudence," in which he sets out his own view. Having argued that the argument between legal "realism" and "anti-realism" is based on shared (false) premises, he maintains that the normativity of law is rooted firmly in communal _linguistic_ practices -- "linguistic" here being taken sufficiently broadly to include the forms of legal argumentation.
  I shall not try to comment in detail, as -- owing to other constraints on my time -- I have only just finished reading the book for the first time. But as a general matter, I can say that, while I do have disagreements with Patterson's thesis, I am surprised to have as _few_ disagreements as I do. In particular Patterson has an acute sense of one of the apparent paradoxes of legal truth -- that it is not simply a matter of accurate "representation," but rather (this is not quite his own way of putting it) truth in law is in some way _constituted_ by our own activities, including speech and thought. (I would extend this insight to many other areas as well, by the way, and perhaps Patterson would too.)
  Now, the rejection of "representationalism" is not necessarily the acceptance of postmodernism; objective idealism would concur with that rejection but would likely balk at the apparent reduction of truth to a matter of strictly _linguistic_ practices a la the later Wittgenstein. And as I am in the objective-idealist camp myself, I would probably alter the way Patterson makes this or that point even when I agree with it in principle. (I also suspect that, although Patterson's critiques of Weinrib are trenchant and important, Weinrib's own account is probably able to deal with them.)
  Be that as it may, Patterson presents his case not only with a solid, accessible exposition of the philosophical issues at stake in the discussion but also with concrete and pertinent examples of actual legal reasoning and patterns of criticism. His well-chosen examples are remarkably successful both in highlighting flaws in existing accounts of legal truth and in supporting his own contrasting account. As for that account itself, where he sees a revolution, I tend to see a chance to revive some of the lost tenets of objective idealism; but even that would be a revolution in its way, and one not necessarily at odds with Patterson's own.
  Moreover, as I have noted already, his exposition will be an invaluable introduction to those who want to know why there is any fuss about the logical status of legal propositions in the first place. This volume will thus be of tremendous interest to a broad audience of scholars and students.
• This book is a fine introduction to the problems of contemporary legal theory organized around a simple question what makes a proposition of law true? Although a tad cantankerous at times, Patterson provides a thorough overview of contemporary approaches to law (realism, interpretivism, etc.) and their limitations before introducting his own theory of law as a linguistic/argumentative practice and applying it to selected legal problems. The book is thus a good choice for those seeking a one-stop introduction to contemporary legal theory as well as those interested in the philosophic debate regarding the nature of truth, etc. It will also make you sound a lot better at (sophisticated) cocktail parties.