Author Archives: Luka Burazin

Forthcoming Seminar – Dr. Paweł Banaś (Poland)

11 March 2020: Dr. Paweł Banaś (Faculty of Philosophy and Faculty of Law and Administration of the Jagiellonian University, Poland) – Legal Facts – An Introduction to Ontology of Law (Room VI, Trg Republike Hrvatske 14, 10:00 – 11:30 am).

ABSTRACT:

In my presentation I plan to introduce one of the most general problems of contemporary metaphysics, namely “the placement problem”. It amounts to a question of how to locate certain metaphysically suspicious facts within our default naturalistic picture of what exists. Among such metaphysically suspicious facts there are i.e. moral, aesthetics but also legal facts.

There are different placement strategies that aim to solve the placement problem. If one aims to provide a substantial (or non-trivial) answer to the question of how propositions of law can be true (or false) in the first place, it is not enough to say that there are some corresponding legal facts. One must also say how these facts fit with the world and all the restrictions that come with it. And this is what placement strategies are about.

During my presentation I will focus on a concept of a legal person – in order to illustrate how different placement strategies (or metaphysical/ontological theories) may help us understand fundamental categories of a legal discourse.

Padjen on Systematic Interpretation and the Re-systematization of Law

Ivan L. Padjen (Faculty of Law, University of Rijeka; Faculty of Political Science, University of Zagreb) has published Systematic Interpretation and the Re-systematization of Law: The Problem, Co-requisites, a Solution, Use (International Journal for the Semiotics of Law). Here is the abstract:

A renewed search for legal certainty is a reaction to the preponderance of judge made law, which has been in turn prompted by the democratic deficit of the EU and the impact of Anglo-American law. The problem is that the search is oblivious to both systematic interpretation and the need of re-systematization of law. The paper defines systematic interpretation, relates the definition to standard French and German conceptions, indicates the room for systematic interpretation in Anglo- American laws, and states prima facie reasons for a re-systematization of law as a prerequisite of systematic interpretation. The problem cannot be appreciated outside its proper context. It is a disregard for causation and evaluation. Hence the paper outlines Aristotle’s understanding of causation and evaluation in his presentation of phronesis, reconsiders continental European legal thought in the light of Aristotle’s presentation, and offers policy-oriented jurisprudence as a remedy to the deficit of evaluation and causation in European legal thought. A solution to the problem offers a typology of criteria and clarifies positive and fundamental legal concepts, positive and fundamental criteria of systematization, and the place of criteria in knowledge of law. The usefulness of the criteria is demonstrated by a common approach to the systematization of law and an alternative diagnosis of a defect of systematization diagnosed by an authority in history and philosophy of law rather than legal theory.

Forthcoming Seminars – K. E. Himma (USA) and P. Popović (Italy)

17 October 2019: Prof. Kenneth E. Himma (University of Washington School of Law, USA) – Three Conceptual Problems of Legal Normativity: The Logical Space of Reasons (Room IV, Trg Republike Hrvatske 3, 5:30 – 7:00 pm). Draft paper is here.

18 October 2019: Dr. Petar Popović (Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, Faculty of Canon Law, Italy) – Both Directions at Once? The Ontological Status of the Concept of Law between the Artifactual Theory of Law and the Thomistic Natural-Law Theory (Room IV, Trg Republike Hrvatske 3, 6:00 – 7:30 pm). Draft paper is here.

Forthcoming Seminars – Prof. Marko Novak (Slovenia)

3 June 2019: Prof. Marko Novak (European Faculty of Law, Slovenia) – The Reconstruction of Multi-Modal Argumentation in Legal Proceedings (Room V, Trg Republike Hrvatske 14, 5:00 – 6:30 pm).

4 June 2019: Prof. Marko Novak (European Faculty of Law, Slovenia) – The Rhetoric of Visual Arguments in Legal Context (Room V, Trg Republike Hrvatske 14, 5:00 – 6:30 pm).