Scott Brewer - First Among Equals: Abduction in Legal Argument from a Logocratic Point of View

On 30/05/2022, Prof. Scott Brewer will present his paper ‘First Among Equals: Abduction in Legal Argument from a Logocratic Point of View’. The seminar will start at 17:00 (UK time) and take place in the Massey Room, Balliol College.

Abstract

This is a chapter in a forthcoming book of essays on Legal Reasoning that's in the late stages of publication.  The Logocratic Method, a theory I have been developing and teaching over the years,   explains the nature of arguments and their principal uses and methods of evaluation, including but not limited to legal arguments.  The closely related questions on which I focus in this paper, to which the Logocratic Method offers distinctive answers, are: (i) what exactly are the identity criteria of an argument?; (ii) when, as is typical in legal arguments, an arguer such as a judge or lawyer offers several arguments on the same overall issue, how are we to understand the relations among those sub-arguments?; (iii) what kinds of evaluative criteria are useful for assessing the overall argument and its related components?  To illustrate the many "moving parts" of Logocratic analysis of legal argument, the paper uses a deceptively simple (or should that be, "deceptively complex"?) example, familiar to a great many who have had an American Contracts course, Judge Cardozo's opinion for the New York Court of Appeals in Dougherty v Salt, 125 NE 94 (NY 1919).  For convenience, I am also circulating that short opinion along with the draft itself.  I'm currently working on a book on the Logocratic Method, and any feedback I receive in reaction to this paper will be most helpful and gratefully received.