Seeing that socio-legal theory has produced a number of compelling grand theories about law’s development as a body of knowledge, this contribution analyzes legal evolution on the micro-level of decision-making in concrete cases. To that end, law finding is reconstructed as a three stage process of reason-based rule-construction. Legal evolution is argued to stem from the argumentative jumps that are made in this process in order to use what is initially drawn from the body of legal knowledge in new cases. (...) These jumps are justified by additional reasoning that plays a crucial role in that it brings new information to the law finding process. It is explained how this new information gets incorporated in the body of knowledge as a result of discursive maneuvers of legal practitioners. (shrink)

O pragmatismo, como método formal, nos fornece uma importante arena para discussões a respeito do modo pelo qual conceitos podem ser construídos, independentemente de qualquer posição antropocêntrica ou linguística. O presente trabalho tem por finalidade efetuar uma discussão sobre a máxima pragmática e a tese sobre a indeterminação do significado ( meaning ) que ela traz consigo. Ou seja, busca-se entender o trânsito que há entre o indefinido e o definido, entre o indeterminado e o determinado, bem como algumas fronteiras (...) intermediárias encontradas nos processos de determinação relativa do conceito. (shrink)

RESUMO: O Pragmatismo, como proposto por Charles S. Peirce, deve ser considerado um método para a produção teórica de pensamento que visa à construção de conceitos, a qual assume a forma de uma máxima lógica orientadora da conduta científica. Se um conceito é uma relação sígnica e a sua compreensão, um processo sígnico, encontramos na semiótica peirceana uma estratégia para discriminar as etapas da compreensão conceitual e avaliar os significados de termos e conceitos abstratos. Assim, o objetivo deste trabalho é (...) explicar os princípios lógicos que governam os tipos de Signos que mais diretamente estão relacionados à construção de conceitos, a saber: o Símbolo-Remático, o Símbolo-Dicente e o Argumento. Tais signos correspondem à antiga divisão Termo, Proposição e Argumento, modificada de modo a ser aplicável aos signos em geral. ABSTRACT: Pragmatism, as proposed by Charles S. Peirce, should be considered a method for the theoretical production of thought that aims the construction of concepts, which takes the form of a logical maxim guiding scientific conduct. If a concept is a sign relationship and its understanding a sign process, we find in Peircean semiotics a strategy to discriminate the stages of conceptual understanding and to evaluate the meanings of abstract terms and concepts. Therefore, the aim of this work is to explain the logical principles that govern the types of Signs that more directly are related to the construction of concepts, namely: the Rhematic Symbol, the Dicent Symbol and the Argument. Such signs correspond to the old division between Term, Proposition and Argument, modified in order to be applicable to the signs in general. (shrink)

This paper focuses on abduction as explicit or readily formulatable inference to possible explanatory hypotheses--as contrasted with inference to conceptual innovations or abductive logic as a cycle of hypotheses, deduction of consequences and inductive testing. Inference to an explanation is often a matter of projection or extrapolation of elements of accepted theory for the solution of outstanding problems in particular domains of inquiry. I say "projections or extrapolation" of accepted theory, but I mean to point to something broader and suggest (...) how elements of accepted theory constrain emergent models and plausible inferences to explanations--in a quasi-rationalist fashion. I draw on illustrations from quantum gravity below just because there is so little direct evidence available in the field. It is in such cases that Peirce's discussions of abductive inference provide the most plausible support for the idea of a logic of abduction--as inference to readily formulatable explanatory hypotheses. The possible need for conceptual innovation points to the limits on the possibility of a logic of abduction of a more rationalistic character--selecting uniquely superior explanations. Abduction conceived as a repeated cycle of inquiry also points to limits on our expectations for an abductive logic. My chief point is that the character of inference to an explanation, viewed below as embedded within arguments from analogy, is so little compelling, as a matter of logical form alone, that there will always be a pluralism of plausible alternatives among untested hypotheses and inferences to them--calling for some comparative evaluation. This point leads on to some consideration of the virtues of hypotheses--as a description of the range of this pluralism. (shrink)