Law and Language

Abstract

Philosophy of law can gain from a good philosophical account of the meaning and use of language, and from a good philosophical account of the institutionalized resolution of disputes over language. Philosophy of language can gain from studying the stress-testing of language in legal regulation and dispute resolution. And philosophers of language can gain from the reminder that their task is not only to account for what people share in virtue of the mastery of a language; they also need to account for the possibility of disagreements over the meaning and use of language, and for the possibility that there might be good reason for resolving those disagreements in one way rather than another. In addition to their interest in the use of language in law, philosophers of law have developed a second, interrelated interest in using insights from the philosophy of language to address problems of the nature of law. This article outlines some problems in each of these two areas, after a brief historical note on the linguistic preoccupations of legal philosophers.