Vitaly Ogleznev

The article is concerned with the general characteristics of Aristotle’s theory of a genus-differentia definition. The authors examine the validity of the definitions in the framework of legal language and present some objections against the definitions of per genus proximum et differentia specificam as they are considered by Aristotle. At the same time, through the objections to the position of genus-differentia definition critics, it is proved that in a number of cases Aristotle’s theory is more preferable than the approach offered by Herbert Hart, the proponent of analytical legal philosophy. The argument of Peter Hacker is used to reinstate Aristotle’s genus-differentia definitions.

The Constitution is considered as an informal axiomatic system. The strategy proposed by the authors rests on the following propositions: axioms are considered as contextual definitions of those concepts by means of which they are formulated; and the main requirement for this type of system is internal consistency. The first proposition is necessary for considering the Constitution as an informal axiomatic system, while the second is sufficient, because the approach proposed, apart from consistency, must certainly consider the requirements for formal axiomatic systems, such as independence and completeness. The authors argue that the Constitution can be compared to axiomatic constructions in modern science in the sense that is given in the research on the logic and methodology of deductive sciences. This analogy is appropriate to the extent to which constitutional provisions are interpreted as the basic elements of the legal system, just as in the formal sciences axioms are regarded as basic principles that define the main features of the formal system. This means that the Constitution itself is seen as coherent, consistent discourse that contextually defines the meaning of the basic terms of the legal system.

The article examines K.A. Rodin’s thesis on the possibility of including Wittgenstein’s remarks on intention and action in the context of legal philosophy research. It is shown that although the concepts of intention and intentional action are relevant to the philosophy of law, Wittgenstein’s own ideas did not have a significant impact on their relevance (and some of them did not have it at all). This influence is confined to the fact that, like Wittgenstein, many jurists and legal theorists, mainly those who were influenced by the ideas of H.L.A. Hart, also objected to the causal theory of action. However, the influence is limited to this approach.

The article presents a detailed consideration of the arguments from the symposium “Verifiability”, which was held on July 14, 1945 in London, proposed by Scottish philosopher and theologian Donald MacKinnon, Austrian logician and mathematician Friedrich Waismann and English logician and philosopher of science William Kneale. MacKinnon’s approach to verifiability was based on the metaphysics of fact, while Waismann and Kneale’s approach was based on the semantic specificity of empirical concepts (“open texture” and context of use) and on the truth-values of empirical propositions. The symposium in question is interesting primarily because it is the last meaningful discussion on the concept of verifiability in the form in which it was understood by the Vienna Circle. Despite the fact that, in the coming years, this concept received a completely different interpretation, which stands away from the original source, the 1945 symposium could be rightfully treated as a canonical discussion on verifiability in the sense that nothing like this has ever happened in the philosophy after.

The appearance in 1945 of the idea of the open texture of empirical concepts, which anticipated Friedrich Waismann’s thesis of a many-level-structure of language, led to a re-evaluation of “context”. It widens the sense of context that we are accustomed to mentioning as being Wittgenstein’s conception of meaning in his later philosophy. The new idea Waismann brought into the landscape is how to “clarify the context”, which is in a way a very non-Wittgensteinian question as well as an “explanation of context”, where open texture plays a key role. But despite the amount of literature about open texture, this idea of Waismann is still not properly understood. Open texture must be situated as an obstacle to exhaustiveness of definition for internal reasons not only because of unforeseen conditions that could always arise in the future, but also by virtue of an a priori aspect of the texture of concepts. Thus, the main goal of this paper is to propose an interpretation of open texture as an immanent property of a concept, that is, as something that is underlying its nature.

During its hundred-year history, Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus has undergone a variety of interpretations and explanations. But the significance of this work cannot be limited to an assessment of whether it had an impact on the development of logical positivism or not. Similarly, the reading of Tractatus cannot be reduced to just an ethical or some other readings. This article proposes to study a possible reading of “Tractatus” in terms of legal philosophy, which is based on the relation between facts, values and norms, as well as on how interesting it could be (or would be) for legal philosophy.

[full article, abstract in English; only abstract in Lithuanian] This paper proposes a new pragmatic interpretation of the Frege–Geach problem and presents a possible solution using a model of ascriptive legal language. The first section includes the definition of the Frege–Geach problem. In the second section, I analyze the content of Geach’s critical argument against prescriptivism in ethics. I discuss what Geach means by ascriptivism, why he mixes it with prescriptivism, and why a particular article by Herbert Hart became the subject of criticism by Geach. The third section proposes a possible solution to the Frege–Geach problem based on the explication of the assertoric force of ascriptive legal utterances and the performativity of legal language.

The article presents the philosophical and linguistic conception of Friedrich Waismann – the theory of many-level-structure of language. The key point of this theory is that each language stratum has its own logic: different concepts of truth, the methods of verifiability and the completeness of description are used in different strata. All this has an influence on the structure of logic itself. This approach suggests that all homogeneous statements (identical in a logical sense) are grouped in one stratum. The relations between the different strata are of a most complicated, peculiar and elusive nature and that does not allow to reduce statement of one stratum to another. According to Waismann, these considerations lead to a new picture of the language, naturally divided into strata.

The paper investigates the way in which criminal law of most countries allocates to the idea of intention, as one of the principal determinants of liability to punishment. All civilized penal systems make liability to punishment for at any rate serious crime dependent not merely on the fact that the person to be punished has done the outward act of a crime, but on his having done it in a certain state of frame of mind. These mental or intellectual elements are many and various andare collected together in the legal terminology under the description of a guilty mind. But the most prominent, of these mental elements, and in many ways the most important, is a man's intention. The law's concern with intention generates a number of problems, some of which are discussed in this paper. It is argued that even before one reaches these problems there is a more fundamental question to be addressed: what is a man's intention? This is a question which, quite apart from the law, philosophers have found both intriguing and difficult to answer. The author discusses howit can add complexity to what is considered intentional in criminal law.

The article presents an analysis of K.A. Rodin’s argument that after publishing of Peter Winch’s book “The Idea of Social Science” (1958) the discussions of rule-following problem concerning to social epistemology and the methodology of social studies have not had tangible results. It is shown by the example of modern legal studies that this conclusion is not valid. On the contrary, Wittgenstein’s problem of rule-following and the very idea of rule-shaped activity have proved to have a great importance for an analytical legal philosophy and turned into an independent subject of study.

The article presents a careful analysis of the idea of the “open texture” of empirical concepts and the problems of verification in the way that they were formulated by Friedrich Waismann. The idea of the “open texture” means for Waismann a certain type of a linguistic indeterminacy or a sort of lack of definition, which must be distinguished from, and linked to, another types like vagueness or ambiguity. It is shown that empirical statements are not conclusively verifiable for two different reasons: the incompleteness of description of the material object and the open texture of the terms involved. We cannot conclusively verify statements in which the empirical concepts are used, because we cannot define these concepts in an exhaustive way because of their open texture. Thus, the definition of the concept will be incomplete. Waismann’s approach to definition plays here a key role, and it is directly related to the open texture of concepts. The author proposes interpreting the open texture as an immanent property of the concept, as something that is embedded in it a priori, and which can cause a vagueness. Nevertheless, an open texture must be distinguished form a vagueness. This leads to the conclusion that an open texture is a possibility of vagueness; vagueness can be remedied by giving more accurate rules, open texture cannot. In this sense, the “open texture” of a language allows for a more precise definition of concepts (by adjusting the definition) if appropriate circumstances arise. This justifies the thesis that the argument of the open texture is the ontological basis of the linguistic anti-reductionism of Friedrich Waismann.

The article seeks to instantiate the distinctive features and basic research strategies in legal ontology as they are presented in the early works by the famous Oxford philosopher of law Herbert Hart, published before his major book The Concept of Law. The author tries to isolate the most salient aspects of the analytical legal tradition applicable to Russian legal theory, which can bridge the existing gap between these approaches despite considerable difference both in their background and methodology.

В статье рассматривается теория фикционализма Бентама в том виде, в котором она представлена в его работах, прежде всего, в “A Fragment on Ontology” и “Essay on Logic”. Показано, что интерес к теории фикционализма Бентама связан не только и не столько с тем, что она выступает в качестве необходимой части его философской концепции, но с тем, что разработанный на ее основе метод определения вымышленных сущностей, во многом инспирированный логикой Аристотеля и его учением о категориях, видоизменил методологический аппарат современной философии языка. Метод парафраза Бентама, как особый способ определения вымышленных сущностей, оказался применимым как в логико-семантических, так и философско-правовых концепциях XX века.

This essay is concerned with different approaches to the elucidation of action. It explicates the influence of Aristotle’s theory of action on the development of the modern philosophy of action, provided, first of all, by Reductionist and Causalist’s points of view. The author argues that the denial of the physical and psychological components of the action allows to conclude, firstly, that action is a social concept, logically dependent on the accepted rules of conduct; secondly, that it is fundamentally not descriptive, but ascriptive in its character; and thirdly, that it is a defeasible concept to be defined through exceptions and not by a set of necessary and sufficient conditions whether physical or psychological.

The article deals with the nature of legal rules. The authors argue that if all legal rules have obligative character, it means that they have the imperative nature. The article shows that the main feature of legal language is that for an explication of imperative character of legal rules is enough the fact of existence of this rule in particular legal system. Besides, an application of several points of the theory of speech acts to legal language allows showing that the question on what kind of linguistic form an imperative has, doesn’t matter, because this is always the legal rule.

The article seeks to instantiate the distinctive features and basic research strategies in legal ontology as they are presented in the early works by the famous Oxford philosopher of law Herbert Hart, published before his major book The Concept of Law. The author tries to isolate the most salient aspects of the analytical legal tradition applicable to Russian legal theory, which can bridge the existing gap between these approaches despite considerable difference both in their background and methodology.