Some introductory remarks on legal interpretation and legal reasoning

Abstract

This issue of Etica & Politica / Ethics & Politics is devoted to the topic of legal interpretation and legal reasoning. We believe that the legal field constitutes a privileged perspective from which to observe interpretative practice. As Stephen Toulmin points out, “lawsuits are just a special kind of rational dispute, for which the procedures and rules of argument have hardened into institutions.” This point is also stressed by Neil MacCormick, who observes that legal interpretation “is perhaps a uniquely public and published form of reasoning, and therefore a resource of great potential interest to philosophers.”