LAW 692 - Interpretation in Law

Course Type: Upper Level Elective
Credits: 2

Description: This seminar will examine the topic of interpretation in law, including both textualist and non-textualist approaches to legal interpretation, and the question of how legal interpretation can be a kind of objective inquiry - and in what sense it is objective. From how to construe a will in probate to what the first amendment means to whether a statute criminalizing use of chemical weapons can be used to prosecute a man who poisoned his wife with gas, we need to address how one gets from marks on a page to the applicable legal rules, and what that process involves. Is interpretation in law fundamentally different from ordinary language interpretation like reading this course description? Is legal interpretation relevantly like literary interpretation? Are there rational precepts that apply to all interpretation? How does the rule of law relate to ideas about legal interpretation? We’ll study works by legal scholars as well as by cognitive scientists, economists, linguists, literary theorists, and philosophers.