The Belgian Discussion

Abstract

A group of lawyers and logicians, headed by Chaïm Perelman and Paul Foriers and forming the legal section of the Belgian Centre National de Recherches de Logique, has been promoting discussion on and research into legal logic since 1953. As is attested by Foriers, “it all began in August 1953, at the time of the International Colloquy in Logic which was held in Brussels”, when “in a very animated and occasionally even passionate debate certain logicians, who tended to see the formal sciences as a model to be followed by all other sciences, were ranged against certain philosophers and scholars, who maintained that this outlook could not withstand confrontation with the methods by which those fields really develop” ([22], p. 23). In the part of the Colloquy devoted to “Proof in Law”, papers on legal reasoning were read by Norberto Bobbio, from Italy, and by Marie-Thérèse Motte, of the Belgian group, and there was a general discussion. A brief account of these papers and of the discussion will now be given. (See [73].)