Semiotics and the Problem of Interpretation

Abstract

Contemporary Anglo-Saxon legal philosophy has become obsessed with the problem of interpretation, perhaps in reaction to an earlier stage in positivist jurisprudence when this problem was ignored or at least badly neglected. Contemporary interest in interpretation stems largely from the critique of positivism mounted by Ronald Dworkin, who used the workings of judicial interpretation as an argument against the sufficiency of Hart’s form of positivism, based upon a (narrow conception of) the centrality of rules of recognition. In so doing, Dworkin has put the character of legal rationality in issue. But he, in turn, adopts a narrow conception of legal rationality, that which is stated explicitly by judges, or could be stated explicitly by them, in the course of justificatory argument.