Heavily Accented Philosophy of Law

In this episode, we delve into the topic of legal interpretation and its theoretical foundations. What are the core elements of a rigorous account of legal interpretation? How has the conversational model — drawing on ideas about communication and pragmatics — shaped the field in recent decades? What are the main positions within this approach, and who are its key proponents? And if we move away from the conversational paradigm, how should we think about the standards by which an interpretation can be evaluated? Is objectivity in interpretation something we truly need, or can we do without it?Francesca Poggi joins us to explore these questions and to present her own account of legal interpretation. We discuss the appeal and the limitations of grounding legal interpretation in the theory of conversation, examining the structural differences between ordinary communicative exchanges and the interpretation of legal texts. Poggi identifies the key problems with the conversational model and outlines an alternative framework — one that takes seriously the question of how to assess interpretive outcomes once the assumption of objectivity is put under pressure.Francesca Poggi is full professor at the Department in legal science "Cesare Beccaria" at the University of Milan, where she coordinates the PhD programme in legal science "Cesare Beccaria". She teaches on numerous Italian and international master's and advanced courses. Her research interests range from general jurisprudence to bioethics and gender legal studies, always with a particular focus on legal interpretation.She has published in international journals such as Jurisprudence, Revus, and Ratio juris, and has co-edited volumes such as ⁠Interpretivism and the Limits of Law (Edward Elgar, 2022) and Law and Pragmatics, vol. I and vol. II⁠ (Springer, 2016 and 2017). Her latest book is Il modello conversazionale (ETS, 2020).[This episode was hosted by Julieta Rabanos and Bojan Spaić; edited by Bojan Spaić; uploaded and formatted by Julieta Rabanos](00:00:05) Intro – HAPL Podcast(00:00:19) Introduction to the Episode – Hosts and Guest(00:00:56) Francesca Poggi – Academic Path and Research Interests(00:03:32) Main Elements of Poggi's Account of Legal Interpretation(00:09:36) An Open Problem – Why Are There Fewer Judicial Conflicts Than Expected?(00:12:30) The Conversational Model – A Broad Overview(00:17:09) Main Criticisms – Legislative Intention and the Problem of Collective Intentionality(00:20:48) The Indeterminacy of Legal Context vs. Ordinary Conversation(00:24:19) The Core Distinction Between Legal Interpretation and Conversation(00:27:16) Is Legal Interpretation Ever Cooperative?(00:31:21) Objectivity in Legal Interpretation – Is It Possible or Necessary?(00:33:55) Evaluating Interpretations Without Objectivity – The "Never-Ending Dance"(00:37:44) Legal Culture, Values, and Constraints on Judicial Discretion(00:41:38) Realism Is Not Arbitrariness – Determinants of Interpretive Convergence(00:44:37) Constitutionalized Legal Systems and the Failure of the Conversational Model(00:56:22) Democratic Consequences – Does This Picture Threaten the Rule of Law?(00:59:51) The Ideal Legislator Dogma and Its Modern Reincarnation as the Competent Speaker Model(01:05:00) Connection Between the Competent Speaker Model and the Conversational Approach(01:06:05) Closing Remarks and Farewell(01:07:05) Outro – HAPL Podcast

In this episode, we delve into the debate about experimental jurisprudence (also known as xJur). What is exactly “experimental jurisprudence”? What is in turn “experimental philosophy”? What are the methods of xJur and what are the good practices in order to get replicable results? Can we truly achieve knowledge on law through experiments?Izabela Skoczeń discusses with us the raising in importance of experimental jurisprudence in the last years, how it fits within the underlying assumptions in philosophy and jurisprudence related to law, and the criticisms that have been formulated towards it. We explore first a general introduction to both experimental jurisprudence and experimental philosophy, as well as the array of methods used by the former and an overview of the applicable good practices. We then address some of the criticisms formulated towards xJur, arguing for the ecological validity of xjur, arguing why xjur is helpful, also when focused on non-expert understanding of concepts, and why a short scenario can shed light on complex conceptual issues. Finally, we close the episode exploring the role of xJur in conceptual analysis and the challenge of conflicting intuitions.Izabela Skoczeń is an assistant professor at the Law Faculty of the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland. Her work focuses on the intersection of legal theory, experimental jurisprudence and philosophy of language.She is a member of the Jagiellonian Centre for Law, Language and Philosophy, a member of the editorial board of the Bloomsbury series ‘Advances in Experimental Philosophy’, and a contributing editor of the jurisprudence section of Jotwell. She is currently working on a project on devising principles for responsible LLM communication with partners from Austria, Romania and Switzerland: https://talkingtobots.net . She is also working on a project on cross-cultural replications of experimental jurisprudence studies, together with K Tobia and J L Nunes.She has published in Synthese (Renouncing the attempt versus perpetration distinction, 2023), Bloomsbury (chapter: From lying to blaming and perjury: deceptive implicatures in the courtroom and the materiality requirement, 2025), Cognition (Outcome effects, moral luck and hindsight bias, 2023, with M Kneer), the Leiden Journal of International Law (Inside the treaty interpreter’s mind: An experimental linguistic approach to international law, 2023, with B Pirker), Ratio Juris (Delimiting Legal Interpretation: The Problem of Moral Bias and Political Distortion—The Case of Criminal Intention, 2022, with F Poggi), the International Journal for the Semiotics of Law (Modelling Perjury: Between Trust and Blame, 2021), Oxford University Press (chapter: Is a Legal Implicature in the Eye of its Beholder?, 2022). She has authored a monograph, Implicatures within Legal Language, in 2019, in the Springer Law and Philosophy Library.Overviews of xJur work mentioned: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on experimental jurisprudence by K Tobia, G Almeida, K Prochownik and I HannikainenThe Cambridge Handbook of Experimental Jurisprudence ed by K TobiaOverview article by K TobiaOverview article by R SommersOverview article by K Prochownik[This episode was hosted by Julieta Rabanos and Bojan Spaić; edited by Bojan Spaić; uploaded and formatted by Julieta Rabanos](00:00:00) Intro HAPL(00:00:18) Introduction to the episode – hosts and guest(00:00:58) Izabela Skoczeń – Academic Genealogy and Research Interests(00:05:04) Experimental Jurisprudence (xJur) – What exactly is it?(00:12:32) xJur and Experimental Philosophy(00:27:49) An Underlying Assumption – does law deal with facts?(00:33:53) Methods of xJur & Replicability(00:45:54) Some Criticisms Formulated Towards xJur(00:54:42) xJur & Conceptual Analysis - The Challenge of conflicting intuitions(01:11:02) Farewell and last words(01:15:34) Outro HAPL

In this episode, we delve into the debate about legal validity and concept-construction methodology. What is exactly legal validity? What would be the most adequate way to construct a concept of legal validity? How is the idea of cluster concepts important for this debate? Do theoretical or conceptual distinctions have any practical relevance? Mathieu Carpentier discussed with us why legal validity is a key concept for legal theory and why it is better understood as a cluster concept, broken down into more elementary units of meaning. We explore first how – and why – acluster concept-construction methodology is more useful than other methodologies and then explore in-depth the elementary units Carpentier identify related to the concept of legal validity, as well as the internal relations among theseunits. Finally, touch upon the impact of all of these on the definition of the rule of recognition, and the relevance of this discussion and distinctions to legal positivism (including the inclusive and exclusive legal positivism debate).Mathieu Carpentier is a Professor of Public Lawat the University of Toulouse Capitole and a Fellow of the Institut universitaire de France. He works on various issues in legal philosophy as well as constitutional law and theory and comparative constitutional law. His PhD thesis was devoted to legal defeasibility (it was published in French in 2014).He recently edited a book called “Meta-Theory of Law” (ISTE/Wiley, 2022). He has written around 50 papers in French and English. Listeners wanting to dive deeper in his work on legalvalidity, concept-construction and the methodology of jurisprudence can check some of his papers on SSRN: Sources and Validity (2018), Validity and Applicability: A Small Dose of Scepticism(2018), Kelsen on Derogation and Normative Conflicts (2020), Sources of Law (with Torben Spaak, 2024), Against “Legal Facts” (forthcoming 2025). French readers may also consult his Problèmes relatifs à l'identification temporelle des systèmesjuridiques (2023) and Controverses sur la “nature” du droit (2018). [This episode was hosted by Julieta Rabanos and Bojan Spaić; edited by Bojan Spaić; uploaded and formatted by Julieta Rabanos] (00:00:00) Intro HAPL(00:00:16) Introduction to the episode – hosts and guest(00:01:30) Mathieu Carpentier – Academic Genealogy and Research Interests(00:06:24) Legal Theory and Philosophy in France(00:19:05) Legal Validity – Concept, Classical View, Importance for Legal Theory and Philosophy(00:27:49) Legal Validity & Adequate Methodology of Concept-Construction(00:32:50) Legal Validity as a Cluster Concept(00:40:21) Legal Validity and its Units of Meaning (an Introduction)(00:55:50) Legal Validity and the Concept of Legal System(01:00:58) Legal Validity and its Units of Meaning – On Efficacy and Relation between Units(01:09:24) Legal Validity and the Rule of Recognition(01:21:31) Adequate Methodology of Conceptual Analysis and Concept-Construction(01:30:22) Farewell and last words(01:32:49) Outro HAPL

In this episode, we delve into the topics of non-human agents, the construction of legal reality, and the encompassing role of legal education. What does it mean to be an agent? In which sense can we talk about non-human agents? Can we say that legal reality is “constructed”? How do we fit non-human agents within this legal reality? How does legal education participate in it? Antonia Waltermann discusses with us why researching on agency is important for the study of law, and why it is also important to extend the research also to what can be called “non-human agents”. We also explore what does it mean for legal reality to be a social construction and how and to what extent non-human agents might be considered as participating in such construction, as well as how legal education fits the picture through its presence, content, and influence on human agents. Antonia M. Waltermann is assistant professor of legal theory and philosophy at the Faculty of Law of Maastricht University. She has been a visiting scholar at Stockholm, Bologna and Ljubljana University. She has worked on sovereignty (e.g. Reconstructing Sovereignty, Springer Law and Philosophy Library, 2019), law and the cognitive sciences (e.g. in Law and Mind, Cambridge University Press, 2021) and non-human agency (e.g. in Law, Science and Rationality, Eleven International Publishing, 2019). Her current research focuses on social ontology, particularly on the agency and responsibility of non-human entities (including but not limited to AI) both within the law and when it comes to the (social) construction of law. As regards education, she has extensive experience with legal education in various roles, including but not limited to course design, coordination, and evaluation. Most recently, she is involved in educational design and policy at a programme level as well. [This episode was hosted by Julieta Rabanos and Bojan Spaić; edited by Bojan Spaić; uploaded and formatted by Julieta Rabanos]

The guest for this fourth episode of the HAPL podcast is Giovanni Tuzet, currently Full Professor of Philosophy of Law at Bocconi University (Milan, Italy). In the first part of this interview with Julieta Rabanos and Bojan Spaić, Tuzet talks about his academic path to the present and introduces the topic of evidential reasoning, starting from the most general question about legal reasoning and moving towards evidential reasoning and evidence law. He analyses the similarities and differences between evidential reasoning and other domains of factual reasoning, and explains different criteria for admissible evidence in law and those other domains. In the second part of the interview, Tuzet discusses his approach to the relation of truth and evidence (developed in his recent book “La prova ragionata”) and its differences with other approaches. The debate goes on to touch admissibility of evidence, evaluation criteria, and standards of proof, evidence and inference, probabilism and control of the inferences, artificial intelligence and evidential reasoning, and much more. (00:00:00) HAPL Intro (00:00:18) Introduction – Welcome to Giovanni Tuzet & Academic Genealogy (00:05:52) A general account of legal reasoning (00:10:47) Reasoning & Argumentation: public and private aspects of reasoning (00:13:00) Legal Reasoning & Inferentialism (00:19:06) Evidential Reasoning in Law and in Other Domains (00:27:25) ER: Admissibility of Evidence in Law – general concept (00:33:32) ER: Truth and Evidence in “La prova ragionata” (Giuffre, 2023) (00:39:54) ER: Admissibility of Evidence in Law – criteria of admissibility and exclusion (00:46:37) ER: Evidence & Inference (ft. Sherlock Holmes) (01:01:53) ER: Probabilism & Control of the results of ER (01:13:58) ER & Artificial Intelligence – limits and possibilities (01:20:44) ER: Standards of Proof (01:30:23) ER & Artificial Intelligence – would an AI have convicted OJ Simpson? (01:35:06) Interview end – Farewell to Giovanni Tuzet (01:36:58) HAPL Outro [This episode was hosted by Julieta Rabanos and Bojan Spaić; edited by Bojan Spaić; uploaded and formatted by Julieta Rabanos]