Saturday, September 04, 2010

Law and Philosophy

There were, I think, a lot of things wrong with German Idealism. But, in my dotage, I occasionally miss the grand aspirations and vision of philosophers such as Immanuel Kant and G.W.F. Hegel (and, long before that, Plato and Aristotle). Modern legal "theorists" -- some of them, in any event -- should have the courage to talk once again about ontology as well as epistemology. They could take their inspiration (and guts) from the AI-Folk, many of whom have not hesitated to talk about "ontologies."

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The dynamic evidence page

It's here: the law of evidence on Spindle Law. See also this post and this post.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

In a recent issue of _First Things_ Joe Carter writes, "While starting with the best of intentions, the Jesuit-trained Descartes undermined the Christian worldview for centuries because he made the mistake of starting with epistemology rather than ontology, with knowing rather than being. Necessarily, what is is prior to what can be known, for knowing itself implies both the existence of a knower and something to be known. Descartes reversed the order and in doing so helped create what we call modernity." I take no position on the theological and religious implications of Carter's article, but I think Carter got one thing right: no good epistemology without a good (defensible) ontology!