Evidence of the Law: Proving Legal Claims
Gary Lawson
Abstract
This is a book about the general structure of proof, how law sometimes recognizes that structure, how it often does not, and what might happen if legal scholars, jurists, and lawyers think about that structure in unfamiliar contexts. It identifies the essential elements of the process of proof – for any proposition in any discipline – as entailing principles of admissibility, significance, and closure as well as standards of proof and burdens of proof. While the law explicitly recognizes the need for those elements in the proof of propositions of fact, the law typically does not formally app ... More
This is a book about the general structure of proof, how law sometimes recognizes that structure, how it often does not, and what might happen if legal scholars, jurists, and lawyers think about that structure in unfamiliar contexts. It identifies the essential elements of the process of proof – for any proposition in any discipline – as entailing principles of admissibility, significance, and closure as well as standards of proof and burdens of proof. While the law explicitly recognizes the need for those elements in the proof of propositions of fact, the law typically does not formally apply those elements to the proof of propositions of law. But because the distinction between factual and legal claims is conventional rather than ontological or epistemological, that simply means that those elements operate in the background, as they are an inescapable feature of the pursuit of knowledge in any context. I aim to bring those elements, especially the standard of proof, to the foreground in legal discourse concerning claims about the existence and meaning of law. Hopefully, thinking about proof of law in this fashion will clarify legal discourse.
Keywords:
proof,
proof of law,
standards of proof,
evidence,
evidence sets,
legal epistemology,
legal claims
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2017 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780226432052 |
| Published to Chicago Scholarship Online: September 2017 |
DOI:10.7208/chicago/9780226432199.001.0001 |
