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7 - The Architecture of the Legal Mind

from II - Ontology and Epistemology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 April 2021

By
Bartosz Brożek
Edited by
Bartosz Brożek ,
Jaap Hage  and
Nicole Vincent
Bartosz Brożek
Affiliation:
Jagiellonian University, Krakow
Jaap Hage
Affiliation:
Universiteit Maastricht, Netherlands
Nicole Vincent
Affiliation:
Macquarie University, Sydney
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Summary

This chapter aims at substantiating three claims: (1) that legal thinking consists in the interaction between three mental mechanisms: intuition (unconscious decision making), imagination (mental simulation), and thinking in language (theory-construction); (2) that legal epistemology has largely neglected the role of imagination in legal thinking, while it is imagination that provides ‘the missing link’ between unconscious decision making and thinking in language; and (3) that the picture of the legal mind which embraces intuition, imagination and language provides an explanation of the enduring and seemingly inconsistent threads in legal epistemology. I begin with a general overview of the existing theories in legal epistemology, distinguishing between formalism, dialecticism, coherentism and intuitivism. Along the way, I highlight the fact that these four philosophical stances offer different and sometimes mutually inconsistent perspectives on legal thinking. Subsequently, I analyse the three mechanisms at play in all types of reflection, including legal thinking: intuition, imagination and thinking in language. I try to explain what stands behind these labels, and argue that a lawyer cannot limit themselves to only some of these mechanisms in their cognitive efforts. Moreover, I venture to depict how the mechanisms in question interact in, and what they contribute to, legal decision making. In this context, I put special emphasis on the role of imagination, explaining how it provides a link between intuition and language.

Keywords

legal epistemology,legal reasoning,legal intuition,hunch,legal imagination,legal language
Type
Chapter
Information
Law and Mind
A Survey of Law and the Cognitive Sciences
 , pp. 138 - 164
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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