arno r. lodder, dialaw on legal justification and dialogical models of argumentation. law and philosophy library vol. 42精品.pdf

Artificial Intelligence and Law 8: 265–276, 2000. 265 © 2000 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands. Book Review Arno R. Lodder, DiaLaw: On Legal Justification and Dialogical Models of Ar- gumentation. Law and Philosophy Library Vol. 42, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht/Boston/London, 212 pages. ISBN 0-7923-5830-9. Among the most encouraging developments is the work in the new field of computational dialectics (. . . ) It is in such research projects (. . . ) that the new dialectic will find its acceptance in mainstream logic as a framework for new methods of evaluating arguments. (Walton, 1998) 1. Introduction It is by no means uncommon for a legal philosopher to doubt the existence of an independent and logical criterion of justice behind legal procedure. Nor is it surprising that a study of dialogue ends with the observation that many practical arguments are devoid of any logical structure. But Arno Lodder’s book ‘DiaLaw’ constitutes rather an exceptional case. For one thing, it presents a study of dialo- gical logic that advocates the use of psychological, or a-rational, arguments in legal dialogue. Before commenting on Lodder’s book, I briefly overview its contents and de- scribe its major hypothesis. The book is divided in four parts. First, Lodder sketches the area of AI & Law and the new issues that rise from the interaction between intelligent systems and law. Then Lodder argues how in particular the design and use of formal dialogical systems may help to achieve a better understanding of the notion of legal justification, and proposes DiaLaw as an example of such a system. The book ends with a consideration on the nature of an argument, and the observation that DiaLaw is the only model in which the building blocks of arguments (reasons) do not necessarily hav