‘Rethinking’ legal reasoning seems a bold aim given the large amount of literature devoted to this topic. In this thought-provoking book, Geoffrey Samuel proposes a different way of approaching legal reasoning by examining the topic through the context of legal knowledge (epistemology). What is it to have knowledge of legal reasoning?

'Rethinking' legal reasoning seems a bold aim given the large amount of literature devoted to this topic. In this thought-provoking book, Geoffrey Samuel proposes a different way of approaching legal reasoning by examining the topic through the context of legal knowledge (epistemology). What is it to have knowledge of legal reasoning? At a more specific level the pursuit of this understanding is conducted through posing a number of questions that are founded on different approaches. What has legal reasoning been? What are the institutional and conceptual legacies of this history? What is the literature and textual heritage? How does it compare with medical reasoning and with reasoning in the humanities? Can it be demystified? In exploring these questions Samuel suggests a number of frameworks that offer some new insights into the nature of legal reasoning. The author also puts forward two key ideas. First, that the legal notion of an 'interest' might perhaps be a very suitable artefact for rethinking legal reasoning; and, secondly, that fiction theory might be the most viable 'epistemological attitude' for understanding, if not rethinking, reasoning in law. This book will be of great interest to academics who are researching legal method and legal reasoning, as well as epistemology of the social sciences and aspects of comparative law. It will also be an insightful text for those interested in legal history and historical perspectives on legal reasoning.

The Law of Evidence has traditionally been perceived as a dry, highly technical, and mysterious subject. This book argues that problems of evidence in law are closely related to the handling of evidence in other kinds of practical decision-making and other academic disciplines, that it is closely related to common sense and that it is an interesting, lively and accessible subject. These essays develop a readable, coherent historical and theoretical perspective about problems of proof, evidence, and inferential reasoning in law. Although each essay is self-standing, they are woven together to present a sustained argument for a broad inter-disciplinary approach to evidence in litigation, in which the rules of evidence play a subordinate, though significant, role. This revised and enlarged edition includes a revised introduction, the best-known essays in the first edition, and chapters on narrative and argumentation, teaching evidence, and evidence as a multi-disciplinary subject.

Scientific and technological innovations are forcing the inadequacies of patent law into the spotlight. Robin Feldman explains why patents are causing so much trouble. She urges lawmakers to focus on crafting rules that anticipate future bargaining, not on the impossible task of assigning precise boundaries to rights when an invention is new.

This book offers a transnational perspective of evidentiary problems, drawing on insights from different systems and legal traditions. It avoids the isolated manner of analyzing evidence and proof within each Common Law and Civil Law tradition. Instead, it features contributions from leading authors in the evidentiary field from a variety of jurisdictions and offers an overview of essential topics that are of both theoretical and practical interest. The collection examines evidence not only as a transnational field, but in a cross-disciplinary context. Each chapter engages with the interdisciplinary themes cutting through the issues discussed, benefiting from the expertise and experience of their diverse authors.

In an ere as morally confused as ours, Stoner argues, we at least ought to know what we've abandoned or suppressed in the name of judicial activism and the modern rights-oriented Constitution. Having lost our way, perhaps the common law, in its original sense, provides a way back, a viable alternative to the debilitating relativism of our current age.

Rethinking Law as Process draws on insights from 'process philosophy' in order to rethink the nature of legal decision making.