Jurisprudence and Structural Realism
2017, Social Science Research Network
Abstract
Some Anglophone legal theorists look to analytic philosophy for core presuppositions. For example, the epistemological theories of Ludwig Wittgenstein and Willard Quine shape the theories of Dennis Patterson and Brian Leiter, respec tively. These epistemologies are anti-foundational since they reject the kind of certain grounding that is exemplified in Cartesian philosophy. And, they are coherentist in that they seek to legitimate truth-claims by reference to entire linguis tic systems. While these theories are insightful, the current context of information and communication technologies (ICT) has created new informational concepts and issues. As a result, the analytic epistemologies are increasingly chal lenged by alternative perspectives. One such alternative is Structural Realism (SR), which is influential among the nat ural sciences, and especially physics. "Informational Struc tural Realism," (ISR) is a variant of SR that was introduced by Luciano Floridi. Unlike the coherentist theories, ISR pro motes examination of the connections among types of infor mation and informational structures. It is an important shift for legal theory today, since the challenges that the ICT pre sents have to do with pattern recognition across vast domains of diverse data. An informational jurisprudence is now re quired to understand the issues emerging from the ICT. ^Associate Professor of Law, Campbell University, Norman A. Wiggins School of Law. Many thanks to Hannah Murphy who read drafts of this essay and provided valuable comments.
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