Giovanni Tuzet

Giovanni Tuzet is Full Professor of Philosophy of Law at Bocconi University in Milan, Italy. He studied law and philosophy in Turin and Paris and wrote his Ph.D. dissertation on Peirce’s theory of inference. His areas of interest include evidence, epistemology, pragmatism, argumentation theory, philosophy of law and economic analysis of law.

His publications include La prima inferenza. L’abduzione di C.S. Peirce fra scienza e diritto (2006), Dover decidere. Diritto, incertezza e ragionamento (2010), La pratica dei valori. Nodi fra conoscenza e azione (2012), Filosofia della prova giuridica (2013, 2nd ed. 2016), La giustificazione della decisione giudiziale (2019, with D. Canale), The Planning Theory of Law. A Critical Reading (2013, co-edited with D. Canale) and numerous articles in international journals.

He will be one of the editors of Philosophical Foundations of Evidence Law (Oxford UP, expected 2021, co-edited with C. Dahlman and A. Stein).

Giovanni Tuzet participates in the Visiting Professors Program of EHESS, invited by Pascal Engel (CRAL)

CONFERENCES

Is legal knowledge practical?

Research seminar Connaissance juridique et transformation du droit : les effets pratiques des doctrines et la question des « disciplines faibles, coordinated by Otto Pfersmann.

It is an extremely painful thing to be ruled by laws that one does not know. Some scholars claim that legal knowledge is eminently practical: one who knows the law enjoys some form of knowing-how, namely, how to exercise certain intellectual faculties, or how to perform certain activities like arguing. I present some arguments to the effect that legal knowledge is not practical, being rather propositional in nature, as knowing-that instead of knowing-how. This is not to deny, though, that such activities like interpretation and argumentation are extremely important in the legal domain. I also consider whether legal knowledge is practical in a different sense, namely, with a view to decision and action. I contend that it is not practical in this sense either, even if it is mainly used for practical purposes.

• Tuesday 11 May 2021 - 7pm-9pm - Location to be confirmed

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Reflections on Legal Knowledge, Norms and Evolutionary Systems

Research seminar Valeurs et normes : sœurs fachées ?, coordinated by Pascal Engel

The paper has three sub-topics: legal knowledge, legal norms, and evolutionary systems. The three are interconnected. A reflection on the nature of legal knowledge throws light on the nature of legal norms. Legal knowledge is largely a posteriori and it is so because norms are largely contingent. Being a realm of continual change, law has novelty as a fundamental feature. The process of legal change is not driven by chance but by the attempt to face ever new problems and changing circumstances. This supports a view of legal systems as adaptive and evolutionary, as classical Pragmatism suggested. However, inference can give some a priori legal knowledge.

• Tuesday 25 May 2021 - 1 pm to 3 pm - Location/to be confirmed

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DATE AND PLACE TO BE CONFIRMED

Uses of Abduction in Law 

As C.S. Peirce pointed out, abduction is a specific inference. It is different from deduction and induction, and is usually part, as its firs step, of the complex process of “inference to the best explanation”. The literature has concentrated on its uses in scientific reasoning. I will examine some of its uses in legal reasoning, especially in fact-finding and fact-classification according to legal rules and principles. I will also present and discuss a model of “inference to the best legal explanation”.

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