Rhetorical Knowledge in Legal Practice and Critical Legal Theory

Title

Rhetorical Knowledge in Legal Practice and Critical Legal Theory

Files

Description

This book describes the significance of rhetorical knowledge for law through detailed discussions of some of the most difficult legal issues facing courts today, including affirmative action, gay rights, and assisted suicide. Francis J. Mootz III responds to both extremes, those who argue that law is merely a rhetorical mask for the exercise of power and those who demonstrate an ideological faith in law’s autonomy, and he breaks new ground by returning to modern classics in the fields of rhetoric and hermeneutics. Drawing from Chaim Perelman's "new rhetoric" and Hans-Georg Gadamer's "philosophical hermeneutics," Mootz argues that justice is a product of rhetorical knowledge. Drawing from Nietzsche, Mootz’s conception of rhetorical knowledge opens up the dynamic possibilities of critical legal theory.

ISBN

978-0817315368

Publication Date

2006

Publisher

The University of Alabama Press

City

Tuscaloosa, Alabama

Keywords

rhetoric, hermeneutics, affirmative action, gay rights, assisted suicide, critical legal theory

Disciplines

Legal History | Legal Theory

Rhetorical Knowledge in Legal Practice and Critical Legal Theory
@ UNLV Law COinS