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> So you'll accept a guy working in a patent office solving a difficult problem in physics, but heaven forbid he should feel qualified to represent himself in c

• hurin 12y ago
  > Citing Einstein as a prototypical example is somehow conceding the parent's point, don't you think? I'm not citing Einstein as a prototypical example by any means, but I'm citing the idea about how we verify knowledge in a subject. If a guy from a Burger King comes and says, hey I've got a result in theoretical physics, or hey hire me as a developer - we have a method to verify whether they can do those things in a practical way and this shouldn't require platitudes about complexity and history of jurisprudence etc. (or the equivalent for those fields). >This I can believe; but then, law has very little to do with formal systems and the sort of informal "logic" used in legal reasoning is absolutely uninformed by anything but the first week or so of a standard intro to mathematical logic course (most legal theory/systems pre-date the advent of modern logic in the late 19th century). Formal logic logic as far as reasoning about non-mathematical subjects is probably not that far from where it was in Aristotle's days. I don't know about the actual application of law - indeed your average jury may very well be swayed (I'll quote from yesterday): "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury. We will show you how the defendant used the notorious hacker tool known as 'strings' to facilitate his vendetta against Lenovo." But that a Jury would be swayed by something like that and that it's the business of prosecution to make such arguments (hypothetically) is I think precisely in support of my point about the law. On the other hand the authors considered to be authorities Jurisprudence are, I think, very well informed in formal logic.
  • nmrm2 12y ago
    > we have a method to verify whether they can do those things in a practical way and this shouldn't require platitudes about complexity and history of jurisprudence etc. The author explicitly stated it's not impossible to represent yourself adequately, it's just very rarely done well. Your theory about how judges should act only makes sense if evaluating arguments is free. But evaluating arguments -- especially unconventional ones -- is really expensive! There is significant cost associated with evaluating an "out there" legal theory (in terms of research, opinion writing, etc.); it's entirely reasonable for judges to not invest public time/money into a point-by-point analysis of an unorthodox legal theory, especially if that theory comes from someone without formal training. Most professionals know that certain non-professionals are capable of doing their jobs, but also know that in the general case hubris is far more common than untrained competence. The parent's point was essentially this -- it's not impossible to represent yourself, but it's much harder than most people realize. Most judges aren't willing to invest the time necessary to investigate/help articulate apparently crazy legal theories, and that's both rational and justified. Explaining point-by-point why a crazy legal theory is crazy is not a good use of public time and money. > Formal logic logic as far as reasoning about non-mathematical subjects is probably not that far from where it was in Aristotle's days. That's my point -- typically "formal logic" means exactly deductions in/about formal systems. Wikipedia redirects "formal logic" to "mathematical logic". Law has no formal logic, and (edit: a lot of) what's taught in law school pre-dates the advent of formal logic (late 1800s) by a hundred years. The ability to prove soundness or completeness or first order logic (the sort of thing I would expect to appear in an introduction to formal logic course) is really completely irrelevant to the practice of law. > the authors considered to be authorities Jurisprudence are, I think, very well informed in formal logic This is simply not true, or else you have an uncommon definition of "formal logic".