司法“实用主义”思潮否证——以法律语言的意义问题为主线

Denial of the Trend of Judicial Pragmatism:Taking the Meaning of Legal Language as the Main Line

司法实用主义思潮借助后维特根斯坦的语言哲学,发展出语义虚无论据,并质疑法律语言具有预先确定和具有约束力的意义。在实用论者看来,语义虚无论据可以得到无用论和冗余论的支撑。但是这类论据过于激进,无法得到语言哲学上的证立。尽管法律语言具有动态变化开放的特点,但法律文本仍然是解读规范意旨的重要依据,语言意义也具有解释层面的稳定性和可预测性。要真正理解法律和司法裁判,就要尊重法律语言的独立性及其规范性,以及其背后所蕴含的安定性和可预测性等法治价值。法律规则的语言意义(文义)既是司法裁判的“初始之言”,也是限制其他解释方法随意发挥作用的“终止之语”。

The trend of judicial pragmatism draws on the post-Wittgensteinian philosophy of language to develop linguistic nihilism and question the predetermined and binding meaning of legal language.In the view of pragmatists,linguistic nihilism can be supported by futility theory and redundancy theory.But such arguments are too radical and cannot be justified in the philosophy of language.Although legal language is open to dynamic changes,legal texts are still important for interpreting the meaning of norms,and the meaning of language also has stability and predictability at the interpretation level.To truly understand the law and judicial adjudication,we must understand the normative nature of legal language,as well as the stability and predictability and other legal values.The linguistic meaning(literary meaning) of legal rules is not only the “first word” of judicial decisions,but also the “last word” that limits the role of other interpretation methods.