Abstract

In recent years, impressive progress has been made in the development of logical tools for the modeling of legal argument. The focus has been primarily on the technical development of these tools, and only in the second place on their practical adequacy for modeling legal argument. Presently a convergence of opinions on the necessary logical tools takes shape, and a systematic practical assessment of the logical tools becomes essential. It has to be shown that the newly developed logical tools improve the logical modeling of legal argument. In this paper we analyze aspects of informal legal arguments as they actually occur in handbooks and cases on Dutch tort law, and show the connections with the modern logical tools. 1 Logic and law In theory, there is a natural affinity between logic 1 and law: lawyers can use logic to analyze and evaluate their reasoning; logicians can be inspired by legal argument and practically assess their theoretical models. In practice, howeve...

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