The social dimension of legal uncertainty

reconciling law and science in the formative years of pragmatism

Frédéric Kellogg

in: Pragmatism and the social dimension of doubt, European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy 5 (2), 2013.

Abstract

Nineteenth-century references to the syllogism by J. S. Mill and Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. reveal a distinct approach to the logic of inference in the formative years of pragmatism. In the latter may be found an element of the emergence of generals from particulars. Fallibilism in law and science reflects their social dimension as part of the communal ordering of experience. This implies a distinct approach to uncertainty, as experience yet to be integrated within a developing system of classification.