Some preliminaries!
Why do lawyers who practice English law speak of 'substantive' testimony?
Are they being Aristotelian. After all 'hypostasis' was the Greek root
behind 'substance', and we may need to clarify what the concept of 'substance'
amounts to before we use the adjectival form.
Why do lawyers who practice English law speak of 'impeachment'. "This is
not apples and peaches," Geary notes. It comes from Latin "impedicare" (Geary
learned Latin with the monks), to refer to "to fetter, catch, entangle",
from "in-" plus "pedica", "a shackle, fetter," from pes (genitive pedis)
"foot". Is this reference to the fetter ever made obvious by a lawyer
practicising English law? Has he undergone the required analysis into what
im-peach-ment amounts to?
In a message dated 10/30/2015 10:26:12 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx quotes:
"(a) to find favourable witnesses, which is obviously akin, conceptually,
to so-called "substantive" evidence/testimony in English law
or
(b) to demonstrate that the witnesses of accusers were not trustworthy,
obviously akin, conceptually, to English law "impeachment"
evidence/testimony."
and comments:
"These two examples do not work because it is easy to explain how the
effect of supporting testimony, or cross-examination undermining testimony, may
validate a defence without that validation depending on any sort of
"conceptual analysis"".
Well, shall we say 'preliminary' conceptual analysis. Popper denies it
because he possibly also denied that his nanny (if he had one) gave him the
first steps into conceptual analysis ("That's a rabbit," in Austrian -- "Why?"
-- "See the tail?")
Conceptual analysis is preliminary. As Lewis has it, clarity is not enough.
There's more to philosophy, even Hartian philosophy, than conceptual
analysis.
A similar case can be made of R. M. Hare. He noted that his utilitarianism
did not rely on conceptual analysis, since it was not a meta-ethical
position, but a 'boring ethical one'!
The same for legal and meta-legal!
Cheers,
Speranza
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