Wittgenstein’s Rhetorical Turn as a Precursor to Current LegalReasoning

Abstract

Current theories of legal or ruled reasoning are characterized by the
priority they attribute to language. This conceptual characteristic is attributable
to the linguistic turn that shifted theories from ontological concerns
to prior linguistic issues. This shift is compatible with a subsequent
rhetorical turn, understood as the proliferation of language in theoretical
elaboration. Moreover, specialists assert that current theories of legal
reasoning derive from the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein. In this
context, the aim of this study is to explore the rhetorical shift between
Wittgenstein’s early and late work as a precursor to current theories of
legal reasoning. A descriptive study of Wittgenstein’s texts was conducted.
The Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and the Philosophische Untersuchungen
were analyzed, in which linguistic markers were compared.
Markers related to grammatical categories and punctuation marks were
included. A linguistic analysis algorithm was used to count frequency of
words and punctuation marks. Statistical tests of proportions were applied.
A significant increase in the analyzed markers was found when
moving from the early to the late work. These findings suggest that the
rhetorical turn of current psychological theories of legal reasoning finds a
conceptual precursor in Wittgenstein.