An Introduction To Legal Logic
Indiana Law Journal
Volume 27 | Issue 4
7-1-1952
An Introduction to Legal Logic
Lee Lovevinger
Member of Supreme Court Bar; Member, Minnesota Bar
Follow this and additional works at: http://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/ilj
Part of the Legal Education Commons
Recommended Citation
Lovevinger, Lee (1952) "An Introduction to Legal Logic," Indiana Law Journal: Vol. 27: Iss. 4, Article 1.
Available at: http://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/ilj/vol27/iss4/1
This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Law School
Journals at Digital Repository @ Maurer Law. It has been accepted for inclusion in Indiana Law Journal by an authorized administrator of Digital
Repository @ Maurer Law. For more information, please contact wattn@indiana.edu. Article 1
INDIANA
Volume 27
LAW JOURNAL
SUMMER, 1952
Number 4
AN INTRODUCTION TO LEGAL LOGIC by LEE LOEVINGER*
I
Most men will admit that they are not handsome. Many will concede they are not strong. But none will acknowledge that he is not logical. This is no peculiarity of our own age, for three centuries ago
La Rochefoucauld remarked that men will often apologize for their memory, but never for their judgment. We might dismiss the situation as merely another idiosyncrasy of vanity were it not for the fact that the logic which each man confidently claims to possess is nearly always offered as the undeniable proof of some proposition which is quite contradictory to some other proposition that another man asserts with equal assurance to be indubitably established by his own logic.
The paradox of contradictory claims made in the name of logic is nowhere more evident than in the field of law. Logic, or reason, has been claimed by philosophers both as the special possession and as the principal foundation of law since at least the time of Aristotle. Indeed that great thinker, who was the founder of logic as a self-conscious discipline, identified the law with reason itself.- Following this concept, the whole school
Volume 27 | Issue 4
7-1-1952
An Introduction to Legal Logic
Lee Lovevinger
Member of Supreme Court Bar; Member, Minnesota Bar
Follow this and additional works at: http://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/ilj
Part of the Legal Education Commons
Recommended Citation
Lovevinger, Lee (1952) "An Introduction to Legal Logic," Indiana Law Journal: Vol. 27: Iss. 4, Article 1.
Available at: http://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/ilj/vol27/iss4/1
This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Law School
Journals at Digital Repository @ Maurer Law. It has been accepted for inclusion in Indiana Law Journal by an authorized administrator of Digital
Repository @ Maurer Law. For more information, please contact wattn@indiana.edu. Article 1
INDIANA
Volume 27
LAW JOURNAL
SUMMER, 1952
Number 4
AN INTRODUCTION TO LEGAL LOGIC by LEE LOEVINGER*
I
Most men will admit that they are not handsome. Many will concede they are not strong. But none will acknowledge that he is not logical. This is no peculiarity of our own age, for three centuries ago
La Rochefoucauld remarked that men will often apologize for their memory, but never for their judgment. We might dismiss the situation as merely another idiosyncrasy of vanity were it not for the fact that the logic which each man confidently claims to possess is nearly always offered as the undeniable proof of some proposition which is quite contradictory to some other proposition that another man asserts with equal assurance to be indubitably established by his own logic.
The paradox of contradictory claims made in the name of logic is nowhere more evident than in the field of law. Logic, or reason, has been claimed by philosophers both as the special possession and as the principal foundation of law since at least the time of Aristotle. Indeed that great thinker, who was the founder of logic as a self-conscious discipline, identified the law with reason itself.- Following this concept, the whole school