Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2-21-2015
Abstract
A debate between realists and antirealists has characterized western metaphysics While metaphysical realists ground existence on an objective world antirealists ground existence on a thinking subject and human culture The argument in jurisprudence as elsewhere is that either we are capable of objective knowledge or we are doomed to freefloating subjectivism We demand the impossible absolute objectivity to avoid the catastrophic unconstrained subjectivity The interpretive turn attempts to move beyond this insoluble dilemma the eitheror of objectivity and subjectivity Thus in jurisprudence the interpretive turn is well worth taking if only because it offers the possibility of transcending realism and antirealism Professor Michael S Moore however recently has called into question the jurisprudential worth of the interpretive turn In his article The Interpretive Turn in Modern Theory A Turn for the Worse Moore argues that the defining characteristic of interpretivism is a rejection of all metaphysics Thus according to Moore interpretivism renders all metaphysical debate irrelevant to modern jurisprudence including debate between realists and antirealists Moore concludes by rejecting the interpretive turn because in his opinion it rejects all metaphysics including realism and antirealism The thrust of this Article is that philosophical hermeneutics does not reject all metaphysics but instead rejects the traditional subjectobject metaphysics of Cartesianism
Recommended Citation
Feldman, Stephen Matthew, "The New Metaphysics: The Interpretive Turn in Jurisprudence" (2015). Faculty Articles. 120.
https://scholarship.law.uwyo.edu/faculty_articles/120
First Page
661