Summer School 9-11 september 2013

Legal Reasoning and Legal Argumentation

Legal argumentation is a distinctively multidisciplinary field of inquiry. It draws its data, assumptions and methods from disciplines such as legal theory, legal philosophy, logic, argumentation theory, rhetoric, linguistics, literary theory, philosophy, sociology, etc. and its purpose is to reach conclusions through logical reasoning. It therefore includes the arts and sciences of civil debate, dialogue, conversation, and persuasion. It also studies rules of inference, logic, and procedural rules in both artificial and real world settings.

Various approaches can be considered: a historical and philosophical approach of legal argumentation ; a more theoretical approach of the various legal influences and theories that have shapen the study of legal argumentation but also a more practical approach : how arguments – legal and non legal –are prepared to be presented in court and how the validity of legal reasoning and legal argumentation is examined by the judges, but also by appeal courts, doctrine and by the public.

The summer school offers opportunity to PhD students to present their thesis, according to the topic chosen this year.

We invite 3 or 4 PhD students and one lecturer from each partner. There will be one lecture in the morning and one lecture in the afternoon, followed by the presentations of PhD students, related to the topic of the lecture. The Summer school will begin on Sunday 08 septembre 2013 with a come together in the evening and will conclude on Wednesday 11 september 2013. According to the usual pratice, each institution will arrange for covering the cost for travel and accomodation of their participants. The doctoral school of Lille will support the dinner on Sunday evening and the lunches. If PhD students wish to stay for the conference, the doctoral school of Lille will support the lunches until Friday and the dinner on Friday evening.

We kindly ask you to contact Juliette Sénéchal (juliette.senechal-2@univ-lille2.fr) and Xavier Fressoz (xavier.fressoz@univ-lille2.fr) for the necessary arrangements to be made, including the number of participants – including both: graduate students and lecturers – that we may expect to participate from your side until 1 June 2013.