On the Individuation of Laws and the Interpretation-Construction Distinction: To the memory of Maciej Zieliński (1940–2020)

Abstract

The problem of the individuation of laws, identified by Bentham, is dismissed as irrelevant to legal philosophy by some commentators. This paper presents individuation as crucial for understanding the cognitive processes underlying legal interpretation. It draws on the work of Maciej Zieliński and Teun van Dijk to show that legal interpretation is based on deriving legal rules qua semantic macrostructures from a legal text treated as a complex discourse. The Zieliński/van Dijk model also lends theoretical support to the interpretation-construction distinction by explaining, in linguistic terms, the processes that take place during construction.