Legal Interpretation and Conversational Model. Some Remarks on Il modello conversazionale by Francesca Poggi

Abstract

In Il modello conversazionale, Poggi explores the question of whether the conversational model introduced by Grice adequately reconstructs our practices related to the interpretation of texts in the legal domain. And she does so by first analyzing Grice’s model very thoroughly, refining it to explain what happens in the normative sphere, and then focusing on the particularities of the legal field and rejecting its impact. In this paper, I first present some aspects collected in the book, and then make three minor critical remarks related to the type of thesis that Poggi maintains, the scope of her theses, and how Grice’s model could be affected by externalist considerations, which only show the importance of her work in thinking about legal interpretation.