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The Inevitability Of Practical Reason: Statutes, Formalism, And The Rule Of Law, Daniel A. Farber
The Inevitability Of Practical Reason: Statutes, Formalism, And The Rule Of Law, Daniel A. Farber
Vanderbilt Law Review
This Symposium commemorates the publication of Karl Llewellyn's assault on the canons of statutory interpretation. This Article seeks to situate Llewellyn's view of statutory interpretation within the ongoing debate between advocates of practical reason and formalism.
Many critics of practical reason question its compatibility with the rule of law. If we cannot precisely describe the operation of practical reason, can we have any confidence in its ability to guide judicial decisions? Or, on the contrary, does formalism provide a greater degree of democratic accountability, certainty, stability, and predictability than practical reason? These questions are the primary concern of this Article. …
A Reevaluation Of The Canons Of Statutory Interpretation, Joseph H. Bates
A Reevaluation Of The Canons Of Statutory Interpretation, Joseph H. Bates
Vanderbilt Law Review
This Symposium has its genesis in the Vanderbilt Law Review's inaugural symposium, A Symposium on Statutory Construction, published in 1950.' Although the 1950 Symposium included a Foreword by Justice Felix Frankfurter and contributions by several preeminent scholars in the field, Karl Llewellyn's clumsily titled but succinctly written Remarks on the Theory of Appellate Decision and the Rules or Canons About How Statutes are to be Construed has eclipsed the Symposium which brought it to light and has persevered as a highly influential, if not definitive, critique of the canons of statutory construction.
Llewelyn's article, in general, attacks legal formalism and …