ABSTRACT
How can we uncover the assumptions and presuppositions of ‘institutional’ law so as to understand better its underlying reality? This question addresses and forces us to acknowledge something that is easily and often forgotten when we start to think about and analyse law and legal reasoning; namely, that there is a difference between thinking of law as a structured institution and our thinking about thinking of law as a structured institution. So it may well be that although the propositional form of statements is characteristic of our thinking about law as a structured institution, precisely as MacCormick suggests, a narrative form might still be the more appropriate way to consider law in relation to practices. Indeed, if this is the case, then it may well be that the logic of the Institutional Theory of Law (ITL) is not incompatible with a narrative methodology. This chapter aims to explore these possibilities and to examine the usefulness of narrative as a means for understanding law. Similarities between legal reasoning and literary studies are frequently noted
by legal scholars. However, just as interesting as the question of the similarities between the two is the extent to which narrative theory may actually be applied to the study of law and legal reasoning. In this respect, what is being suggested is an extension of the argument presented above; that is, that the significant features with which we are concerned are not those which we entertain on account of their propensity to predict a certain future but which will act as signposts, pointing out a way forward by disclosing hitherto hidden associations and suggesting novel relations and connections. Rather than understanding the structural functioning of law as something which aims at a reduction of complexity by means of an underlying system of unifying doctrines and complementary principles, we are more concerned to look for ways of pushing at law’s boundaries, expanding its horizons of possible thought and action and generating new insights through the operation of a narrative view-point and a metaphorical use of the idea of complexity. According to MacCormick:
It is of course the snake bite, not the theory that snake bites can be fatal because of the property of snake venom, that causes Cleopatra’s death.
