Figure 7.3: argument construction 7.6 THE NATURE OF PROBLEMS AND RULES Before continuing to discuss the detail of argument construction and the legal reasoning preferences of the English legal system it is useful to look briefly at the nature of problems and rules. A number of issues are raised by the activity of resolving problems by making rules and/or applying rules. Twining and Miers introduce the idea that much of law concerns rule handling and that an integral part of rule handling requires an understanding of the nature of problems. For the life of the law is equally connected with the human condition and the issue of problems as it is connected to the manipulation of legal rules. The definition of a problem varies according to context and can be: (a) a difficult question put forward for an answer in scholastic disputation; (b) the question asked in the standard formal logic method of deductive reasoning; (c) in mathematics and physics an inquiry or a question which, starting from a given position, investigates some fact, result or law. Twining and Miers (1999:114) states that:

ABSTRACT

Before continuing to discuss the detail of argument construction and the legal reasoning preferences of the English legal system it is useful to look briefly at the nature of problems and rules. A number of issues are raised by the activity of resolving problems by making rules and/or applying rules. Twining and Miers introduce the idea that much of law concerns rule handling and that an integral part of rule handling requires an understanding of the nature of problems. For the life of the law is equally connected with the human condition and the issue of problems as it is connected to the manipulation of legal rules.