ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that kinesic intelligence is vital to the practice of common law reasoning. Focusing on two examples—one from the sixteenth century and one from the twentieth century—the chapter illustrates kinesic intelligence at work in the legal context. In both examples, the texts’ authors deploy kinesic language extensively, inviting their readers to simulate certain gestures, postures, and movements, often in little kinesic dramas involving interactions between persons. In the first example, Edmund Plowden, writing his Commentaries in the 1570s, draws on a range of kinesic images to argue for the importance of equitable interpretation of statutes in common law courts. In the second example, the judges in a well-known English contract law case from 1961 describe the parties’ interactions as part of a highly charged and gendered kinesic narrative, to justify their decision (somewhat against the run of authority in previous cases). The two examples demonstrate how kinesic intelligence plays a crucial role in law-making, both in terms of introducing a new methodology (a particular way of interpreting statutes) and in terms of justifying a decision in a particular case, with repercussions for that area of the law.
