ABSTRACT
Throughout history, theorists reflecting on law have navigated between rhetorical and dialectical approaches to legal argumentation to create their normative or descriptive models to explain what goes on when lawyers or judges justify their decisions. Even today, normativists in legal argumentation theory, who seek ideal solutions, would rather rely on a more dialectic understanding of law and legal practice, while legal realists in argumentation theory would stress that even dialectic argumentation is people’s argumentation that is intended for an audience consisting of human beings, either as individuals or joined in social groups. Unlike the former, the latter would suggest that their rhetorical account of legal argumentation is closer to reality because a too ambitious dialectical project will never fulfill its ideal expectations. Thus, one may ask, what is the point of those very formal projects apart from their sheer utopia?
