|
|
This Book’s Method
Jurisprudence, in general terms, means the philosophy of law. Richard Posner has many insights on what’s wrong with law and how we can improve it. That, in itself, qualifies Problems of Jurisprudence as a potentially significant document. I have tried, in this interpretation, to convey some sense of the problems he sees in this system, and how he thinks we should solve them.
Readers who compare Posner’s book with this interpretation may be grateful for the much simpler language I’ve used here. I am not an expert in jurisprudence. I saw no other scholars writing plain-English interpretations of Posner’s Problems of Jurisprudence, so I decided to try my hand at it. I acknowledge that some of my efforts to understand his book may have missed the target, despite my best efforts to figure out what the hell he was trying to say; I merely share this book in the spirit of a fellow student who shares his class notes.
I sincerely hope this interpretation encourages jurisprudential experts to recognize the importance of their concepts to the rest of the world. It is unfortunate that their concepts – their explanations of our legal system – remain effectively hidden at this time in our history, when millions of Americans are trying to understand the extreme frustrations and actions of terrorist bombers, and the failings of a system that produces tremendously expensive and ineffectual investigations and trials.
For those who wonder how closely I have followed Posner’s literal words, I have included page markers in curly brackets, to allow for quick comparisons between the two books. (For example, {432} means "my interpretation of page 432 in Problems of Jurisprudence starts here.") When I refer to a page, I am referring to a page in Posner’s book as I have interpreted it here, regardless of which page it appears on in this book. (For example, "See page 432" means "see my interpretation at {432}, which may use very different words from those that appear on Posner’s page 432, and which does not appear on page 432 of this book.")
Where my interpretation of a given page in Posner’s book seems terribly brief, it’s probably an instance of his frequent failure to realize that sometimes more is less: repeating old material, beating a point to death, providing too many examples, getting lost in detail, issuing retorts to fellow scholars who have criticized his previous writings, pursuing tangents that interest him, etc. The tangents sometimes take up whole paragraphs – indeed, in a few cases, whole pages – and after figuring out their point, I have sometimes had to conclude that they simply don’t have much to do with the direction of his argument. I think such paragraphs should have been edited out and reserved for a subsequent collection of stray thoughts.
On the other hand, sometimes I go beyond Posner’s words in my interpretation. The reasons include the following:
In some cases, his writing style – which is sometimes trivia-oriented to the point of seeming scatterbrained – places the relevant implication on another page, and I bring it back to the place where he originally started the thought. In these cases, you may have to hunt around a bit to find the page in his book that triggered my interpretation.
Sometimes the implication is there on the same page, but you have to read the page pretty closely to catch it.
Sometimes his words on one page suggest additional implications in light of some previous comment.
Sometimes he seems to be assuming certain background information that I have not assumed. In these cases, I try to spell out the background facts or assumptions.
Finally, sometimes the most interesting things are the ones he does not say. In such cases, I try to illustrate contradictions, quandaries, or additional concerns that don’t seem to have caught his attention.
One other thing. At the start of each chapter, you’ll find a literal quote from Posner. Other than those few literal quotes, "I" in this book is the voice of Judge Posner as interpreted by Ray Woodcock. If any statements seem bizarre, it is because Ray Woodcock understood Judge Posner to be saying something bizarre.
