phenomenon · claim-type · cross-domain-transfer · mechanism · claim-relation · replication-status · limitation — grounded in the full text| phenomenon | semantics of legal expert systems— “We shall examine the extent to which expert systems can handle meanings, the root of all problems of interpretation.” | |
| claim-type | critique— “One can only draw the conclusion that predicate logic, whilst being wonderfully rigorous from a syntactic viewpoint, is sloppy and informal semantically.” | |
| method — evidence | — “This work on developing a legally orientated language, Legol, was conducted at the London School of Economics over many years but has now relocated at the University of Twente.” | |
| transfer | from sociology (Weber's ideal type of bureaucracy): Weber's ideal-type model of bureaucratic administration is applied to rule-based legal expert systems, which is what licenses the paper's reclassification of them as 'bureaucratic' rather than 'legal' expert systems— “Most of us would describe this kind of application of the law as a function of an ideal Weberian bureaucracy.” | transfers[0] |
| mechanism | The freedom to invent 'fat predicates' lets each analyst build a private language, which in turn produces complexity, rigidity, the illusion of natural-language understanding and the difficulty of merging systems— “They are almost entirely caused by the freedom to formulate fat predicates. This liberty leads the analyst to invest a private language, introducing complexity, system rigidity, artificially enforced uniformity, the illusion that the machine uses natural language, and explains many of the difficulties in maintaining and merging systems.” | mechanisms[0] |
| mechanism | Forcing analysis down to individual words and placing them in an ontological structure removes the arbitrariness, because the structure itself generates the questions the analyst must answer— “The new framework requires us to analyse legal norms down to the level of individual words or equivalent semantic elements and to place these in an ontological structure that goes a long way towards removing the arbitrariness of the analysis.” | mechanisms[1] |
| contradicts | Susskind (1987), Expert Systems in Law— “Mathematics, the paradigm of deductive reasoning, despite the claims made on its behalf (Susskind 1987, 185), does not necessarily provide the ideal model for reasoning in the domain of practical legal and business affairs.” | claim_relations[0] |
| builds-on | Dworkin's argument from principles— “However, it will not permit closed models to be formulated, but always it involves the informal system which sustains the principles to which Dworkin has rightly drawn our attention.” | claim_relations[1] |
| sense | citizenship - a concept whose MEANINGS MULTIPLY WITH ITS CRITERIA: it exists by virtue of several different criteria, and the paper says this gives rise to several different meanings— “For example, citizenship exists by virtue of a number of different criteria, giving rise potentiall to a number of different meanings of the concept.” | senses[0] |
| sense | preservation of wording - a professional practice with a stated reason: lawyers keep forms of words that have survived judicial scrutiny, and see danger in casual reformulation— “Lawyers, however, take great care to preserve forms of words that have withstood the test of scrutiny by courts over many years. They will recognise the danger in this casual attitude towards language.” | senses[1] |
| sense | fat predicates - elongated symbols that resemble natural language and are given meaning by the analyst rather than by the system; the paper calls the habit the Humpty Dumpty syndrome— “Second, "fat predicates" serve to deceive the naive customer looking for an expert system. He may imagine - as an unscrupulous expert system vendor may intend - that the computer understands the meanings of the natural language words” | senses[2] |
| for which use | limitation — the proposed alternative formalism: THE WORK IS NOT YET COMPLETE— “The work is not yet complete.” | limitations[0] |
| for which use | limitation — the intermediate Legol solution specifically: THIS INTERMEDIATE SOLUTION IS FULL OF DEFECTS— “This intermediate solution is full of defects.” | limitations[1] |
| for which use | limitation — the claim that the paper's own proposal escapes the problem it diagnoses: DESPITE THESE ADVANCES, THIS INTERMEDIATE SOLUTION FAILS TO BREAK AWAY FROM THE OLD, DEFECTIVE FRAMEWORK— “Despite these advances, this intermediate solution fails to break away from the old, defective framework.” | limitations[2] |
| for which use | limitation — a legal rule encoded in predicate logic as a representation of its meaning: the paper states one must already assume knowledge of which individuals have the properties named by the predicates— “to know the meanings of the words in the formulae of predicate logic, we have to assume a knowledge of which individuals have the properties or fall'into the classes named by the predicates” | limitations[3] |
| for which use | limitation — a legal expert system as a substitute for legal reasoning: the paper states much of the required reasoning needs creative thinking, judgment and accountability, and cannot be mechanised— “much of the required reasoning can only be carried out by the exercise of creative thinking combined with judgment and accountability. This kind of reasoning cannot be mechanised.” | limitations[4] |
| for which use | limitation — the label 'expert system' for these tools: the paper proposes 'bureaucratic expert systems' as the accurate description, while stating this does not deny their potential value— “At best they can be called “bureaucratic expert systems,” which is not to deny their potential value, only to recognise honestly their limitations.” | limitations[5] |
| replication | untested | |
| limitation | The proposed alternative formalism is admittedly unfinished.— “The work is not yet complete.” | limitations[0] |
| limitation | The intermediate Legol solution is acknowledged to be defective and not to function as a logic.— “This intermediate solution is full of defects.” | limitations[1] |
| limitation | The intermediate solution still rests on the assumptions of the framework the paper criticises.— “Despite these advances, this intermediate solution fails to break away from the old, defective framework.” | limitations[2] |
| limitation | Formal logic does not supply the meanings it appears to encode: knowing what the predicates mean requires already knowing which individuals fall into the classes they name.— “to know the meanings of the words in the formulae of predicate logic, we have to assume a knowledge of which individuals have the properties or fall'into the classes named by the predicates” | limitations[3] |
| limitation | The reasoning the systems are meant to support is stated to be unmechanisable.— “much of the required reasoning can only be carried out by the exercise of creative thinking combined with judgment and accountability. This kind of reasoning cannot be mechanised.” | limitations[4] |
| limitation | The paper relabels the systems to scope the claim, while explicitly not denying their value.— “At best they can be called “bureaucratic expert systems,” which is not to deny their potential value, only to recognise honestly their limitations.” | limitations[5] |
| limitation | The paper's central objection is put as a question about TRANSFER rather than as a demonstration: why expect a logic devised by mathematicians for their own work to move comfortably into law and other practical social affairs, which do not share its special properties. The argument is that the transfer was never licensed, not that a particular system was measured and failed.— “Why should we expect a logic devised by mathematicians for their work to transfer comfortably to the domains of law and other practical social affairs that do not share the special properties of timelessness” | limitations[6] |
finding · quantity · variable · definition · key-term — grounded in the full text| finding | A legal expert system built on propositional logic has essentially no semantics of its own: whoever assigns truth-values to the elementary propositions performs all the interpretation, and the machine merely computes consequences.— “Whoever assigns the truth-values to the elementary propositions makes the interpretations from which the consequences are mechanically determined. This kind of system has virtually no semantics, nor does it pretend to have any.” | content_tags.findings[0] |
| finding | Propositional logic recognises no unit smaller than a whole proposition, not even individual words.— “Propositional logic does not recognise smaller units than whole propositions, certainly not individual words.” | content_tags.findings[1] |
| finding | Predicate logic leaves the ontology to the analyst's discretion — the same content can be modelled either as a separate individual or folded into a longer predicate — so what exists in the knowledge base is decided arbitrarily.— “This illustration demonstrates the looseness of the ontology behind predicate logic. What is deemed to exist or not exist is decided at the whim of the analyst!” | content_tags.findings[2] |
| finding | Two engineers formalising the same legal concept in predicate logic arrive at an identical expression only by happy accident.— “Thus, the same original concept appearing in two different pieces of legislation analysed by two different engineers will only result in the identical predicate expression by a happy accident.” | content_tags.findings[3] |
| finding | Because each application invents its own private predicate language, separate legal knowledge bases cannot be integrated by simply merging their rules.— “The problems caused by inventing a private language for each application not only affects the exchange of data but it makes it impossible to integrate legal expert systems by the obvious, simple method of merging rules.” | content_tags.findings[4] |
| finding | In a legal dispute, truth is reached at the end of the process rather than given at its start.— “In the case of a legal dispute, truth is what we arrive at, not what we start from.” | content_tags.findings[5] |
| finding | Existence here-and-now takes the place of truth as the primitive concept, because existence is easy to operationalise.— “Existence here and now takes the place of truth as a primitive concept, with the benefit of being a concept that can readily be operationalised.” | content_tags.findings[6] |
| finding | The logic always points to the agents in the social system who are responsible for using the constructs the formalism expresses.— “In other words, this logic will always point to agents in the social system who are responsible for the use of the constructs expressed in the formalism.” | content_tags.findings[7] |
| finding | In Norma an open system is the only possible representation.— “In Norma, one has no alternative but to represent an open system.” | content_tags.findings[8] |
| finding | The resulting method of analysis proved effective in designing systems cheaper to build and far cheaper to maintain than conventionally developed ones.— “This had led to the evolution of a method of analysis which has proved to be effective in designing systems that are cheaper to build and far cheaper to maintain than those developed using the conventional methodologies.” | content_tags.findings[9] |
| quantity | six pages ... 270 pages — space Twining and Myers devote to deductive reasoning in their 270-page book on legal rules, cited as evidence that deduction is only a small part of legal argumentation— “In their book How To Do Things With Rules, Twining and Myers (1976), whilst acknowledging the importance of deductive reasoning in legal argumentation, nevertheless devote only six pages to that topic in their 270 pages volume.” | content_tags.quantities[0] |
| definition | bureaucratic expert systems— “At best they can be called “bureaucratic expert systems,” which is not to deny their potential value, only to recognise honestly their limitations.” | content_tags.definitions[0] |
| definition | the conduit metaphor of language— “The conduit metaphor of language treats words, expressions and sentences as carriers of meanings” | content_tags.definitions[1] |
| definition | fat predicates— “These "fat predicates," the elongated symbols that look like natural language, are” | content_tags.definitions[3] |
| definition | realisation— “Such a formula we call a “realisation” because it represents a realised or actual state of affairs, here and now.” | content_tags.definitions[4] |
| definition | norm— “A norm specifies a mechanism, physical or social.” | content_tags.definitions[6] |
| definition | ontology chart— “The existence of each invariant depends upon the existence of others, hence we can clanfy meanings by constructing an ontology chart to demonstrate these dependencies.” | content_tags.definitions[7] |
| definition | Norma— “Norma is an attempt to capture in a logical syntax what we have discovered about the structures underlying social and legal norms.” | content_tags.definitions[8] |
| definition | MEASUR— “The LEGOLlNORMA research programme has generated a methodology suitable for such problem areas. It is called MEASUR.” | content_tags.definitions[9] |
| definition | semantic unit— “The problem domain has to be reduced to semantically atomic units each of which corresponds to an invariant in the behaviour of some responsible agent.” | content_tags.definitions[10] |
| definition | epistemological principles— “all knowledge entails a knowing agent the agent only gains his knowledge through action.” | content_tags.definitions[11] |
| definition | ontological dependent— “Because the existence of y can only occur during the existence of x, we call y the ontological dependent of x, its ontological antecedent.” | content_tags.definitions[13] |
| definition | ontological antecedent— “Because the existence of y can only occur during the existence of x, we… | content_tags.definitions[14] |
| concept | bureaucratic expert systems | concepts[0] |
| concept | citizenship | concepts[1] |
| concept | predicate logic | concepts[2] |
| concept | fat predicates | concepts[3] |
| concept | semantics | concepts[4] |
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