LEGAL LOGIC AND ARGUMENTATION
The Logic and legal argumentation course is a legal philosophical subject (IUS/20) intended to provide law students with interpretative and argumentative skills required to practice any legal profession. To that end, the course’s objectives are: 1) to provide the students an introduction to basic logical concepts; 2) to enable students to master the main interpretative and argumentative techniques employed in legal reasoning; 3) to enable students to analyze complex legal arguments, such as those found in judicial decisions and to autonomously develop lines of legal reasoning.
The main intended learning outcomes are: 1) knowledge and understanding: be familiar with and understand the fundamental concepts of legal logic and theory of interpretation; 2) ability to apply the acquired knowledge and understanding: to acquire the ability to use autonomously the techniques of legal reasoning; 3) autonomous assessment: to acquire the capacity to critically evaluate a legal argument, in particular those contained in the reasoning of judicial decisions; 4) Communication skills: to communicate the acquired knowledge in a full and exhaustive manner in short written papers; 5) learning skills: to be able to identify the main theoretical and logical problems underlying argumentation in general and legal argumentation in particular; to be aware of the relationship between these problems and the more general issues in legal theory (e.g. the relation between law and morality, the separation of State powers etc.)