Law as Interpretation

This Article situates the field of law within the interpretive disciplines and analyzes a number of key legal issues as problems of interpretation. The discussion begins with some historically important interpretive paradigms and methodological metaphors in the natural sciences, the humanities, and the social sciences. Then, within the field of law, a common law narrative, a constitutional narrative, and a community-society paradigm are described and explicated as basic interpretive frameworks of legal decision making.