Discussion Of The Two Views Of Legal Logic In China

Since the ancient times, logic intricately ties to the law. Aristotle, the author of a works named "Logic", is considered to be originator of logic. It has a history of more than two thousand years.Later, logic, as a science that studies law of thinking, has developed rapidly with epistemological and linguistic turn of Philosophy, experiencing mathematical turn and practical turn, which comply with Marxism "Everything goes from theory to practice, from form to content."Legal logic, being an applied discipline, has produced and developed in the course of continuous development of logic science. Ulrich Klug, German logician and jurist, published "Legal Logic" in 1951, which was considered to mark the authorized formation of legal logic discipline. However, legal logic research in China started from the late seventies, early eighties. Comparing with the western countries, we are nearly 30 years behind.Legal logic gradually began to develop from scratch under the application of logic in our country. It undergoes thirty years of vicissitudes in development, from the simple application of formal logic to the application of informal logic. It is through diversified development of logic and senior scholars’practice that our China’s legal logic is constantly tending toward fully fledged.At present, there are two apparently different logic ideas in legal logic world of China. One is to pursuit inescapable legal logic idea, especially for the study of legal reasoning theory while the other is to truthful legal logic idea, especially for the study of legal argumentation theory. The former is based on formal logic with effectiveness considerations for the guideline while the latter based on informal logic with proper or appropriate consideration.This dissertation begins with logical essence and the origin of relationship between law and logic, adopting historical analytic method, comparative method and others. Then the legal logic views on formal logic and informal are stated, compared, evaluated and analyzed. Finally, the author indicates strength in theory and practice, and puts forward an innovative idea.That is, in construction of legal logic system and study on legal logic theory, we can’t research legal reasoning solely under the view of formal logic, nor can we study legal argument individually under informal logic. Formal logic, informal logic, legal reasoning and legal argument should be interacted and merged in the study, especially in the construction of new legal logic system, where effective form and proper content complement each other. Thus, an integrated and scientific legal logic system will be built.