Learning outcomes of the course unit
The course will examine the conceptual techniques used in the past in legal disputes, in order to let the students understand and master the sharp and deadly intellectual weapons available to the jurists of the age of the ius commune. The knowledge of those skilled argumentative techniques will be demonstrated a very valuable competence for current day jurists, leading students to the understanding and the conscious use of methods of reasoning and intellectual duel which are essential for the exercise of legal dialectic.
Course contents summary
The course aims to provide a description of the methodological tools used by the jurists of the Middle and Modern Ages to construct their legal arguments. Rhetorical and dialectical techniques will be also presented, starting from the description of the conceptual tools of distinctio and syllogism, in order to illustrate their concrete application to legal reasoning. Basic techniques of medieval mnemonics aimed at the legal dispute and fundamental rules for the construction of the rhetorical discourse will be described as well. The course will also include practical exercises, to demonstrate the actual usefulness to contemporary jurists of methods and arguments adopted in the age of the ius commune.
Recommended readings
A. Padovani: Modernità degli antichi. Breviario di argomentazione forense, Bononia University Press, Bologna 2006.
Teaching methods
lectures, tutorials, seminars, disputes
Assessment methods and criteria
oral examination
