Beard and Holmes on Constitutional Adjudication

The Many and Varied Roles of History in Constitutional Adjudication

The Role of the Philadelphia Convention in Constitutional Adjudication

Max Farrand’s Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 shed light on the intricacies of the debates of the framers over the text of the Constitution. They do not, however, provide authoritative evidence of constitutional meaning. The Philadelphia Convention, after all, was conducted in secret, and the ratifiers, operating in thirteen distinct conventions in culturally and politically diverse s...

Avoiding the common wisdom fallacy: The role of social sciences in constitutional adjudication

More than one hundred years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court started to refer to social science evidence in its judgments. However, this has not resonated with many constitutional courts outside the United States, in particular in continental Europe. This contribution has a twofold aim. First, it tries to show that legal reasoning in constitutional law is often based on empirical assumptions so that...

Constitutional Adjudication and the Indeterminate Text: A Preliminary Defense of an Imperfect Muddle

Sherlock Holmes on Reasoning

1. How I rediscovered Sherlock Holmes It was in the fall of 1987. This year, people all over the world celebrated the Centenary of Sherlock Holmes. Of course I knew who Sherlock Holmes was, since I had read several stories of Holmes during my high school days, and watched some TV programs on Holmes, afterward. But, actually, I did not know Holmes really well, because my memories were rather vag...