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On the role of signs in Epicurus' legal theory
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Connelly, Stephen (2023) On the role of signs in Epicurus' legal theory. International Journal for the Semiotics of Law - Revue internationale de Sémiotique juridique , 36 (3). pp. 1033-1057. doi:10.1007/s11196-023-10006-1 ISSN 0952-8059.
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Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11196-023-10006-1
Abstract
Epicurus holds, in Key Doctrine 31, that what is just according to nature is a súmbolon or sign of the interest there is in neither harming one another nor being harmed. Certain readings of this maxim equivocate this legal sign with other signs found in nature, thereby failing to give sufficient weight to the role of reciprocity in its production. Other readings simply import a legal sense from outside of Epicurean doctrine, thereby failing to explain what makes Epicurean súmbola legal. A final set of readings attempt to find a legal rule as a kind of innate concept or Kantian ‘scheme’. This article identifies new sources for understanding súmbolon, drawn principally but not exclusively from Aristotle’s Eudemian Ethics. This article offers an original argument that Epicurus adopts Aristotle’s’ image of the tally stick (symbolon) as a meeting of often divergent interests which constitutes something new and particularly valuable to the Epicurean: friendship. A theoretical argument is also advanced to support this reading which claims that one person’s reflection on a ‘divine image’ of the end (telos) is insufficient to constitute a súmbolon; rather real (as opposed to abstract or ideal) individual interests are filtered via the mechanism of the tally, that is via the meeting of two given individuals who together generate a sign (symbolon) of reciprocal interest in neither harming nor being harmed.
Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||||||
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Subjects: | B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > B Philosophy (General) K Law [Moys] > KA Jurisprudence |
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Divisions: | Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Law | ||||||||
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Epicurus, Epicureans (Greek philosophy), Law -- Philosophy, Contracts -- Philosophy, Semantics (Philosophy) | ||||||||
Journal or Publication Title: | International Journal for the Semiotics of Law - Revue internationale de Sémiotique juridique | ||||||||
Publisher: | Springer | ||||||||
ISSN: | 0952-8059 | ||||||||
Official Date: | June 2023 | ||||||||
Dates: |
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Volume: | 36 | ||||||||
Number: | 3 | ||||||||
Page Range: | pp. 1033-1057 | ||||||||
DOI: | 10.1007/s11196-023-10006-1 | ||||||||
Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||||||
Publication Status: | Published | ||||||||
Access rights to Published version: | Open Access (Creative Commons) | ||||||||
Date of first compliant deposit: | 13 April 2023 | ||||||||
Date of first compliant Open Access: | 19 July 2023 | ||||||||
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