Publications

Authors:

Nicolini, Matteo

Title:

Praising the World “by Geometrical Terms”: Legal Metrics, Science and Indicators in Swift’s Voyage to Laputa

Year:

2019

Type of item:

Articolo in Rivista

Tipologia ANVUR:

Articolo su rivista

Language:

Inglese

Format:

A Stampa

Referee:

Sì

Name of journal:

POLEMOS

ISSN of journal:

2036-4601

N° Volume:

13

Number or Folder:

2

Page numbers:

327-348

Keyword:

scientific state of mind; leximetrics

Short description of contents:

The article focuses on the epistemological paradigms that underpin the current trends in comparative legal research, by assessing them within the framework of the law-and-literature movement. In particular, it examines the scientific state of mind and the veering towards quantitative approaches which now percolate through legal comparative studies. The article argues that such state of mind is not merely confined to the ambit of comparative law. It has indeed several traits in common with the scientific mentality which has been saturating the knowledge system in Western culture since the seventeenth century. This scientific state of mind was one of Jonathan Swift’s main targets. In Gulliver’s Travels, A Tale of a Tub, and A Discourse Concerning the Mechanical Operation of the Spirit, Swift satirised the seventeenth-century scientific program, which had reduced the advancement of knowledge into a system that is very similar to twenty-first century information systems. This reduction was influenced by Cartesian philosophy and was achieved through methodological innovation. But it was also a consequence of the debate on ancient and modern learning, which had originated in France, but had immediate resonance in England. Swift rejected absolute reliance on quantitative methods: not only does this make it possible to set an equation between law and literature, but it also allows us to bring humanities into the debate about quantification in comparative law – and, as a consequence, to reappraise through literature some common assumptions we usually make about the law.

Product ID:

110331

Handle IRIS:

11562/1000344

Last Modified:

October 19, 2022

Bibliographic citation:

Nicolini, Matteo, Praising the World “by Geometrical Terms”: Legal Metrics, Science and Indicators in Swift’s Voyage to Laputa «POLEMOS» , vol. 13 , n. 2 , 2019 , pp. 327-348

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