Cursos / 1º Ciclo / Faculty of Law :: Law

LÓGICA E ARGUMENTAÇÃO JURÍDICAS - 2025/2026

4º curricular year
Semestralidade: 2nd semester
ECTS: 3

Teachers

Leading Teacher: Prof. Doutor Daniel Tavares
Assistant Professor: Prof. Doutor Daniel Tavares

Class type and School hours

Teórico-prática : 2 Horas

Teaching Language

Portuguese

Main Aims/Objectives

Sensitize students to the importance of the study of logic and legal reasoning to the Law and the legal professions in general

Specific Aims/Objectives

Contact with the principal rules of legal logic, relating them to the evolution of legal thought, with the legal argumentation, persuasion, evidence and sentence, the judicial and particularly judges behavior.

Skills to be acquired

Using the knowledge acquired in other legal areas, we intend to foment in the student the capacity of, in carrying out various legal activities, develop an argument appropriate to the purposes in view, in order to favorably impress an audience, captivating their adherence to the theses wich are defended.
In particular, it is intended that the future jurist develops the ability to form a convincement in the interlocutors, in particular judges.

Teaching Procedures

Theoretical and practical exposure with any audio-visual support. (power point)
Oral interventions for students.
Indication of other appropriate readings for each topic, beyond the obligatory and complementary bibliography constant in the program

Programme

INTRODUCTION

PART I
CHAPTER I
LOGIC, ARGUMENTATION AND REASONING
1. General, formal and material logic
2. Analytical and dialectical argumentation
3. Deductive reasoning and inductive reasoning. Formal-analytic vs material-dialectical
4. Phases and plans (internal and external) of human thought
5. Logic. Evolution and practical implementation. From the coherence of discourse (material) to the adding machine and to the computer (development of formal logic)
6. Verifying the validity of reasoning

CHAPTER II
LEGAL LOGIC
1. Concept and admissibility
2. Moments of logic at the service of law: Creation, identification and application. Legislative vs. legistic policy

CHAPTER III (Sections I, II and III)
LEGAL ARGUMENTATION, LAWYER AND COURT


RHETORIC, INTERPRETATION AND ARGUMENTATIVE NARRATION: THE LAWYER
1. Rhetoric. Concept, objectives and general indications
2. The forensic strategy
2.1. General considerations.
2.2. Development of argumentative narration: Initial arguments, division, confirmation, contestation or refutation, Final phase of the speech. Peroration
2.3. Cases in which argumentative narration will be unnecessary
3. Argumentative narration:
3.1 Procedures: Invention, arrangement, elocution, memory and action
3.2 Requirements or qualities: Systematicity, syntheticity, clarity and verisimilitude
3.3 Typology or Categories of Legal Arguments: Of law, of fact, evaluative, emotional, legitimizing, of authority, personalists, figurative and off interpretation

LEGAL LOGIC AND ARGUMENTATION
RHETORIC, JUDICIAL CONVICTION AND REASONING FOR THE SENTENCE
Previous note
1. Formation of judicial conviction. Persuasion and decision. Truth and prognosis. Proof, presumptions, fictions and topical
2. Rationale for sentences
3. Importance of reasoning in the development and progress of law. Reference to doctrine

PART II - POSITIVISM VS JUSNATURALISM

CHAPTER I
FUNDAMENTALS OF OBEDIENCE TO THE LAW: SECURITY VS JUSTICE
1. Justification of the approach: Positivism vs jusnaturalism. Respective importance within the limits of the creation, interpretation and application of law and legal argumentation
2. Law, justice, equity and security
3. Greek and Roman symbols of law and justice

CHAPTER II
POSITIVISM/MONISM: SECURITY AS THE MAIN END OF LAW
1. Positivism/monism
2. Some positivist currents
3. Positivism vs jusnaturalism. New solutions: Neopositivism
4. Positivism. Critical appraisal: Negative aspects and positive contributions

CHAPTER III
JUSNATURALISM/DUALISM: JUSTICE AS THE MAIN END OF LAW. NATURAL LAW
1. Characterization
2. Natural law: Concept and critical assessment
3. Naturalist doctrines
4. Fundamental principles of law and protection of fundamental values
4.1. Fundamental principles of law
4.2. Brief record of the recent protection of fundamental values in times of war. From ‘ad-hoc’ international criminal tribunals to the Permanent International Criminal Court
4.3. Some historical documents that enshrine the permanent and universal fundamental principles developed from natural law

CHAPTER IV
THEORIES OF JUDICIAL REASONING AFTER THE FRENCH REVOLUTION AND NAPOLEON´S CODE: SCHOOLS OF EXEGESIS, SOCIOLOGICAL, TELEOLOGICAL, FUNCTIONAL AND MODERN
1. Positivist school of exegesis. 1804-1899
1.1. General characterization
1.2. Exegesis, gap, antinomy and injustice
2. Functional, Sociological and Teleological Schools. Limitations of these schools to interpretation
3. Modern school and thought: Judicial thought after 1945. The Nuremberg trial

Evaluation Type

Two obligatory written tests.
Valluation of interest and shown diligence and capacity of oral and written expression.
Attendance.

Teaching Resources

Recommended books
Consultation of monographs and articles in the libraries of Lusíada Universities and others, as well as research in the internet of bibliography and documents.
Possible use of video projector and power point slide show to put on Moodle

Sustainability Objectives

Keywords

Logic
Argumentation
Audience
Narrative
Persuasion
Decision

Main Bibliography

Complementary Bibliography