Böcker av James Moylan

This is the full text of a doctoral thesis (in Law) that seeks to describe the body of literature that is associated with a seemingly intractable realm of argumentation - the Economic Analysis of Law.Over the course of eight chapters Dr Moylan considers how an ethnographically and semiotically informed modality of inquiry (after Barthes, Bourdieu, Geertz, et al.) can serve to promote an engagement with not just the propositions being advanced by those involved in argumentation, but also the epistemic and common knowledge framing factors that are serving to inform all sides of a debate in a range of sometimes uniform and sometimes diverse ways. In accord with these observations, the thesis not only examines a series of texts but also a range of cultural, linguistic and common knowledge factors that are implicated in supporting and informing the range of counterpoised propositions of argumentation that are in evidence.It is argued that it is significant that such a perspective of inquiry employs a language and focus of analysis that is largely unconcerned with the subject matter discriminations that are being commonly deemed as contentious, but which instead focusses on commonalities and contrasts in code discrimination and those aspects of common knowledge that are being appreciated as consequential in a variety of different arenas of discourse. By thus providing for an analytical perspective that is epistemically and culturally cognisant, yet also propositionally agnostic, a semiotically informed sensibility of analysis assists in enhancing communications relating to precisely those matters where this is of most consequence, which is regarding those instances of long-standing and widespread contention that are commonly described as constituting 'intractable arguments.'

Spend a day in the scrub that fringes the margins of steamy Darwin Harbor, in tropical northern Australia, and glimpse a world which is at once eerily tragic yet also irresistibly comic. In the end the madman fails in his plans: as for the rest? Join Proff, Croc, Senator Ryan, Ernie the Gimp, the Elephant Man, and a whole street-scape of no-hopers, as they become accidentally entangled in a madman's plans. Some learn something, many don't, one human being and a crocodile do come to an unfortunate end, and of course the press have a field day. To be good and happy: all at the same time? Is it possible? Some say yes, some say no; others sit back and watch clouds...