Samuels,+'Facts+and+Law'+in+Epistemology+and+Method+in+Law+(2003),+pp.+173-200

(This is a bare-bone rendering, obv, borrowed in part from a summary-- I will flesh out more later)

· Asks whether law is best characterized as science (i.e. explain & predict social phenomena), or just a body of norms? Do facts arise independently of law, or are they constructed by legal discourse? What is a fact? · The severity of geometrical proof as compared interpretive (hermenutical) approach · Induction: active process through which scientific mind goes from an inferior degree of organization to a superior degree in terms of abstraction. Process generates new categories and new structures. · Décalage (disagreement) between things and words – fundamental aspect of legal knowledge. · Traditional rule that facts arrive “cold” and lawyer’s task is to analyse; cf. construction of legal fact. “**The images created by analogies and metaphors are part of the process of thinking about facts** and what is so striking about these images is the way they can determine decisions.”