Matheus Gabriel Barbosa

Matheus Gabriel Barbosa studied Law at the Federal University of Goiás, Brazil. Has a postgraduate degree in Public Law from the Superior School of Law and is a Master's student in Philosophy of Logic and Language at the Federal University of Goiás. His academic interests are directed towards understanding how Logic and Philosophy of Language can assist in the understanding of Philosophy of Law-related matters. Has professional experience in Public Administration and Brazilian Tax Law, with an emphasis on Legislative Drafting, Tax Consultation, Fiscal Administrative Litigation, Project Management, Process Analysis, and Public Management Advice.

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Issue: 13:3 (The fiftieth issue)

The concept of legal gap is tackled from a number of logical perspectives and semantic methods. After presenting our own goal (Section 1), a first introduction into legal logic refers to Bobbio’s works and his formalization of legal statements (Sections 2 and 3). Then Woleński’s contribution to the area is taken into account through his reference to the distinction between two juridical systems (viz. Common Law vs Civil Law) and the notion of conditional norms (Section 4). The notion of reason is also highlighted in the case of Raz’s legal logic, thereby leading to a future connection with von Wright’s logic of truth and an analogy made with an anti-realist reading of truth-values and norms (Section 5). Our personal contribution is introduced through a reflection on how logic should deal with the logical form of norms (Section 6), before entering a number of crucial definitions and distinctions for the concepts of norm, legal statement, and promulgation (Section 7). The final point is a proposed semantics for legal statements, which is both many-valued and gap-friendly (Section 8). A distinction between a number of requirements for permission and forbiddance leads to a set of non-classical juridical systems in which non-permission and forbiddance are not equivalent with each other any more; this does justice to Woleński’s former distinction between Common Law and Civil Law, also leading ultimately to a non-classical square of legal oppositions in which several legal operators may collapse into other ones (Section 9).