Metodo

International Studies in Phenomenology and Philosophy

Series | Book | Chapter

213516

Why are words not enough?

or a few remarks on traffic signs

Michal Dudek

pp. 363-372

Abstract

In this study two general theses are presented. In the first thesis—about integral character of traffic signs—it is proposed to stop treating traffic signs as only a subsidiary (illustrative) instruments—an alternatives to written linguistic utterances. It is shown that the construction of legal regulations of road traffic justifies the thesis that traffic signs are in fact an integral part of certain provisions and encoded norms, and not just a way of communicating them. This integral character and the fact that traffic signs as a means of visual-nonlinguistic communication have specific features which are extremely difficult to verbalize in an accurate, intelligible, and concise manner (e.g., angles, pictograms, or ideograms) or are even impossible to verbalize (colors) leads to second thesis—about inadequacy of concept of legal norm as a linguistic utterance in context of traffic signs. Concepts of interpretation of law which adopt a vision that legal norm (reconstructed from legal provisions—linguistic utterances of specific properties included in texts of legal acts) is an object of purely linguistic nature are inadequate, when one considers, for example, some of the provisions of Road Traffic Law, which refer to traffic signs. Their example clearly shows that in contemporary legal orders one can find legal norms, which cannot be accurately and intelligibly presented only with words. Thus, if the result of the interpretation of certain legal provisions must be made not only with words but also with broadly understood graphics, the cited concepts of interpretation of law cannot be actually realized in all of the instances. This makes them inadequate from the perspective of whole legal order.

Publication details

Published in:

Araszkiewicz Michał, Banaś Paweł, Gizbert-Studnicki Tomasz, Płeszka Krzysztof (2015) Problems of normativity, rules and rule-following. Dordrecht, Springer.

Pages: 363-372

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-09375-8_27

Full citation:

Dudek Michal (2015) „Why are words not enough?: or a few remarks on traffic signs“, In: M. Araszkiewicz, P. Banaś, T. Gizbert-Studnicki & K. Płeszka (eds.), Problems of normativity, rules and rule-following, Dordrecht, Springer, 363–372.