Legal Technique and Logic By: Nonie Dumindin Stevenson Galas

What is a Dispute?

Disputes have their origins in disagreements between individuals.

The disagreement only becomes a dispute when one or other party cannot live with the consequences of the disagreement, and insists on having it resolved.

Disputes mostly arise either from a genuine difference of opinion or from disingenuous selfinterest.

Dispute Resolution

Dispute Resolution generally refers to one of several different processes used to resolve disputes between parties, including negotiation, mediation, arbitration, collaborative law, and litigation. Dispute resolution is the process of resolving a dispute or a conflict by meeting at least some of each sides needs and addressing their interests. Dispute resolution, or conflict resolution to use another common term, is a relatively new field, emerging after World War II. Scholars from the Program on Negotiation were leaders in establishing the field.

Adjudicative processes, such as litigation or arbitration, in which a judge, jury or arbitrator determines the outcome.

Consensual processes, such as collaborative law, mediation, conciliation, or negotiation, in which the parties attempt to reach agreement.

Not all disputes, even those in which skilled intervention occurs, end in resolution. Such intractable disputes form a special area in dispute resolution studies.[]

Judicial dispute resolution

The legal system provides a necessary structure for the resolution of many disputes. However, some disputants will not reach agreement through a collaborative processes. Some disputes need the coercive power of the state to enforce a resolution. Perhaps more importantly, many people want a professional advocate when they become involved in a dispute, particularly if the dispute involves perceived legal rights, legal wrongdoing, or threat of legal action against them.

The most common form of judicial dispute resolution is litigation. programs annexed to the courts, to facilitate settlement of lawsuits.

Extrajudicial dispute resolution

Some use the term dispute resolution to refer only to alternative dispute resolution (ADR), that is, extrajudicial processes such as arbitration, collaborative law, and mediation used to resolve conflict and potential conflict between and among individuals, business entities, governmental agencies, and (in the public international law context) states.

Online Dispute Resolution

Dispute resolution can also take place on-line or by using technology in certain cases. Online dispute resolution, a growing field of dispute resolution, uses new technologies to solve disputes. Online Dispute Resolution is also called "ODR". Online Dispute Resolution or ODR also involves the application of traditional dispute resolution methods to disputes which arise online.[citation needed]

Genuine and Verbal Disputes

Genuine disputes involve disagreement about whether or not some specific proposition is true. Since the people engaged in a genuine dispute agree on the meaning of the words by means of which they convey their respective positions, each of them can propose and assess logical arguments that might eventually lead to a resolution of their differences.
Merely verbal disputes, on the other hand, arise entirely from ambiguities in the language used to express the positions of the disputants. A verbal dispute disappears entirely once the people involved arrive at an agreement on the meaning of their terms, since doing so reveals their underlying agreement in belief.

Theoretical definitions are special cases of stipulative or precising definition, distinguished by their attempt to establish the use of this term within the context of a broader intellectual framework. Since the adoption of any theoretical definition commits us to the acceptance of the theory of which it is an integral part, we are rightly cautious in agreeing to it

Finally, what some logicians call a persuasive definition is an attempt to attach emotive meaning to the use of a term. Since this can only serve to confuse the literal meaning of the term, persuasive definitions have no legitimate use.

Kinds of Definitions

The most common way of preventing or eliminating differences in the use of languages is by agreeing on the definition of our terms. Since these explicit accounts of the meaning of a word or phrase can be offered in distinct contexts and employed in the service of different goals, it's useful to distinguish definitions of several kinds:

Stipulative Definition

At the other extreme, a stipulative definition freely assigns meaning to a completely new term, creating a usage that had never previously existed.

Lexical Definition

A lexical definition simply reports the way in which a term is already used within a language community.

Extension and Intension

The extension of a general term is just the collection of individual things to which it is correctly applied. Thus, the extension of the word "chair" includes every chair that is (or ever has been or ever will be) in the world. The intension of a general term, on the other hand, is the set of features which are shared by everything to which it applies. Thus, the intension of the word "chair" is (something like) "a piece of furniture designed to be sat upon by one person at a time."

Denotative and Connotative Definitions

A denotative definition tries to identify the extension of the term in question. Thus, we could provide a denotative definition of the phrase "this logic class" simply by listing all of our names.

A connotative definition tries to identify the intension of a term by providing a synonymous linguistic expression or an operational procedure for determining the applicability of the term.

Definition by Genus and

Differentia

Classical logicians developed an especially effective method of constructing connotative definitions for general terms, by stating their genus and differentia.

Five rules by means of which to evaluate the success of connotative definitions by genus and differentia:
Focus on essential features. Although the things to which a term applies may share many distinctive properties, not all of them equally indicate its true nature.

Avoid circularity. Since a circular definition uses the term being defined as part of its own definition, it can't provide any useful information; either the audience already understands the meaning of the term, or it cannot understand the explanation that includes that term. Thus, for example, there isn't much point in defining "cordless 'phone" as "a telephone that has no cord." Capture the correct extension. A good definition will apply to exactly the same things as the term being defined, no more and no less. There are several ways to go wrong. Consider alternative definitions of "bird": "warm-blooded animal" is too broad, since that would include horses, dogs, and aardvarks along with birds. "feathered egg-laying animal" is too narrow, since it excludes those birds who happen to be male. and "small flying animal" is both too broad and too narrow, since it includes bats (which aren't birds) and excludes ostriches (which are). Successful intensional definitions must be satisfied by all and only those things that are included in the extension of the term they define.

(continued) Avoid figurative or obscure language. Since the point of a definition is to explain the meaning of a term to someone who is unfamiliar with its proper application, the use of language that doesn't help such a person learn how to apply the term is pointless. Thus, "happiness is a warm puppy" may be a lovely thought, but it is a lousy definition. Be affirmative rather than negative. It is always possible in principle to explain the application of a term by identifying literally everything to which it does not apply. In a few instances, this may be the only way to go: a proper definition of the mathematical term "infinite" might well be negative, for example. But in ordinary circumstances, a good definition uses positive designations whenever it is possible to do so. Defining "honest person" as "someone who rarely lies" is a poor definition.

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