About The Workshop
SW 56- Normative Pragmatism and Rule-following in Law
Convenors: Pedro Caballero Elbersci; María Gabriela Scataglini
Contact: isonomia.seguimientodereglas@gmail.com
The label “normative pragmatism” emphasises two central features of rule-following in general social practices and particular legal practices: its practical and normative dimensions.
The term ‘pragmatism’ refers to a philosophical approach that focuses on action and practical attitudes within the framework of social practices. This approach entails a practical conception of rule-following (as opposed to a mentalist or intellectualist conception) along with a social or intersubjective conception (as opposed to an individualistic conception).
This normative approach to rule-following contrasts with a conception of rules as mere regularities of behaviour, which collapses correctness into regularity.
In philosophy of law, certain theoretical positions regarding the identification and/or application of legal norms often overshadow or even reduce the practical and normative dimensions of rule-following.
The practical dimension is obscured by a formalist conception of rules and/or by a radical version of interpretative legal scepticism. Both conceptions share an overly text-centred approach to rules. This obscures the practical (and social) dimension -the implicit know-how and common background- of rule-following.
The normative dimension is obscure and also reduced to mere facts by a strictly empirical, naturalised version of legal realism and/or by a mere conventionalist conception of law (which assumes the importance of correctness in rule-following but reduces it to mere factual convergence in past applications when explaining the content of legal norms). Both conceptions share an approach to rules as behavioural regularities, which reduces the normative dimension of rules to mere facts, preventing an adequate understanding of correctness and error (both individual and, more importantly, social or global) in rule-following.
The idea of ‘normative pragmatism’ invites us to consider and shape an approach to social and legal norms that places at its centre the practical, social and normative dimensions of rule-following. We call legal scholars and philosophers from different fields to submit abstracts that address the explanatory goals and challenges of this approach.
Abstracts may be related (but not limited) to the following debates:
(i) Objectivist, sceptical, constructivist or conventionalist positions regarding rules.
(ii) Conceptions of rules and knowledge about rules.
(iii) Metaphysics of rules: metaphysical dependence relations.
(iv) Ontological constitutive elements of rules: disposition for action, intentions, acceptances, etc.
(v) Reasoning based on rules: monotonic and non-monotonic inferences, defeasibility, over-inclusion and under-inclusion.
(vi) Unity or fragmentation of practical reasoning.
(vii) Content of rules, identification and determination: pragmatics and semantics, theories of meaning, semantic inferentialism, etc.
(viii) Philosophical pragmatism and rule-following.
(ix) Legal theories and rule-following.
(x) The explanatory power of normative pragmatism related to the institutional character of legal practices.
Confirmed participants:
Thomas Bustamente (Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil).
Pedro Caballero Elbersci (University Iberoamericana, Mexico City).
Damiano Canale (Bocconi University, Milan, Italy).
Sebastián Figeroa Rubio (Autonomous University of Madrid, Spain).
Luca Malagoli (University of Genoa, Italy).
Joshua Nichols (McGinn University, Canada).
Maria Gabriela Scataglini (University of Buenos Aires, Argentina).
Submission of abstracts:
Those interested in participating in this special workshop may submit their abstracts following the specifications below.
Maximum words: 2.000 (not including bibliography).
Deadline: 15th of April 2026.
Email for submissions: isonomia.seguimientodereglas@gmail.com
Abstracts must be submitted without any explicit or implicit reference to the text’s author. Those selected will be invited to participate in this special workshop at IVR 2026.
