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Legitimate Questions about Multisensory Law and Tentative Answers

Colette R. Brunschwig

2011-05-19 17:36

In his posting of May 5, 2011 (see <http://community.beck.de/gruppen/forum/multisensory-law/in-search-of-multisensory-law-four-theses>), PETER EBENHOCH, a member of this community, continues to question the concept of multisensory law. Some legitimate questions lie behind his reflections and objections.

Again, I welcome the opportunity to respond to his posting. Since what follows is “merely” a posting and not a research paper, I will limit myself to commenting on some crucial points.

EBENHOCH claims that, unlike other legal disicplines, such as civil law, criminal law and so forth, multisensory law deals neither with legal sources in a wide sense nor with legal practice.

I cannot support this view. Multisensory law “brings together the uni- and multisensory phenomena in the law and the law as a uni- and multisensory phenomenon (that is, the law in uni- and multisensory phenomena). Thus, the subject matter of multisensory law consists of three phenomena […]: first, the uni- and multisensory phenomena in the law; second, the law as a uni- and multisensory phenomenon in the law; and third, the law as a uni- and multisensory phenomenon ([…])”  (BRUNSCHWIG, Multisensory Law and Legal Informatics, p. 592). It would go beyond the scope of this posting to comment further on these phenomena. Instead, I would like to refer you to my recent essay on multisensory law (see ibid., 592 sqq.).

According to EBENHOCH, “it is not even thinkable that such a domain of multisensory law consisting of ʻusualʼ legal bills and laws comes into existance [sic].” I, however, would propose a different view. Uni- and multisensory phenomena already occur in the law. “Here, ʻlawʼ refers to the sources of law in a strict sense ([…]).ʻLawʼ thus includes the legislation of legislative, executive, and state-recognized contracts relating to international law. Consequently, the law in a strict sense rules or governs uni- and multisensory phenomena” (ibid., 592). It does not matter whether these sources of the law in a strict sense are labelled as “multisensory legal sources.“ It is indeed rather crucial that these sources rule uni- and multisensory phenomena.

EBENHOCH suggests that “all [my emphasis] law is dealing with multisensory aspects of live! But this insight leads to the lack of any necessary selectivity, so that the notion ʻmultisensory lawʼ gets arbitrary [sic].” I am undecided about whether the law always deals with uni- or multisensory phenomena. Empirical research would be required to support such a view. “Multisensory,” however, is not an arbitrary term. It occurs and is studied particularly in the psychology of learning, the neurosciences, and the psychology of perception. In default of any specific legal discourse, it is unavoidable to draw on these three extra-juridical discourses to determine and specify the meaning of this adjective (see ibid., 581 sqq.).

EBENHOCH questions whether we need multisensory law “to enable the legal system to deal with multisensory impressions [sic].” As regards the uni- and multisensory phenomena in the law, it is legitimate to raise this question. Nevertheless, the question remains whether multisensory law could not contribute to enriching the discourse about these phenomena. For instance, in legislating legal information films for e-government and e-justice contexts (see my posting "Legal Information Films for the General Public," available online at <http://community.beck.de/gruppen/forum/audio-visual-law/legal-information-films-for-the-general-public-film-project-at-coventry-university-law-sc>), this new legal discipline could stimulate such legislation by suggesting how to legally rule the content and purpose of such films. With respect to the law as a uni- and multisensory phenomenon in the law and the law as a uni- and multisensory phenomenon, I would suggest that the established disciplines of the applicable law and the basic legal disciplines fail to adequately explore the legal or legally relevant phenomena at stake. Do they, for instance, thoroughly answer the question how legal visuals and legal audiovisuals can be produced, received, and assessed?

EBENHOCH observes, “As long as ʻmultisensory lawʼ sticks with language to articulate itself it’s language related criticism appears not well founded and a methodical novelty is missing [sic].” In order to be taken seriously, scholars involved with multisensory law and its branches, such as visual law, audiovisual law, and tactile-kinesthetic law, need to follow the verbocentric social rules of academia when considering multisensory law. It is clearly untrue that these scholars express themselves only verbally (see, for instance, FEIGENSON and SPIESEL’s website on their book “Law on Display”: <http://lawondisplay.fromthesquare.org/>; link possibly broken, so please access via Google). In my essay on multisensory law, I have also used legal visualizations to illustrate my points. Furthermore, I have referred to publications using legal visuals and legal audiovisuals (see, ibid., 654 sqq.).

EBENHOCH raises the question “why do we need a new and to a certain extend obfuscating notion at all, when we already have covered the topics of legal theory, legal semiotic, legal didactic and visual aids to relieve legal communication in their own domain [sic]?” I am in agreement with the author that we need to give good reasons for asserting the emergence of a new legal discipline. For that reason, we need to delimit multisensory law against legal theory, legal semiotics, legal didactics, and so forth. I have tried to take the first steps in this direction, by comparing multisensory law and legal informatics (see ibid., 573 sqq.). It is highly possible that the aforementioned disciplines relate to multisensory law and to some of its branches. But do they really sufficiently cover all sensory phenomena of the law? Today, these phenomena, especially the visual, audiovisual, and tactile-kinesthetic phenomena, are so numerous that I simply cannot imagine one single legal discipline dealing with them adequately – except multisensory law.

Eventually, EBENHOCH asks me to answer the questions raised in this community. To answer these questions, would require writing a long article or even a book. The community on multisensory law is only a platform for informal scholarly and practical exchange on these questions.

(BRUNSCHWIG, C. R., Multisensory Law and Legal Informatics – A Comparison of How these Legal Disciplines Relate to Visual Law, in: A. Geist et al. (eds.), Structuring Legal Semantics – with an Essay on Multisensory Law, Bern 2011, p. 573-667, also available online at <http://jusletter-it.weblaw.ch/login.php?ref_url_succ=http%3A%2F%2Fjusletter-it.weblaw.ch%3A80%2Farticle%2Fde%2F_324%3Flang%3Dde&ref_url_fail=http://jusletter-it.weblaw.ch/fail.php>; see also <http://blog.weblaw.ch/2011/02/17/editions-weblaw-new-publication/>.)

(Please note: All websites in this posting were last accessed on May 19, 2011.)

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