Função da Ciência do Direito Tributário

do Formalismo Epistemológico ao Estruturalismo Argumentativo

Abstract

This article aims at determining if the Science of Law uses only descriptive propositions or instead a fusion of descriptive and normative propositions through descriptive, optative and creative activities. After exposing the different activities and theories of interpretation, this article demonstrates that legal interpretation always entails a choice between alternative meanings and a reconstruction of meanings. It concludes that the thesis that the Science of Law entails only or mainly descriptive propositions presupposes a limited choice between different types of interpretation (descriptive interpretation), theories of interpretation (cognitive interpretation) and types of knowledge (knowledge as an abstract judgement of capturing entities) and therefore is false and obsolete. Instead of that, it is argued that the Science of Law uses, can and should use a fusion of descriptive and normative propositions that should be governed by a structured theory of interpretation that combines a theory of legal systems, a theory of legal norms and a juridical theory of arguments. This theory can be called ‘argumentative structuralism’.