Law as culture: understanding different objects and methods
From a logical aspect, anything that can be the reason for a true statement through a judgment is an object. In that sense, everything that can act as a logical object in a proposition (for example, a number, a tree, a historical figure, a mythological entity, a legal norm) is an object.
There is a distinction, however, in the way different objects are apprehended (i.e. known) by a subject. The objects may be ideal, natural, cultural and metaphysical.
Objects: ideal, natural, cultural and metaphysical
Ideal objects are unreal. That is, they simply are but do not properly exist. They are not in the experience (not apprehensible through the senses), they are timeless and they are neutral to value judgments (they do not imply any axiological qualification). Among them are the objects that refer to logic and mathematics. For example, the triangle as an object in geometry simply consists of pure space closed on three sides, but it does not exist anywhere, it is not in the experience and finally it is neutral to value judgments.
The natural objects studied by the various sciences of nature are for their part real, they have existence, they are in the experience, they are in time and they are neutral to value judgments. Their being is not good or bad, just, unjust, beautiful, or ugly, useful and useless. Consider a stone or a bird and it is possible to verify in both cases all these characteristics by our senses. To claim there is beauty in flowers and birds is not logical because it is not, for example, a botanical or zoological property. The landscape, for example, does not exist by itself but integrated by the viewer as a portion of qualified nature.
Cultural objects or goods created in some way by humans acting according to their volition are themselves real, they are in the experience, they are in time and they are valuable with a positive or negative sign such as fair or unfair, beautiful or ugly, useful or useless. Their properties can qualify their being and they must always have at least one class qualification.
Finally, metaphysical objects are real, they exist, they are not in experience and they are valuable. For example, God who is conceived as a reality and the highest goodness is not in the experience, since He cannot be seen anywhere, nor can it be accessed through any other of our senses.
So far, we have:
| Object | Existence | Experience | Valuable (axiologically) | Method | Epistemological act |
| Ideal | No | No | Neutral | ||
| Natural | Yes | Yes | Neutral | ||
| Cultural | Yes | Yes | Positive or Negative | ||
| Metaphysical | Yes | No | Positive or Negative |
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Law as culture: methods and epistemological act.
Author of:
Territorial Disputes and State Sovereignty. International Law and Politics (London and New York: Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group, 2020).
Sovereignty Conflicts and International Law and Politics: A Distributive Justice Issue (London and New York: Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group, 2017).
Saturday 01st May 2021
Dr Jorge Emilio Núñez
Twitter: @DrJorge_World
https://drjorge.world
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