Location
Brock University
Document Type
Paper
Start Date
15-5-1997 9:00 AM
End Date
17-5-1997 5:00 PM
Abstract
When judges and juries hear from expert witnesses, what exactly do they expect to hear? In other words, as an audience what purpose do they have for the communication? Just what rhetorical burden is the expert expected to bear? The theme of our paper is that the Frye and Daubert rules that dominate legal argument about the use of expert witnesses are both flawed. Neither shows adequate respect either for what Billig calls "the argumentative aspect of social life" or the inescapable hermeneutic and perspectival problems highlighted by the rhetoric-of-the-human-sciences movement.
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Response to Submission
Derek Allen, Commentary on Browne, Keeley & Hiers
Reader's Reactions
Derek Allen, Commentary on Browne, Keeley & Hiers (May 1997)
Included in
The Rhetorical Burden of Expert Witnesses
Brock University
When judges and juries hear from expert witnesses, what exactly do they expect to hear? In other words, as an audience what purpose do they have for the communication? Just what rhetorical burden is the expert expected to bear? The theme of our paper is that the Frye and Daubert rules that dominate legal argument about the use of expert witnesses are both flawed. Neither shows adequate respect either for what Billig calls "the argumentative aspect of social life" or the inescapable hermeneutic and perspectival problems highlighted by the rhetoric-of-the-human-sciences movement.
