The language of human law in the thought of Francisco Suárez

Abstract

The subject of this article is the language of human law in the thought of Francisco Suárez. Its chief focus is on the Treatise on Laws and on God the Lawgiver and its views on the prescriptive nature of legislative language, written and spoken language, the lexical-semantic level, and linguistic clarity from the viewpoints of convenience, the essence of the law and justice. The issues Suárez deals with in relation to these points have continued to attract attention up to the present day, and a reading of the Treatise confirms the impression that some of them are still valid. Accordingly, as well as setting out, describing and offering a guide to understanding Suárez ideas, the article offers a comparative and contemplative analysis of them, without forgetting that their author belonged to the early modern period.

Keywords

• Suárez
• ley
• lenguaje
• prescripción
• escritura
• oralidad
• léxico
• semántica
• claridad