Whately

Firstly before I really being my post; why is Cicero mentioned or argued against in many peoples writing? When we were reading the section on Cicero earlier this semester I did not expect his work to continue being referenced even into the early 1800s. I feel as if Aristotle and Quintilian were equally important however they do not appear in as many texts, and I’m just wondering why? (I know Whately mentions Aristotle, however I don’t see his name as frequently as Cicero’s.)

Whately addresses reasoning in a similar manner to others; “I remarked in treating of the Science, that Reasoning may be considered as applicable to two purposes, which I ventured to designate respectively by the terms “Inferring,” and “Proving, (1005)” this quote reminds me of what a lawyer is aiming to do.  A lawyer either uses inference or actual proof to argue their clients innocence, (and I am trying to think of the really good example from another Author that I had in my head when I began this part of my post, but it seems to have escaped me.) Whately goes on to give an example, which I have to uses because I forgot mine; “the ascertainment of truth by investigation, and the establishment of it to the satisfaction of another. (1005)” When reading again, I thought that all truth should be ascertained by investigation, as a lawyer you should be intent on discovering the truth by investigating the case facts. Simply establishing truth based on the satisfaction of another is a horrible way to go about your job. Don’t get me wrong sometimes as a lawyer you know your client is guilty and thus you need to establish the satisfaction of others to win your case (even though you and your client should not win).  But on the flip side it is also a lawyers job to infer a correct story and then prove his or her inferences to a judge or jury.

A little later on in the same passage Whately seems to agree with the point I made earlier about the importance of investigation; “The process of investigation must be supposed completed, and certain conclusions arrived at by that process, before he begins to impart his ideas to others.” I could be wrong but I interpreted this as; investigation is the first step to developing a conclusion, and Whately assumes that the arrived upon conclusion is correct to the best of the investigators knowledge. The importance of investigation and a correct conclusion is so that when the investigator shares his or her ideas and findings that they will be sharing correct information with others. Bringing this back to law, discovery is one of the first steps in a case and once a piece of information is found it must be shared with the opposing sides counsel so they can do a cross examination of the information’s validity.  More so then either inferring or proving lawyers do both, first they infer facts from a case and then set out to prove their inferences to others.