Home > Journals > Michigan Law Review > MLR > Volume 87 > Issue 8 (1989)
Abstract
In Part II, I first provide a brief description of what we are learning about the grounded and imaginative nature of the cognitive process. I then elaborate the cognitive structure of the concept narrative and consider the manner in which we employ that concept in recognizing, understanding, and constructing narratives of all types - from folktales like the midrash to avant-garde literature like Waiting for Godot. In Part III, I employ this information about the cognitive and narrative processes to explore the secondary role of narrative in the institutionalization of legal and social meaning. I will identify the cognitive construct that does act as the medium of institutionalized social meaning and discuss its relation to, and constraint upon, legal narrative. This explanation will involve a reconsideration and revisionist account of Karl Llewellyn's concept of "situation-sense." In Part IV, I describe the cognitive dimension of the process by which narrative functions as a means of persuasion and discuss its use by legal advocates. I close with a brief discussion of how narrative can be a transformative device for the disempowered and those seeking to change the legal and social status quo.
Recommended Citation
Steven L. Winter,
The Cognitive Dimension of the Agon Between Legal Power and Narrative Meaning,
87
Mich. L. Rev.
2225
(1989).
Available at:
https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol87/iss8/6