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The book shows lawyers how semiotics leads to an untraditional and in-depth understanding of legal practice and law's discourse, in essence to law as a system of specific meanings and signs. Semiotics in general is part of Peirce's "evolutionary cosmology," an all-embracing world-view, which plays its role in legal discourse. His anthropological intuition concentrated in the formula "man is a sign", became a tool for understanding a subject's position in law, her position as author of legal discourse and as an individual subjected to law. Tensions between chance and continuity in legal discourse interest the creation of legal meaning in law's practices. Novelty, Peirce suggested, occurs by the grace of chance rather than of continuity and fixed traditions. Tyche, the Ancient Goddess of fate and fortune, is because of Peirce's references most at home in the US legal semiotic tradition. Her fame and influence reaches beyond law and became supported by recent archeological discoveries, publications and exhibitions, which underline her possible influence on modern legal thinking. Tyche unfolds her role in legal discourse and directs a lawyer's position.

DOI: 10.1007/978-94-007-5458-4_11

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