The First and the Last Word : Critical Remarks on Himma’s Philosophical Enterprise

In his book Coercion and the Nature of Law Himma proposes a conceptual analysis of law defending what he calls the Coercion Thesis. Himma’s approach to conceptual analysis is articulated in two steps. The first step is what Himma calls an “empirical observation” of “ordinary intuitions” as they are manifest in the “contingent linguistic conventions for using the relevant concept-term” in “ordinary talk.” The second step consists in identifying “the philosophical assumptions about the metaphysical nature of a thing to which the corresponding concept-term refers.” Our remarks are not intended to question the Coercion Thesis (which, on the contrary, they can possibly corroborate); rather, they intend to show that grounding conceptual analysis exclusively on the canons of ordinary usage of words and on the philosophical assumptions of an undefined and contingent linguistic and cultural community to which the last word is given is not free from risks.