Maria Amalia Amaya Navarro
![[candidate photo]](picture.jpg)
S.J.D. 2007
Dissertation
Coherence in Legal Reasoning
My research focuses on the concept of coherence in legal reasoning. The objective of my research is to improve upon the current state of coherence theories in law by drawing on coherentist accounts of moral and epistemic justification. More specifically, my dissertation develops a coherentist model of legal reasoning that attempts to give an answer to the following three questions: how can we devise a notion of coherence that is precise enough for the purposes of legal justification?; what is the role of arguments from coherence in legal justification?; and how does coherence relate to other values such as truth and fairness in adjudication?. A further objective of my research is to explore the implications of this model for the assumptions which characterize most current theories of legal reasoning.
Fields of Research and Supervisors
- Professor Frederick Schauer, Kennedy School of Goverment, Harvard University, Overall Supervisor
- Coherence Theories of Knowledge and Justification, with Professor Robert Stalnaker, Department of Philosophy and Linguistics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Theories of Legal Reasoning, with Professor Scott Brewer, Harvard Law School
- Coherence in Linguistic Theory, with Professor Noam Chomsky, Department of Philosophy and Linguistics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Additional Research Interests
- Evidence Law
- Philosophy of Law
- Ethics
Education
- Harvard Law School, S.J.D. Candidate 2000-Present
- European University Institute, Ph.D. candidate
- Harvard Law School, LL.M, 2000
- European University Institute, LL.M.in Comparative, European and International Law, 1997
- University of Barcelona, Spain, B.A. in Linguistics, 1996
- University of Alicante, Spain, LL.B., 1995
Appointments and Fellowships
- Harvard Law School, 2003- 2004, Byse Fellow
- Department of Philosophy, Harvard University, 2001, Teaching Fellow
- European University Institute, 1998-1999, Researcher
- University of Alicante, Department of Philosophy of Law, Ethics, and Political Philosophy, 1995, Researcher
Representative Publications
- "Un modelo Connectionista de la Coherencia en el Derecho", Doxa, Cuadernos de Filosofia del Derecho, v. 27, 2005, forthcoming.
- "Coherencia Normativa, Argumentacion e Interpretacion", Isonomia, Revista de Teoria y Filosofia del Derecho, v. 23, 2005, forthcoming.
- Racionalidad y Prueba en el Derecho, co-edited with Daniel Gonzalez and Jordi Ferrer, Marcial Pons Ed., Madrid, in preparation.
Additional Information
- Languages: Spanish (native speaker), English, Italian, Catalan (fluent), French (basic)