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The Semiotics of Memes in the Law: Jack Balkin’s Promise of Legal Semiotics

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Abstract

The jurisprudent Jack M. Balkin introduced the analogy of memes as a semiotic device for understanding the law. His notion of cultural software into which this device was inserted is developed first, followed by a development of memetic analysis and its several semiotic dimensions. After a brief treatment of the position of ideology in view of memetic analysis, and the corresponding notion of transcendence, Balkin’s explicitly semiotic setting for this doctrine is displayed. This method is then briefly applied to the civilian doctrine of patrimony, to supplement Balkin’s application of it to common law institutions.

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Statutes

  1. Loi sur l’application de la réforme du code civil, L.Q. 1992, c. 57.

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  1. Department of Philosophy, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada

    Christopher B. Gray

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  1. Christopher B. Gray
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Correspondence to Christopher B. Gray.

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Gray, C.B. The Semiotics of Memes in the Law: Jack Balkin’s Promise of Legal Semiotics. Int J Semiot Law 22, 411–424 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11196-009-9118-4

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