author : Peter Suber

• Using logic to analyse certain self-application of laws (using laws to amend themselves) exposes a logical paradox. Some have used this to argue that such self-amendment is not legal. But it has happened, legally, in the past. Hence what it actually shows is that logical and formal inference is not a good model of legality.
• law is an empirical subject -- if something is "legal" (has legally been done in the past, that is, has been done and not objected to by the legal process), yet is "illogical" -- well, that just shows logic is not a good model in this case
• Law and logic are pursued for different reasons
• Logic, a study of the rules of argument, timeless, universal, anyone can suggest new logics -- mathematics
• law: has a purpose (not just a game), and timescales (have to decide on a ruling by a date), it can change, there are people who are authorised to change the law, to apply the law -- engineering
• logic is merely one possible model of law: law can be paradoxical, contradictory, without being unworkable
• What makes something legal is not logic and formal inference, it is acceptance, or consent.

• law has to be applied/enforced
• Nomic -- a game where a move (at least initially!) is to change to rules. Early version in a Scientific American column

This book is currently out-of-print, but available on the author's web site, which is where I found it.