A COERÊNCIA NARRATIVA NO ENCONTRO DA VERDADE PROBATÓRIA: PLAUSIBILIDADE VERSUS PROBABILIDADE E A INTERVENÇÃO DA RESPONSABILIDADE EPISTÊMICA

Abstract

The aim of the present study is to analyze the different roles attributed to the narrative coherence in the justification of legal proof, from the perspectives of Bernard S. Jackson and Neil MacCormick. The first interlocutor, due to his greimasian semiotic base and under sassurian influence, including the non-referentiality of language, assimilates the narrativity underlying the structures of understanding, which produces an irreducible confrontation with the second interlocutor, who attributes to narrative coherence the function of a “probability test”, to be put into practice when empirical verification is not possible. The importance of this debate lies in the way which the element of proof can obtain enough truthiness to support a legal decision, which can be through the recognition of the plausibility of the story told in its own internal consistency and intelligibility, in compatibility with the previous social knowledge and with the interpretative possibilities of the norm, or through its correspondence to reality, through its causal rules, which can inform with greater probability its veracity. Finally, the understanding of Amalia Amaya's epistemic responsibility is also called upon to complement the debate, about the quality of the production and analysis of the evidence.