One of the most difficult challenges of mature legal systems is the need to balance the conflicting demands of stability and flexibility. The demand for flexibility is at odds with the principle of impartiality, which is considered a cornerstone of the rule of law. In the present article, I explore the way in which the law copes with this dilemma by developing the idea of tolerance of incoherence. I argue that tolerance of incoherence emerges from the interplay between the inferential and lexical-semantic rules that determine the meaning of legal speech acts. I base this argument on an inferential model of speech acts, which I develop through a discussion of graded speech acts, and on the idea that the use of speech acts is governed by multiple and potentially conflicting conventions. I show how this tolerance allows the law to resolve the tension between dynamism and traditionality, and discuss its sociological and moral implications.

中文翻译：

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容忍法律不连贯、分级的言论行为和虚假的多元主义

成熟的法律制度面临的最大挑战之一是需要平衡稳定性和灵活性这两个相互冲突的要求。对灵活性的要求与被视为法治基石的公正原则背道而驰。在本文中，我通过发展对不连贯性的容忍理念来探索法律应对这一困境的方式。我认为，对不连贯的容忍源于决定合法言语行为含义的推理规则和词汇语义规则之间的相互作用。我的这一论点基于一个言语行为的推理模型，我通过对分级言语行为的讨论来开发该模型，并且基于这样一种观点，即言语行为的使用受到多种且可能相互冲突的约定的支配。