Article: 

Dennis Patterson, The Poverty of Interpretive Universalism: Toward the Reconstruction of Legal Theory, 72 TEXAS L. REV. 1 (1993).

Abstract:

Professor Patterson criticizes interpretive universalism, the idea that all understanding is a matter of interpretation, based on his belief that holding interpretation central to legal thought creates a philosophical hall of mirrors.  He examines the works of two proponents of interpretive universalism: Ronald Dworkin and Stanley Fish.  Patterson reads Dworkin and Fish as claiming that legal truth is a product of interpretation.  He disagrees with such an account of legal understanding as it turns the ordinary into the mysterious and fails to account for the fact that understanding and interpretation are distinctive activities.  Instead, Patterson suggests that jurisprudence should turn its attention away from interpretation and focus on appraisal of our practices of legal justification.