Two assumptions in legal discourse: to answer for self and to tell the truth

The distinction between “initial meanings” and “additional meanings” which corresponds to that between “explicit meanings” and “implicit meanings,” evidences the complex stratification of signifying processes that subtend and orient discourse. Hidden meanings are implicit, mediated, indirect meanings, additional meanings. They are traceable not only in meanings determined by context, but also in meanings more independent from context. Initial, explicit meaning is meaning fixed by use and tradition, but all the same it is somehow conditioned by additional, implicit meaning, by hidden meaning. This paper focuses on two related assumptions, or hidden meanings that are no less than central to legal discourse: answering for self and telling the truth. Though the hidden meaning in these assumptions is not explicated, it in fact orientates legal discourse. Hidden meaning involves shared knowledge which is implied and taken for granted even though it is not voiced. The important question is: what is the collective, social conception of the subject that is tacitly implied in legal discourse, such to be capable of answering for self and of telling the truth?