ON CERTAINTY AND THE UNAVOIDABLE MISTAKE ABOUT AN ELEMENT OF THE CRIME
Keywords:
Criminal Law, philosophy of language, philosophy of science, epistemology, mistake of fact defenceAbstract
Mistake’ is just one of those concepts whose meaning is often taken for granted by many scholars. Nevertheless, that meaning is far from being clear. In this paper, the Author discuss from the perspective of the philosophy of language and epistemology, the meaning of «certainty» and «mistake». Then, some consequences are drawn in order to interpret the criminal defence of mistake in the Spanish Penal Code. In the last part of the paper, the Author analyses if it is possible to speak of an objectively unavoidable mistake about an element of the crime