A seminal presentation held by Max Kaser at Paris University in 1962 is taken as the

starting point of an analysis of factual interpretation in legal adjudication. Despite not being a

theorist, Kaser, it is argued, was able to identify the relevance of intuition in the judicial debate

through which the parties seek to convince the judge. The question identified in the title of this

paper is discussed on the basis of a critical examination of three of the greatest scholars of their

generation: Theodor Vieweg, Kaser himself and Franz Horak. All three contribute, in different

fashion, to an understanding of the process of ‘finding the law’, or Rechtsfindung. This concept is

here considered from the perspective of Cicero’s partition of the legal discourse in ars inveniendi

and ars iudicandi, which is tied to the Aristotelian analysis of syllogistic reasoning.