Includes bibliographical references and index.

Scientific versus heuristic legal reasoning -- The sources of linguistic vagueness -- Value pluralism and absence of a hierarchy of norms -- Precedent and the 'no law' situation as sources of legal uncertainty -- Legal reasoning : the interpretative stage -- Vagueness and value pluralism in the primary materials of the EU legal order -- The legal reasoning of the Court of Justice I : the available topoi -- The legal reasoning of the Court of Justice II : the approach to precedent -- The legal reasoning of the Court of Justice III : the cumulative approach -- The legal reasoning of the Court of Justice IV : the in-built communautaire tendency of the cumulative approach -- The legal reasoning of the Court of Justice V : the steadying factors.