“Experimental jurisprudence” draws on empirical data to inform questions typically associated with jurisprudence or legal theory. Scholars in this flourishing movement conduct empirical studies about a variety of legal language and concepts. Despite the movement’s growth, its justification is still opaque. Jurisprudence is the study of deep and longstanding theoretical questions about law’s nature, but “experimental jurisprudence,” it might seem, simply surveys laypeople. This Article elaborates and defends experimental jurisprudence. Experimental jurisprudence, appropriately understood, is (...) not only consistent with traditional jurisprudence; it is an essential branch of it. (shrink)

Jurisprudence is the prudence of jus, law's consciousness and conscience. Throughout history, when thinkers wanted to contemplate the organisation of society or the relationship between authority and the subject, they turned to law. All great philosophers, from Plato to Hobbes, Kant, Hegel, Marx and Weber had either studied the law or had a deep understanding of legal operations. But jurisprudence is also the conscience of law, the exploration of law's justice and of an ideal law or equity at (...) the bar of which state law is always judged. Jurisprudence brings together 'is' and 'ought', the positive and the normative, law and justice. But after a long process of decay, legal theory is today characterised by cognitive and moral poverty. Jurisprudence has become restricted and academically peripheral, a guidebook to technocratic legalism and a legitimation of the existent. Critical jurisprudence returns to the classical tradition of a general philosophy of law and adopts a much wider concept of legality. It is concerned both with posited law and with the law of the law. All legal aspects of the economic, political, emotional and physical modes of production and reproduction of society are part of critical jurisprudence. This widening of scope allows a radical rethinking of the nature of rights, justice, sovereignty and judgement. A political philosophy of justice today must examine the political economy of law; transitions from Empire to nation; ideological and imaginary constructions through which we understand ourselves and relate to others; ways in which gender, race or sexuality create forms of identity that both discipline bodies and offer sites of resistance. Law's complicity with political oppression, violence and racism has to be faced before it is possible to speak of a new beginning for legal thought, which in turn is the necessary precondition for a theory of justice. Critical Jurisprudence offers an ethics of law against the nihilism of power and an aesthetics of existence for the melancholic lawyer. (shrink)

General aspects of jurisprudence -- Precursors of modern jurisprudence -- Natural law -- Transcendental idealism -- Utilitarianism -- Legal positivism -- Historical jurisprudence -- The sociological movement in jurisprudence -- Authority -- Scandinavian realism -- American realism -- Contemporary american jurisprudence -- Rights -- Law and morality -- Feminist jurisprudence.

General jurisprudence-that branch of legal philosophy concerned with the nature of law and adjudication-has been relatively unaffected by the "naturalistic" strains so evident, for example, in the epistemology, philosophy of mind and moral philosophy of the past forty years. This paper sketches three ways in which naturalism might affect jurisprudential inquiry. The paper serves as a kind of precis of the main themes in my book NATURALIZING JURISPRUDENCE: ESSAYS ON AMERICAN LEGAL REALISM AND NATURALISM IN LEGAL PHILOSOPHY (Oxford (...) University Press, 2007). (shrink)

In this unique book, leading legal scholars and philosophers provide a breadth of perspectives and inspire stimulating debate around the transformations of jurisprudence in a globalized world. Traditionally the central debates surrounding jurisprudence and legal theory are concerned with the elucidation of the particularities of state-law. This innovative book considers that this orthodox picture may no longer be tenable, given the increasing standardization of technologies, systems and information worldwide.Split across four thematic parts, this timely book provides a broad (...) overview of the topic, followed by in depth analyses investigating the modifications to jurisprudence's methodological approaches driven by globalization, the concepts and theoretical tools required to account for putative new forms of legal phenomena, and normative issues relating to the legitimacy and democratic character of these legal orders. Chapters cover legal encounters with alterity in a post-monist mode, normative legal pluralism, relating law and power in a historical global context, cosmopolitan legitimacy and human rights and dignity in a corporate world.Jurisprudence in a Globalized World will be a key resource for students and scholars working in global transnational law, public international law and legal theory and philosophy. (shrink)

In the United States, the steady yellow light means that a driver should either speed up or slow down. State laws written about a driver’s behavior at these yellow lights are vague and indeterminate and result in what is referred to as the dilemma zone (Hurwitz et al. in Transp Res Part F Traffic Psychol Behav 15(2): 132–143, 2012). This paper will reconsider law’s vagueness as intentional rather than problematic, insofar as cultural understandings of the yellow light lead to a (...) framework of visual jurisprudence in which drivers interact with law through legal discretion and common sense confronting a yellow light. Through a jurisprudential juxtaposition between the yellow light and red light cameras used to enforce yellow lights, the semiotics of automaticity compete with the semiotics of context-bound decision-making. (shrink)

This book explores how globalisation influences the understanding of law. Adopting a broad concept of law and a global perspective, it critically reviews mainstream Western traditions of academic law and legal theory. Its central thesis is that most processes of so-called 'globalisation' take place at sub-global levels and that a healthy cosmopolitan discipline of law should encompass all levels of social relations and the legal ordering of these relations. It illustrates how the mainstream Western canon of jurisprudence needs to (...) be critically reviewed and extended to take account of other legal traditions and cultures. Written by the one of the foremost scholars in the field, this important work presents an exciting alternative vision of jurisprudence. It challenges the traditional canon of legal theorists and guides the reader through a field undergoing seismic changes in the era of globalisation. This is essential reading for all students of jurisprudence and legal theory. (shrink)

“Virtue jurisprudence” is a normative and explanatory theory of law that utilises the resources of virtue ethics to answer the central questions of legal theory. The main focus of this essay is the development of a virtue–centred theory of judging. The exposition of the theory begins with exploration of defects in judicial character, such as corruption and incompetence. Next, an account of judicial virtue is introduced. This includes judicial wisdom, a form of phronesis, or sound practical judgement. A virtue–centred (...) account of justice is defended against the argument that theories of fairness are prior to theories of justice. The centrality of virtue as a character trait can be drawn out by analysing the virtue of justice into constituent elements. These include judicial impartiality (even–handed sympathy for those affected by adjudication) and judicial integrity (respect for the law and concern for its coherence). The essay argues that a virtue–centred theory accounts for the role that virtuous practical judgement plays in the application of rules to particular fact situations. Moreover, it contends that a virtue–centred theory of judging can best account for the phenomenon of lawful judicial disagreement. Finally, a virtue–centred approach best accounts for the practice of equity, departure from the rules based on the judge’s appreciation of the particular characteristics of individual fact situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]. (shrink)

Jurisprudence explores fundamental questions about law and justice from a philosophical and theoretical perspective. Rather than merely describing the field, the book provides rigorous evaluation of jurisprudential arguments and explains in clear, accurate and accessible terms, the complex and cutting-edge debates which define the field of contemporary jurisprudence.

This volume of essays traces the history of jurisprudence from classical times, and examines various interpretations of written laws.

In his introduction to these closely linked essays Professor Hart offers both an exposition and a critical assessment of some central issues in jurisprudence and political theory. Some of the essays touch on themes to which little attention has been paid, such as Bentham's identification of the forms of mysitification protecting the law from criticism; his relation to Beccaria; and his conversion to democratic radicalism and a passionate admiration for the United States.

Basic jurisprudence and legal philosophy (Laws of the South Pacific series, no. 3) - Pub: University of the South Pacific, Institute of Justice & Applied Legal Studies, Suva.

Jurisprudence - Essential Law Texts deals with the two main schools of jurisprudence, which are positivism and naturalism and also off-shoot movements of the positivist school, such as the historical and sociological schools of jurisprudence and of the naturalist school in the form of procedural natural law and the legal enforcement of morality. It explains the concept of a constitution which is basic to any legal system, and clarifies principles of justice and practices at play in the (...) resolution of disputes. This title is written by an Irish academic and is specifically tailored for the Irish student. Includes coverage of: Natural Law; Classical Natural Law; Modern Natural Law; Procedural Natural Law; The Legal Enforcement of Morality; Legal Positivism; Classical Positivism; Modern Positivism; Kelsen; American Legal Theory; Dworkin; Historical Theories of Law; Sociological Theories of Law; Dr Albert Keating is a barrister and senior lecturer in law in Waterford Institute of Technology. a. (shrink)

Introduction: From legal realism to naturalized jurisprudence -- A note on legal indeterminacy -- Part I. American legal realism and its critics -- Rethinking legal realism: toward a naturalized jurisprudence (1997) -- Legal realism and legal positivism reconsidered (2001) -- Is there an "American" jurisprudence? (1997) -- Postscript to Part I: Interpreting legal realism -- Part II. Ways of naturalizing jurisprudence -- Legal realism, hard positivism, and the limits of conceptual analysis (1998, 2001) -- Why Quine (...) is not a postmodernist (1997) -- Beyond the Hart/Dworkin debate: the methodology problem in jurisprudence (2003) -- Part III. Naturalism, morality, and objectivity -- Moral facts and best explanations (2001) -- Objectivity, morality, and adjudication (2001) -- Law and objectivity (2002). (shrink)

v. 1. Jurisprudence. The end of law -- v. 2. The nature of law -- v. 3. The scope and subject matter of law. Sources, forms, modes of growth -- v. 4. Application and enforcement of law. Analysis of general juristic conceptions -- v. 5. The system of law.

THE NATURE OF JURISPRUDENCE CONSIDERED IN RELATION TO SOME RECENT CONTRIBUTIONS TO LEGAL SCIENCE. Professor Holland of Oxford is to be congratulated on ...

African jurisprudence, like African philosophy, continues to be hotly debated. This article contends that the debate straddles the uniqueness claim which either emphasises the existence or possibility of a peculiar legal framework on the continent, and a historical co-extensional position reiterating that African jurisprudence is a continuum of other legal traditions. The article argues that there is no uniquely African jurisprudence, and that what obtains within the structures of jurisprudence on the continent also exists within various (...) legal traditions elsewhere, and as such can at best be described as ‘jurisprudence in Africa’ rather than ‘African jurisprudence’. It defends this thesis through analytic and comparative explications of the content of natural law theory and legal positivism as experienced on the continent. It concedes that relics of the colonial legal experience create contestations that inform scholars’ calls for a return to traditional legal systems. It concludes that a reconstructive jurisprudence in Africa must take cognisance of the continent’s historical and evolutionary legal experiences, but that a unified or monolithic theory may not be sufficient to address the choice of functional jurisprudence. Keywords African jurisprudence, jurisprudence in Africa, African legal evolution, diffused legal theories. (shrink)

General aspects of jurisprudence -- Precursors of modern jurisprudence -- Natural law -- Common law and statute -- Utilitarianism -- Punishment -- Legal positivism -- Authority -- American realism -- The nature of law -- Contemporary American jurisprudence and political philosophy -- Rights -- Law and morality.

Law moves, whether we notice or not. Set amongst a spatial turn in the humanities, and jurisprudence more specifically, this book calls for a greater attention to legal movement, in both its technical and material forms. Despite various ways the spatial turn has been taken up in legal thought, questions of law, movement and its materialities are too often overlooked. This book addresses this oversight, and it does so through an attention to the materialities of legal movement. Paying attention (...) to how law moves across different colonial and contemporary spaces, this book reveals there is a problem with common law's place. Primarily set in the postcolonial context of Australia - although ranging beyond this nationalised topography, both spatially and temporally - this book argues movement is fundamental to the very terms of common law's existence. How, then, might we move well? Explored through examples of walking and burial, this book responds to the challenge of how to live with a contemporary form of colonial legal inheritance by arguing we must take seriously the challenge of living with law, and think more carefully about its spatial productions, and place-making activities. Unsettling place, this book returns the question of movement to jurisprudence. (shrink)

Hart said that analytical jurisprudence is descriptive and general but did not draw an explicit distinction between conceptual questions that are in the main theoretical and others that are in the main practical. In Hart’s account, analytical jurisprudence searches for some kind of clarity about the idea of law and the other basic legal ideas as they occur in our ordinary experience. In the Postscript he explains that jurisprudence is the ‘theoretical or scientific study of law as (...) a social phenomenon’, which may, on occasion, but typically does not, rely on moral deliberation. It is to be contrasted to ‘practical’ questions as to how to live one’s life. I shall call this view ‘descriptivism’. It has been a very influential position in analytical jurisprudence and it is being defended by Hart’s followers even today. In this essay I raise some doubts about its coherence. First, I do not think Hart defended this view consistently —even though he did so in the Postscript. Second, I do not think that the position has been adequately defended, either by Hart or by his followers. There is still a great deal of ambiguity as to the precise position of jurisprudence between theoretical and practical reason.Resumen:Hart sostuvo que la jurisprudencia analítica es descriptiva y general pero no elaboró una distinción explícita entre las preguntas conceptuales que son principalmente teóricas y otras que son principalmente prácticas. En la explicación de Hart, la jurisprudencia analítica busca cierto tipo de claridad acerca de la noción de derecho y las demás ideas básicas tal cual ellas ocurren en nuestra experiencia ordinaria. En el Post Scriptum, él explica que la jurisprudencia es el ‘estudio teórico o científico del derecho como un fenómeno social’, el cual puede, en ocasiones, basarse en la deliberación moral, pero típicamente no lo hace. Esto puede contrastarse con las preguntas “prácticas” acerca de como las personas dirigen su propia vida. Llamo esta tesis “descriptivismo”. Esta ha sido una posición muy influyente en la jurisprudencia analítica y ha sido defendida por los seguidores de Hart hasta hoy. En este ensayo despierto dudas sobre su coherencia. Primero, no creo que Hart defendiera esta tesis de forma consistente. Segundo, no creo que la posición haya sido defendida de forma adecuada, ni por Hart ni por sus seguidores. Aún existe una gran ambigüedad acerca de la posición exacta de la jurisprudencia entre la razón teórica y la razón práctica. (shrink)

Providing balanced coverage of abortion, sexual harassment, censorship and pornography, and other timely and controversial subjects, this pathbreaking anthology is the first to offer a comprehensive introduction to feminist legal philosophy. An important resource for courses in women's studies, philosophy, law, sociology, and political science, it provides many stimulating insights into essential topics in jurisprudence, such as the nature and justification of law, judicial reasoning and the process of adjudication, the connection between law and equality, and freedom and justice.

One of the main purposes of feminist jurisprudence is to create or find better ways of being and living for women through the analysis, critique, and use of law. Rich work has emerged, and continues to emerge, from feminist theorists exploring conceptions of the self, personhood, identity and subjectivity that could be used to form a basic unit in law and politics. In this article, it is argued that a strong sense of human subjectivity needs to be retained to (...) enable the human potentiality of women and men to flourish. This can be done in a way which is not essentialist, yet does not dissolve the subject out of existence, issues pertinent to feminist jurisprudence in recent years. (shrink)

This edited collection includes chapters by leading jurists on all the main historical and contemporary schools of Western jurisprudence as well as on emerging perspectives such as Critical Race Theory and the influence of psychoanalysis on jurisprudence.

Contains Part I of a First Book of Jurisprudence (1929)and essays from Essays in Jurisprudence and Ethics (1882) and Essays in the Law (1922).

In the contemporary domain of American legal thought there is a dominant way in which lawyers and judges craft their argumentative practice. More colloquially, this is a dominant conception of what it means to 'think like a lawyer'. Despite the widespread popularity of this conception, it is rarely described in detail or given a name. Justin Desautels-Stein tells the story of how and why this happened, and why it matters. Drawing upon and updating the work of Harvard Law School's first (...) generation of critical legal studies, Desautels-Stein develops what he calls a jurisprudence of style. In doing so, he uncovers the intellectual alliance, first emerging at the end of the nineteenth century and maturing in the last third of the twentieth century, between American pragmatism and liberal legal thought. Applying the tools of legal structuralism and phenomenology to real-world cases in areas of contemporary legal debate, this book develops a practice-oriented understanding of legal thought. (shrink)

Jurisprudence is a vast, open-ended, and often daunting subject, particularly because of its links with a variety of other disciplines, such as philosophy, sociologyand political science. The answers given in the text explain the nature and significance of these links and seek to unravel their complexity.

Jurisprudence For a Free Society is a remarkable contribution to legal theory. In its comprehensiveness & systematic elaboration, it stands among the major theories. It is also the most important jurisprudential statement to emerge in the post-war period. The pioneering work of Lasswell & McDougal on law & policy is already legendary. Most of the work produced by these scholars together & in collaboration with their students represent applications of their basic theory to a wide assortment of international & (...) national legal & policy problems. Now, for the first time, the authoritative statement of their legal philosophy appears as a single volume. In Part I the authors develop their fundamental criteria for a theory about law, including the requirements of clarifying observational standpoint, focus of inquiry & the pertinent intellectual tasks incumbent on the scholar & decisionmaker for determining & achieving common interests. Trends in theories about law, including Natural Law, the Historical School, Positivism, the Sociological Study of Law, American Legal Realism & other contemporary theories, are explored for what they might contribute to the achievement to the authors' conception of an adequate jurisprudence. In Part II, the social process as a whole & the particular value-institutional processes that comprise it are described & analyzed. Because people establish, maintain & change institutions, the dynamics of personality & personality's relation to law is delineated. Part III explores the intellectual tasks of policy thinking, from clarification of values, through description of trend, the scientific examination of conditions, projection of future developments & the invention of alternatives. Part IV examines the structure of decision in a free society, a society in which the achievement of human dignity is confirmed in both word & deed. Six appendices bring together monographs by the authors over a period of forty years which deal, in more detail, with particular matters treated in the body of the book. (shrink)

Preparation for the Study of Theories of Law: Non-Universality of Law, Irreconcilable Epistemologies, Ideological Incipience; Theories in Metaphysical-Rational Epistemology: Divine and Prophetic Theories; Natural Law: Early Hindu, Chinese, Greek, Roman, and Modern; Theories in Idealist Epistemology; Theories in Empiricist Epistemology; Positivist: Early Hindu, Chinese, Later Bentham, Austin, Kelsen, Hart; Historical Von Savigny, Maine, Marx and Engels; Sociological Jhering, Ehrlich, Duguit, Jurisprudence of Interests, Free Law; Psychological Petrazycki; American Realist; Philosophical Framework; Expressions; Scandinavian Realist; Phenomenological; The Critical Legal Studies and (...) its Offshoots: Critical Legal Studies, Feminist Jurisprudence, Critical Race Theory; Legal Polycentricity. (shrink)

From the reviews of the first edition of Jurisprudence: The Philosophy and Method of the Law (Harvard University Press 1962): A profoundly scholarly, clearly written and thoroughly unpretentious contribution to the literature of jurisprudence.

Features collected extracts from key texts in jurisprudence, with commentary. These discuss the nature of law, and modern attempts to find an acceptable theory of justice. The book is intended for students of law.

This new book takes an innovative and novel approach to the study of jurisprudence. Drawing together a range of specialists, making original contributions, it provides a summary, analysis, and critique of basic themes in, and major contributions to, the study of jurisprudence. The book explores issues and ideas in jurisprudence in a way that integrates them with legal study more broadly, avoiding the tendency in recent years for the subject to become overly inward-looking, specialist and technical, leaving (...) students and the subject adrift. It picks up mid-range concepts such as rights, sovereignty, and adjudication and charts their interrelation and uses in law and legal theory. The approach taken to the subject is an interdisciplinary one, and involves making linkages with contemporary issues in political and social theory, such as the changing role of the state, forms of dispute resolution and the courts. It also addresses topics not normally covered, or covered only indirectly in other jurisprudence textbooks, such as globalisation and legal culture. Its coverage is therefore broad and links legal, political, philosophical, and social analysis. (shrink)

Each of the essays included in this volume illuminates an aspect of law, reflecting an unorthodox perception of jurisprudence which combines interests in philosophy, legal theory, criminology, legal history, political and constitutional theory and the history of ideas. This work will broaden the jurisprudential scope of practitioners' professional concerns, but help academics enhance their knowledge of the wealth of information for their own studies.

La jurisprudence est l'un des phénomènes juridiques les plus problématiques, comme source du droit réel mais non officielle. Ce livre retrace son parcours dans l'histoire de la pensée juridique, longtemps dominée par le légicentrisme. Il s'intéresse également à la difficile identification doctrinale des jugements, arrêts et décisions à portée jurisprudentielle. Il s'attache enfin à la jurisprudentialisation du droit, qui constitue l'une des données les plus remarquables du droit contemporain, ainsi qu'aux critiques que la doctrine adresse à un droit trop (...) abandonné au "gouvernement des juges". (shrink)

The second Yearbook of the Central East European Forum of Young Legal, Political and Social Theorists aims at reassessing some major legacies of jurisprudence and political philosophy, thereby celebrating one hundred years from the publication of the first important theoretical account of Hans Kelsen - Hauptprobleme der Staatsrechtslehre; the fifty-years anniversary of one of the most important contemporary books in legal theory - Herbert Hart's The Concept of Law; as well as the forty-years heritage of the most influential 20th (...) century account of justice - John Rawls's A Theory of Justice. On this occasion fourteen scholars from Eastern and Central Europe gave their accounts and interpretations of jurisprudential and political philosophical problems that persist or emerge anew in contemporary debates. (shrink)

v. 1. Introduction ; Tribal law -- v. 2. The jurisprudence of the Greek city.

This important collection of essays includes Professor Hart's first defense of legal positivism; his discussion of the distinctive teaching of American and Scandinavian jurisprudence; an examination of theories of basic human rights and the notion of "social solidarity," and essays on Jhering, Kelsen, Holmes, and Lon Fuller.

These essays deal with central and controversial issues in jurisprudence. This volume emphasizes legal theory, and the collection will be of interest to students of and others involved with political philosophy as well as law students and philosophers.

The nature and scope of jurisprudence -- Rights and justice -- Law and morality -- Classical and modern natural law -- Classical and modern legal positivism -- Legal realism -- Sociological jurisprudence -- Critical legal studies.