Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Legal Theory, and Judicial Restraint

"...is an impressive achievement: Kellogg brings a new and thought-provoking perspective to Justice Holmes, the most important figure in American legal history; the book sheds new light on Holmes's ideas and legacy."
--Professor Brian Bix, University of Minnesota Law School


"In this brilliant book, Frederic Kellogg revives a Holmes hitherto buried in the neglect of Holmes' doctrinalism--indeed in the neglect of doctrinal argument as a fundamental method of constitutional construction. Here we see the Holmes who brought the common law tradition of deciding appeals to constitutional adjudication. It is a tour de force."
--Professor Philip Bobbitt, University of Texas Law School


"Can Justice Holmes add insight to...contemporary debate? For Professor Kellogg the answer is an emphatic 'yes.'"
--Stuart Shiffman, American Judicature Society


"...Kellogg does an excellent job of laying out some of the great challenges for philosophers of law and of showing that one great American figure was more consistent in his intelligent response to these challenges than has been recognized thus far in scholarship.... Kellogg reveals several ways in which Holmes's work has insight to offer for contemporary debates in legal philosophy. Philosophers of law, of pragmatism, and of politics will benefit from Kellogg's in-depth study and defense of Holmes."
--Eric Thomas Weber, University of Mississippi, The Pluralist

Frederic R. Kellogg is a scholar of jurisprudence and has been Visiting Scholar in the Department of Philosophy at the George Washington University, Senior Fulbright Fellow at the University of Warsaw, and Visiting Professor at Moscow State University. He is the author of The Formative Essays of Justice Holmes: The Making of an American Legal Philosophy, as well as numerous articles on legal philosophy and jurisprudence.

1. A time for law; 2. Playing king; 3. Holmes's conception of law; 4. Common law theory revisited; 5. Holmes and legal classification; 6. The general theory of liability (and its critics); 7. Morals and skepticism in law; 8. Judges, principles, and policy; 9. Common law constitutionalism; 10. Holmes's theory in retrospect.