Library of Essays in Contemporary Legal Theory – serie

The third in a series of three volumes on Contemporary Legal Theory, this volume deals with four topics: 1) the role of legal theory in the legal curriculum; 2) the teaching of legal theory; 3) the relationship of legal theory to legal scholarship; and 4) the relationship of legal theory to comparative law. The focus of the first two topics is on the common law world, where the debates over the aims and proper place of legal theory in the study of law have traversed a good deal of ground since John Austin's 1828 lecture, 'The Uses and the Study of Jurisprudence.' These first two parts offer a selection of the most important papers, including surveys, as well as pedagogical viewpoints and particular course descriptions from analytical, critical, feminist, law-and-literature and global perspectives. The last three decades have seen just as many changes for legal scholarship and comparative law. These changes (such as the rise of empirical legal scholarship) have often attracted the attention of legal theorists. Within comparative law, the last thirty years have witnessed intense methodological reflection within the discipline; the results of these reflections are themselves properly recognised as legal theoretical contributions. The volume collects the key papers, including those by Neil MacCormick, Mark Van Hoecke, Andrew Halpin, William Ewald and Geoffrey Samuel.

Ever since H.L.A. Hart's self-description of The Concept of Law as an 'exercise in descriptive sociology', contemporary legal theorists have been debating the relationship between legal theory and sociology, and between legal theory and social science more generally. There have been some who have insisted on a clear divide between legal theory and the social sciences, citing fundamental methodological differences. Others have attempted to bridge gaps, revealing common challenges and similar objects of inquiry. Collecting the work of authors such as Martin Krygier, David Nelken, Brian Tamanaha, Lewis Kornhauser, Gunther Teubner and Nicola Lacey, this volume - the second in a three volume series - provides an overview of the major developments in the last thirty years. The volume is divided into three sections, each discussing an aspect of the relationship of legal theory and the social sciences: 1) methodological disputes and collaboration; 2) common problems, especially as they concern different modes of explanation of social behaviour; and 3) common objects, including, most prominently, the study of language in its social context and normative pluralism.