John Roberts assumed his position as Chief Justice of the United States just prior to the commencement of the October 2005 Term of the Supreme Court. That was seven years after Google was incorporated, one year before Facebook became available to the general public, and two years before Apple released the first iPhone. The twelve…
Category: Symposium
Law’s Evolving Emergent Phenomena: From Rules of Social Intercourse to Rule of Law Society
Law involves institutions rooted in the history of a society that evolve in relation to surrounding social, psychological, cultural, economic, political, technological, and ecological influences. Law must be understood naturalistically, historically, and holistically. In my usage, naturalism views humans as social animals with natural traits and requirements, historicism presents law as historical manifestations that change…
Lawness
One of the more important insights in H.L.A.Hart’s The Concept of Law comes on the very first pages of the book, where Hart insightfully observes that the typical appeal for a definition of “law” is not really a search for a definition at all, but is instead a mask for any of a number of…
Phenomenology, Colonialism, and the Administrative State
In A Realistic Theory of Law, Brian Tamanaha rejects the claim that universal legal principles exist, and its variant that essential features of law applicable to all societies can be identified. He argues that we should define law in accordance with our society’s ordinary usage of the term and analyze law in other societies on…
The Data of Jurisprudence
In contemporary jurisprudential writing, there is no lack of attention to method. Although I have participated in this activity, I have reservations about it, partly because it tends to be narcissistic, but more because it can encourage an unwelcome form of intellectual-boundary policing. Despite these reservations, I will offer in this essay some reflections on…
The Pragmatist Tradition: Lessons for Legal Theorists
As you probably noticed, my title is ambiguous—deliberately so, because my purpose here is twofold: to teach legal theorists something of the pragmatist tradition in philosophy, its history, its character, and its content; and to suggest some of the ways in which the intellectual resources of that tradition can enhance our understanding of the law….
A New Historical Jurisprudence?
In his provocative new book, A Realistic Theory of Law, Brian Tamanaha offers a variety of insightful analyses and conclusions that may shake up analytical jurisprudence for years to come. In the course of a relatively short and highly accessible work, Tamanaha challenges conceptual theories of law and conventional understandings of international law, clarifies important…
Three Forms of Legal Pragmatism
Within any discipline there are said to be lumpers and splitters, hedgehogs and foxes. My inclinations run to lumping, but in this essay I aim to do some splitting. Specifically, I seek to distinguish among three distinct forms of legal pragmatism. Although my sympathy for one of the strands will likely become clear, my purpose…
Reconsidering Hostile Takeover of Religious Organizations
‘The Peculiar Genius of Private-Law Systems’: Making Room for Religious Commerce
Religious commerce has long sat uncomfortably at the nexus of public law and private law. On the one hand, such transactions invariably have garden-variety commercial objectives, which are best achieved and regulated through the law of tort, contract, and property. And yet the intermingled religious aspirations of the parties often inject constitutional concerns that muddy the waters. To navigate these…
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