Naturalizing Jurisprudence: Three Approaches
THE FUTURE OF NATURALISM, J. Shook & P. Kurtz, eds., Prometheus Books, Amherst, NY, 2009
16 Pages Posted: 28 Oct 2008 Last revised: 17 Nov 2008
Date Written: October 23, 2008
Abstract
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).
Keywords: jurisprudence, naturalism, legal realism, quine, epistemology
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