Law as a Leap of Faith

Gardner, John

Abstract

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Law as a Leap of Faith

John Gardner

University of Oxford - Faculty of Law

January 1, 2000

FAITH IN LAW, P. Oliver, S. Douglas-Scott & V. Tadros, eds., Hart Publishing, 2000

Abstract:
This paper simultaneously pursues two comparisons: (1) a comparison between the religious believer's presupposition of God's existence and the lawyer's presupposition of the bindingness of the first constitution; and (2) a comparison between Søren Kierkegaard's philosophy of religion and Hans Kelsen's philosophy of law. Altough both exercises throw up some important disanalogies, there are also many valuable lessons, especially concerning the intellectual fate of the tradition known as 'legal positivism'.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 20

Keywords: jurisprudence

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Date posted: April 30, 2009

Suggested Citation

Gardner, John, Law as a Leap of Faith (January 1, 2000). FAITH IN LAW, P. Oliver, S. Douglas-Scott & V. Tadros, eds., Hart Publishing, 2000. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1397138

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John Gardner (Contact Author)

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