Talk:Jurisprudence

Frankly, this is one of the most embarassingly bad entries on anything to do with law or philosophy in all of Wikipedia. But, as many of the notes below complain, the problem is knowing just where to begin. Start over entirely, I guess. Or just give links to something from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. I'm not sure. Almost none of the definitions are correct; the whole emphasis is quirky; the most significant and influential writers are either not mentioned or misunderstood (Aquinas, Bentham, Austin, Kelsen, Hart, Fuller, Raz, Dworkin, would be a start.) Maybe ppl who know the subject would be willing to take on chunks? Then perhaps we could think of trying to put it into reasonable English. I made a start on the first para. Would someone knowledgeable about the modern natural law tradition in Simon, Finnis, Fuller and Soper please correct the mistakes in the existing material.

1] No, jurisprudence is not definable as simply "the law." --LMS

It certainly can be and often is without offering more. It is not enough to state what it is not, one must state then what it is! - RB

Somebody might want to look at the punctuation in this page (do a search for '?' in your browser to see what I mean). I'm not sure if someone edited the page in Word, but there seems to be errant question marks (possible apostrophes?); in addition, some sentences seem to lack ending punctuation. -- Notheruser 22:20 May 12, 2003 (UTC)

2] I agree with the opinion gave in wikipedia for 'jurisprudence', but it could be interesting to note or to add, that in continental and latinamerican contexts, 'jurisprudence' also means some stream of opinion prevaling in tribunals. For example, we says that "according to the prevaling jurisprudence contractants ought to...", o "according with the dominant jurisprudence [or the jurisprudence followed by this court] the article 14 of our constitution means...". [O. Sarlo, Montevideo, 08/02/2004)

The lead section of this article should probably be cleaned up according to wikipedia style (specifically having only two or three paragraphs before the Table of Contents). --Interiot 22:21, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

This article needs a lot of work. I am going to edit it drastically because it falls so far short of how an encyclopedic entry for jurisprudence should. It is going to take ages. --Never29 00:20, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

This article states some "incorrect" uses of the term jurisprudence that are not incorrect at all. Seeing them as incorrect is a result of merging jurisprudence and philosophy of law. Philosophy of law is, indeed, one meaning for jurisprudence, but so is "Knowledge of or skill in law." (first OED entry) "The science which treats of human laws (written or unwritten) in general" (second OED entry - which is listed as equivalent to "philosophy of law" and "A system or body of law; a legal system." (the second meaning of the term in the OED). I submit that jurisprudence qua philosophy of law is a subset of jurisprudence in general, and that there are many jurisprudential subjects that philosophers won't touch upon (such as the rationale of particular laws).

Yes, you are right. I've deleted that passage, don't know when it popped up. It was wrong, and there's a disamiguation link at the top to show for it, because the jurisprudence of the courts is a way of saying case law. It seems that the person who put it in also had something against European law. Ignorance produces prejudice perhaps! That said, you could have simply done the same yourself. Be bold in editting! Wikidea 00:49, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Would an expert PLEASE write a better definition of "jurisprudence" than:

"It is a historical, social, and cultural movement with the inherent contradiction that analysis of the law and understanding of its politics will unravel and reveal the 'truth' behind legal reasoning and the exercise of legal power, even while at the same time admitting there is no such thing."

The existing definition doesn't make sense. Subversive 03:24, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

I've rewritten this in a way that I think is both clearer and more reflective of what jurisprudential scholars/philosophers of law actually think they are doing. Metamagician3000 01:34, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

I think the challenge involves defining it outside the context of any particular legal system. That being said, perhaps if the articles on "philosophy of law" and "legal theory" were concurently amended to reflect the distinctions between these three areas the current page would be much improved. In short, much of the article addresses topics and authors in the field of philosophy of law. I suggest the following view be taken as an arbitrary framework from which a topical structure can be derived from knowledge of the field. Philosophy of law address the social requirement for law (nominal and actual), identifies probands for the ascertainment legal systems, and (if your philosophy includes a moral component) it identifies the measures whereby legal values are weighed (and thereby the ends of law). Legal theory is an essentially structuralistic approach to understanding concepts in the nature of law; the nature of law becomes the object rather than a subject of the discourse. Therefore the fact that "law" is terms of art which nonetheless encompasses distinct but well-founded domains of discourse has to be emphasized. From this perspective (less than categorical, I admit) law can be understood to refer in several terms to the social custom, the practice of law, the underlying social value system, and finally the (presumably) common understanding of law as an imperative justified in terms of particular goals. Finally, jurisprudence should be explained in terms of practice; from the standpoint of judges, but affected by the interests of justice system participants (which judges necessarily appreciate in practice). An intro to jurisprudence is the concept of juridical thought; that is interpretation of the instruments of law as a nominal framework from which a common undertstanding ("common sens") is realisec in ideal terms. Jurisprudence can be understood in the same sens as it is used in common law, inclusive of doctrine. It underpins, critically examines, and acts upon juridical thought. Hope this helps. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Qwerty2001 (talk • contribs) 22:06, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Please can this article be augmented to show that:

1. 'Law' is passive metaphorical construct based on two equally-opposing concepts of just cause;
2. 'Jurisprudence' in mathematics is a Class 3 Scammel Period Table which is known in the State Of Japan as an 'Ouija Board';
3. A 'Judas Erasmus Walrus' (JEW) is a mainline Locum Law Judge (known in the USA as (LLJ));
4. The whole law, once assembled, is the 50 United States Constitution resalable in the 50 United States Dollar (USD);
5. 'Susandiction' the process of 'sue'ing somebody, is a military process borne by equal share through third-party constitutions.

Without these clarifications the article looks like something out of the stone age. The 'Law' article is worse, however.194.61.223.53 (talk) 14:30, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

The definition and discussion of positivism really described an extreme theory that is not held by any theorist in recent times. I doubt that even someone like Austin believed something this crude. I have rewritten this to give a better indication of what is believed by leading positivists such as H.L.A. Hart. Metamagician3000 01:05, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Actually, the discussion here is also a bit of a caricature. I've made a first attempt at rewriting it. It should be noted that modern natural law and positivist theories often converge on many points. The differences can be more ones of degree. E.g. a positivist can find much that is useful in the claims made by Fuller. Metamagician3000 01:14, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Why is Thomas Hobbes mentioned here and not John Locke? The two are inteimately connected, and also unique. Locke merits his own sections, imo. 69.178.122.114 (talk) 22:34, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

The emphasis on Dooyeweerd's work - a relatively obscure Christian philosopher - is not justified. Major philosophers of law - contemporary or not- (e.g.Grotius, Hart, Raz, Dworkin, Austin, etc.) are not mentioned.

Well, edit boldly. I made a start some time back, but didn't get very far. Yes, the article needs to discuss those, and other major jurisprudential thinkers. Metamagician3000 14:38, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Hello @Metamagician3000, I'd like to improve this page, but to improve the page I need to start by improving the talk page as it is not even reasonable to understand what the articles issues are right now. I'd like to make a "Resolved" section on this talk page and move your comment there since your comment has been addressed. Czarking0 (talk) 15:18, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

@Czarking0 this comment is from 2006, so it's definitely not relevant anymore ;) Look at the bottom of this page for the newest comments--everything at the top is over a decade old. Alyo (chat·edits) 15:38, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

Reasons to merge:

1. There is no difference between 'jurisprudence' and 'philosophy of law' - it's really the same thing generally, and only little fiddly differences could be conjured up

2. Both articles cover broadly similar topics - they talk about positivism and natural law, although there are strengths in some bits and not others, e.g. the philosophy of law page has a useful list of authors; or the jurisprudence page has an interesting stub referring to islamic jurisprudence User:Wikidea

Forgot that perhaps the talk page from philosophy of law is needed to be merged too!!Wikidea 01:33, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

The original article didn't seem like nonsense, so much as a woefully inadequate stub (or, worst case, a dictionary entry). There really is such a thing as a "philosophy of law" (just do a search in Google and see how many responses come back), and while "A system of values that informs a legal system" doesn't do the topic justice (no pun intended), and the definition wasn't so much nonsense as dictionary-like.

Right, philosophy of law is a well-established branch of philosophy. The definition given was completely inadequate as a definition of this philosophical subdiscipline; as a philosophical subdiscipline, it's not a "system of values" at all, or only in the most tenuous of senses. Hence, nonsense. --LMS

Au contraire. Unlike the grand concept of philosophy, a philosophy of "law" cannot exist without a "system of values" because the very word "law" comes with core defined assumptions about its meaning.

The current revisions aim to flesh out the article, which is still inadequate. There is a need for more discussion of legal positivism, especially the work of H.L.A. Hart and Joseph Raz. More discussion of natural law theory is needed, especially the work of John Finnis. There should be individual entries on various topics in substantive areas such as contract theory, tort theory, etc., as well as summaries of those entries in the philosophy of law entry. Lot's of work here.

I think something should be said of the effect that post-modernism has had on legal thinking. Deconstruction and other concepts relating to literary analysis and power relationships have been applied to the law to good effect. I could add something but it wouldn't be that complete, I didn't understand it that well in my "history and philosophy of law" class :) Psychobabble

I'm looking for an explanation of facts in the natural world and facts in the legal world. Clearly they are not the same as the rules governing what is accepted as fact in science is very different from that in law. Mulp 6 July 2005 23:46 (UTC)

I think an essential aspect of the nature of the philosophy of law is greatly neglected in the article. The philosophical debate as to the role of 'reason' within law, presented in such works as Aristotle's 'The politics' and Thomas Hobbes' 'A dialogue between a philosopher and a student of the the common laws of England'. 'Law is reason free from passion'; the debate on the matter is that there is a rational basis of law, i.e. law is informed by reason and cannot be law if it conflicts with reason. However the problemwith such a statement is that to reduce law to only reason would ope the way to disobedience on the part of man (and these can be many, who claims to be more reasonable than is the law itself. Thus the hard case is put: If law is reason and reason alone generates law, then law gains greatly in dignity but loses its own nature; for it is of the nature of law to commandthat it comport with obedience; but a command whose authoritativeness begins and ends with the reasonableness of the command will not, by its nature, procure obedience, for it is of the nature of reason to be always open to question.

21/08/2005, 16:33 GMT []

I removed the citations of Dworkin's Sovereign Virtue: The Theory and Practice of Equality and Mark Tushnet's Red, White and Blue: A Critical Analysis of Constitutional Law. These are both excellent works, but they hardly fit the definition of philosophy of law given by the article. Nor would any legal philosopher say they were works in philosophy of law. Sovereign Virtue is a work in political philosophy. Red, White and Blue is a work in constitutional theory.

Agreed. I've corrected the mistakes in the positivism section. The errors in the Natural Law section now also need to be fixed. Could someone who knows the contemporary literature (especially Finnis, Alexy, and Murphy) try to do this.

The Dworkin book does fit into jurisprudence - I've been reading it of late for another purpose, and I'd say it is definitely "doing" philosophy of law as well as political philosophy (hey, it's most unclear where one ends and the other begins). The Tushnet book I am less familiar with, but from what I know of it I agree - more a book done from within the field of law than one looking at it from a more philosophical perspective. Or at least so it seems to me. Metamagician3000 08:17, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Reasons to merge:

1. There is no difference between 'jurisprudence' and 'philosophy of law' - it's really the same thing generally, and only little fiddly differences could be conjured up

2. Both articles cover broadly similar topics - they talk about positivism and natural law, although there are strengths in some bits and not others, e.g. the philosophy of law page has a useful list of authors; or the jurisprudence page has an interesting stub referring to islamic jurisprudence User:Wikidea

I agree that they are the same thing, and I'm not opposed to a merge - though I'm also not all that strongly in favour because my view that they are the same thing might be contested by some thinkers. Metamagician3000 05:11, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Which thinkers do you have in mind? I agree, that there are always going to be some that want to draw a distinction. But it's probably true that the leading ones - Dworkin, Hart, Raz, Finnis, etc, have always taught them as the same, right? Besides, the articles' contents are pretty identical. User:Wikidea

I said "might" because I don't particularly have anyone in mind. As I say, I agree they are the same thing. I guess I sometimes see legal theory texts that might count as jurisprudence but are not written by philosophers, and there may be questions about where philosophy of law begins and where the theoretical study of substantive legal doctrine or of sociology of law ends - and how much some of these other things count as being part of "jurisprudence". For what it's worth, though, when I did a jurisprudence subject at Law School we were told that "jurisprudence" is just a fancy word for philosophy of law ... and that's how I still think of it. Yes, I consider Dworkin, Hart, Finnis, Raz, blah, blah to be philosophers of law and jurisprudential scholars, and the terms to be interchangeable when applied to them. :) Metamagician3000 14:01, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

I have not yet read it, but if anyone is interested in exploring this more, there is an article about this: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/raju.12185 Weagesdf (talk) 11:40, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

Might it be a good idea to structure the page by philosophers, rather than by the 'schools' that they belong to? It makes more sense to look at one person at a time maybe?Wikidea 01:39, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

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Its a small point, but the latin is not juris, its iuris. There's no Classical Latin "j", it doesn't appear until well into the Middle Ages. Ellinor127 (talk) 09:39, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Changing "A iudex" to "An iudex" seems overly pedantic. Or is it just meant to be said quickly?Wikiain (talk) 22:41, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

@Ellinor127: If you're going to change every j to an i for the sake of spelling Latin as Cicero* did instead of the way it's often, perfectly legitimately, spelled today, consistency demands that you use us ;-) instead of vs in louuercase, and Vs instead of Us in VPPERCASE.

Anyone reading the article to find out about jurisprudence will find iurisprudentia more confusing than enlightening, at least till they figure it out or shrug and give up on it... unless they know (something about) Latin, in which case "jurisprudentia" won't surprise them because they already know about the purely orthographic change.

* rather, as Tiro did

@Wikiain: It's not just pedantic, it's wrong. See first part of my reply, to Ellinor127. Latin "j" (only ever seen before a vowel) or "i" (when before a vowel) represents the sound of English "y" in the word "you" or "yes".

Thnidu (talk) 18:28, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

Does "Equitative" mean anything? I cannot even guess what it is supposed to mean in this article!Jezza (talk) 17:47, 18 July 2009 (UTC) yes sir i agree with u its nat a litin word — Preceding unsigned comment added by 111.68.97.164 (talk) 15:03, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

The intro here doesn't make sense to me. Natural Law is a theory of jurisprudence, not an area of investigation in the same sense that the other categories are. I have made a tentative edit using this as a source: http://topics.law.cornell.edu/wex/Jurisprudence JFQ (talk) 13:13, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Also, the article is clearly organized along this line which is really a shame. The whole thing seems largely unreadable at this point. There's a fair deal of good information in the article but the organization doesn't make any sense. I may try to rearrange things later, but I'm hardly expert and it would be quite a big task to take on for anybodyJFQ (talk) 13:31, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

The intro and the general organisation of the article is correct, which is why I've reverted those changes of yours. My understanding is that after David Hume pointed out the naturalistic fallacy and the is-ought problem, there emerged this separation between analytic and normative aspects of legal philosophy - that's the same as what happened in political economy/economics, where they talk about the separation of positive and normative analysis. By all means keep editing away at the stuff below; it looks like the changes to the Aristotle part are useful, though keep in mind this is necessarily a summary, and that for great detail you want to change the main articles. Wikidea 14:03, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Oh, also, websites (even from Cornell law school) are not adequate sources. Need books. Wikidea 14:04, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Gonna make me go to real sources huh. Ok, but it's still wrong. Let me know what you think of the next revision?JFQ (talk) 14:17, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

You missed the point. I wasn't challenging that there are analytic and normative questions. The distinction is real and present in a broad swath of philosophy. I was saying that "Natural law" is a theory of jurisprudence, not a type of question within the area of jurisprudence. Natural law theory is an answer to those questions and doesn't therefore make sense as an organizing principle on the same level as "analytic" and "normative". Natural law theory addresses analytic and normative questions just like any other theory of jurisprudence. It's of the same status as positivism realism and cls which are all discussed, somewhat confusingly, under the "analytic jurisprudence" heading. Of the existing categories tho, the Normative section needs the most work as it presently appears to be primarily about political philosophy and not jurisprudence. It looks to me like the article has been shoehorned badly into this structure which is at this point confused and confusing. I've made another stab at laying out a schema for organizing the article in the introduction which at least recognizes that natural law is not separate from other theories of jurisprudence in the questions that it addresses.JFQ (talk) 15:37, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Is this article meant to be a joke? I wasn't aware of any pages intended for comedy purposes being allowed. A search for Frédéric Bastiat, his book "The Law" - or any variation on that - in this artice found no results. Should we ammend the article on Physics to mention Newton but not Einstein in the same manner? - Jimmi Hugh (talk) 14:42, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but why is Wittgenstein included as a philosopher of law? Or is that list only meant to include philosophers that have influenced jurisprudence?75.141.113.231 (talk) 10:48, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

I agree. I don't think Wittgenstein ever wrote about law - or, if he did, it would only have been in passing and uninformed. On the other hand, if we include philosophers who have 'only' influenced jurisprudence - as indeed Wittgenstein has - we will have to include nearly every philosopher who ever lived.--Wikiain (talk) 22:56, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

This section is out of place, has the wrong type of header, thereby messing up the entry, and is uninformative. Can someone with Wiki credentials please consider whether this is relevant to the entry, and if yes, where it should go and how it can be made informative? Thanks. In the meantime I am going to remove it.--80.89.84.200 (talk) 11:57, 13 February 2014 (UTC)