Publisher Description

Forty years after his death, Hans Kelsen (1881-1973) remains one of the most discussed and influential legal philosophers of our time. This collection of new essays takes Kelsen's Pure Theory of Law as a stimulus, aiming to move forward the debate on several central issues in contemporary jurisprudence. The essays in Part I address legal validity, the normativity of law, and Kelsen's famous but puzzling idea of a legal system's 'basic norm'. Part II engages with the difficult issues raised by the social realities of law and the actual practices of legal officials. Part III focuses on conceptual features of legal systems and the logical structure of legal norms. All the essays were written for this volume by internationally renowned scholars from seven countries. Also included, in English translation, is an important polemical essay by Kelsen himself.

Author Biography

Luís Duarte d'Almeida is Chancellor's Fellow in Law at the University of Edinburgh.John Gardner is Professor of Jurisprudence at the University of Oxford.Leslie Green is Professor of the Philosophy of Law at the University of Oxford.

Table of Contents

1 IntroductionLuís Duarte d'Almeida, John Gardner and Leslie GreenI. LEGAL VALIDITY AND THE BASIC NORM2 Norm-claims, Validity and Self-referenceBert van Roermund3 The Great Puzzle: Kelsen's Basic NormStanley L Paulson4 The Basic Norm RevisitedRiccardo GuastiniII. LAW'S EMPIRICAL EXISTENCE5 The Efficacy of Constitutional NormsPablo E Navarro6 The Realist Hans KelsenUta Bindreiter7 Wiener RealismPierluigi Chiassoni8 Kelsen and Hägerström: Clearing Up Misunderstandings and Mapping Out the Common GroundJes Bjarup9 A 'Realistic' Theory of Law and the Pure Theory of Law: Remarkson Alf Ross's On Law and JusticeHans KelsenIII. LEGAL NORMS AND LEGAL SCIENCE10 Kelsen on the Completeness and Consistency of LawEugenio Bulygin11 The Alternative Character of the Legal Norm: Kelsen as a Defeasibilist?Richard HS Tur12 In Canonical Form: Kelsen's Doctrine of the 'Complete' Legal NormLuís Duarte d'Almeida

Feature

This collection of essays takes Kelsen's Pure Theory of Law as a stimulus, aiming to move forward the debate on several central issues in contemporary jurisprudence.The essays are written by internationally renowned scholars from seven countries.The book will be of great interest to all those working in the field of legal philosophy as well as those interested in Kelsen more generally.

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