Legal Positivism and The Real Definition of Law by David Plunkett (Dartmouth College) and Daniel Wodak (University of Pennsylvania)

On-line seminar of the Law-Language-Philosophy Research Network via Zoom on 26th November 2020 .

Abstract:

We explore an underappreciated tension at the heart of the debate over legal positivism. On the one hand, the debate is understood to aspire to tell us what law is, and the nature of law. But, on the other hand, the positions in the debate are formulated such that they’re about something else: what law is necessarily connected to or dependent on. This is a genuine tension, because what law is necessarily connected to or dependent on neither states nor settles what law is or the nature of law. This tension prompts us to propose a new approach to formulating positivism and antipositivism as theses about the real definition of law. Our proposal reconfigures the debate over legal positivism in significant ways. Among other things, it helps us uncover important gaps in prominent arguments about positivism, and helps us broaden the range of serious theoretical options in general jurisprudence.

This seminar is a free event, a part of the project no 2020/36/C/HS5/00600 funded by the National Science Center of Poland.