The Practice of Principle In Defence of a Pragmatist Approach to Legal Theory (Clarendon Law Lectures) - Hardcover

Coleman, Jules

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0198298145 ISBN 13: 9780198298144

Publisher: OUP Oxford, 2001

Synopsis

Jules Coleman, one of the world's most influential philosophers of law here expounds his recent views on a range of important issues in legal theory. Coleman offers for the first time an explicit account of the pragmatist method that has long informed his work, and takes on the views of highly respected contemporaries such as Ronald Dworkin and Joseph Raz.

The first part of the book builds on Coleman's well-known 'corrective justice' account of tort law, highlighting the sophisticated pragmatist methodology that he brings to bear on legal theory and presing further his critique of the law and economics school of legal analysis. The second part advances a new articulation of the jurisprudential view associated most closely with Coleman - Inclusive Legal Positivism. Many of Coleman's most controversial claims are here defended as part of a comprehensive new account of law as a conventional practice. The third part takes up the question whether conceptual analysis of the law - an approach that has long dominated philosophical thinking on the topic - is even possible. Rejecting recent arguments that it must be replaced by a normative or naturalized jurisprudence, Coleman defends his distinctive form of pragmatist conceptual analysis.

About this title

Review

The Practice of Principle is exceptional for the fresh air it breathes into old debates, blowing aside the dust of tangential debates and leaving clean a work area in which beautiful philosophy proceeds. (Michigan Law Review)

For those with a serious interest in the field of legal philosophy, this is a must-read. (Michigan Law Review)

Practice is dense and rich, with new arguments appearing on almost every page. (Michigan Law Review)

Practice will surely be mined for years for its many and subtle discussions of the nature of law and legal argument. The book is a wonderful achievement, both for Coleman himself, and for the development of rigorous philosophical study of the law. (Michigan Law Review)

Jules Coleman's The Practice of Principle serves as a focal point for current, newly intensified debates in legal theory, and provides some of the deepest, most sustained reflections on methodology that legal theory has seen. (Michigan Law Review)

... ample food for thought on the part of anyone interested in legal philosophy. Coleman has enabled his readers to deepen their contemplation of the issues which he addresses. (The Cambridge Law Journal)

Though some of his critical observations on law-and-economics are not novel, they are tellingly and perceptively articulated. Furthermore, his methodological ruminations on his own account of tort law are illuminating. (The Cambridge Law Journal)

... impressive, thought-provoking. (The Cambridge Law Journal)

Coleman's writing clearly basks in the heat of the seminar room. The result is to convey a mood of real intellectual excitement, even for readers with little stake in the outcome of particular debates. I suspect Jules Coleman's views will continue to evolve, pragmatically, as they confront the tribunal of experience and academic debate. In the mean time, we have this exceedingly valuable demonstration of the possibility and the limits of philosophical engagement. (Christopher Kutz, Times Literary Supplement)

The virtues of Colemans pragmatic approach ... are the generosity of its scope and the modesty of its objectives. (Christopher Kutz, Times Literary Supplement)

About the Author

Jules Coleman is Wesley Newcomb Hohfeld Professor of Jurisprudence and Philosophy, Yale University. He is the editor of the journal Legal Theory.

Edition details

• Publisher: OUP Oxford
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0198298145
• ISBN 13: 9780198298144
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 246