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Misunderstanding Positivism, Anthony J. Sebok

Michigan Law Review

It is important that I point out the limited purposes of this article. I cannot, in the context of the argument I make, prove that positivism will not inevitably collapse into a conservative theory of law. Nor can I prove that positivism is not vulnerable to jurisprudential arguments unrelated to the attempt to link positivism with formalism, legal process, and originalism. I recognize that strong arguments have been made that modem positivism's attempts to divorce itself from classical positivism's command theory of law has opened up more problems than it has solved. I have certain views on whether that divorce …