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University of Michigan Law School

Law and Philosophy

Realism

Articles 1 - 10 of 10

Full-Text Articles in Law

Pragmatism Regained, Christopher Kutz Jan 2002

Pragmatism Regained, Christopher Kutz

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. Coleman is one of the leading legal philosophers in the Anglo-American world, and his writings on tort theory, contract theory, the normative foundations of law and economics, social choice theory, and analytical jurisprudence have been the point of departure for much of the most interesting activity in the field for the last three decades. Indeed, the origin of this book lies in Oxford University's invitation …


The Postmodern Infiltration Of Legal Scholarship, Arthur Austin May 2000

The Postmodern Infiltration Of Legal Scholarship, Arthur Austin

Michigan Law Review

For legal scholars it is the best of times. We are inundated by an eclectic range of writing that pushes the envelope from analysis and synthesis to the upper reaches of theory. Mainstream topics face fierce competition from fresh ideological visions, a variety of genres, and spirited criticism of the status quo. Young professors have access to a burgeoning variety of journals to circulate their ideas and advice while the mass media covets them as public intellectuals. There is a less sanguine mood; an increasingly vocal group of scholars complain that it is the worst of times and refer to …


Governmental Illegitimacy And Neocolonialism: Response To Review By James Thuo Gathii, Brad R. Roth May 2000

Governmental Illegitimacy And Neocolonialism: Response To Review By James Thuo Gathii, Brad R. Roth

Michigan Law Review

The essence of James Thuo Gathii's criticism of Governmental Illegitimacy in International Law is that my study seeks to answer a doctrinal question rather than to challenge the "Eurocentric" assumptions that pervade doctrinal thinking. Although I (inevitably) take exception to some of Professor Gathii's characterizations of the book's details, an elaborate clarification and defense of these finer points would amount to an uninteresting response to an interesting essay. Indeed, since Gathii characterizes the book as "well written, well-argued, and well-researched," and since I am in sympathy with the considerations that prompt him to go beyond the scope of what I …


Neoliberalism, Colonialism, And International Governance: Decentering The International Law Of Government Legitimacy, James Thuo Gathii May 2000

Neoliberalism, Colonialism, And International Governance: Decentering The International Law Of Government Legitimacy, James Thuo Gathii

Michigan Law Review

Brad R. Roth's Governmental Illegitimacy in International Law is a neoconservative realist response to liberal internationalists (or universalists). As a critique, the book unsurprisingly legitimizes the subject of its attack: liberal internationalism. That is so since in their opposition to each other, liberal internationalists and neoconservative realists fall within the same discursive formation - a Euro-American hegemony of thinking, writing, critiquing, engaging, producing, and practicing international law. This Review is an antihegemonic critique. It seeks to decenter this Euro-American opposition between liberal internationalism and neoconservative realism that has characterized the study of international law, especially in the post-Cold War period. …


Rejoinder: Twailing International Law, James Thuo Gathii May 2000

Rejoinder: Twailing International Law, James Thuo Gathii

Michigan Law Review

Brad Roth's response to my Review of his book seeks to privilege his approach to international law as the most defensible. His response does not engage one of the central claims of my Review - that present within international legal scholarship and praxis is a simultaneous and dialectical coexistence of the dominant conservative/liberal approach with alternative or Third World approaches to thinking and writing international law. Roth calls these alternative approaches critical and does not consider them insightful for purposes of dealing with issues such as anticolonialism. Roth's characterization of my Review as falling within critical approaches to international law …


Positivism, Emergent And Triumphant, Vincent A. Wellman May 1999

Positivism, Emergent And Triumphant, Vincent A. Wellman

Michigan Law Review

Positivism is one of those words that triggers passionate and often contradictory responses. For some, positivism is a pejorative. Lon Fuller, perhaps more than anyone, charged that positivism was confused about the nature of law, blind to law's inherent morality, and morally corrupting to boot. He even suggested, in different ways, that positivism helped promote the rise of fascism in Europe. Others, in contrast, have treated positivism as a modest and undeniable truth about law. Law, they argued, is morally fallible, and accordingly, the existence and validity of law is a matter of social fact rather than moral necessity. H.L.A. …


The Myth Of Choice Of Law: Rethinking Conflicts, Kermit Roosevelt Iii Jan 1999

The Myth Of Choice Of Law: Rethinking Conflicts, Kermit Roosevelt Iii

Michigan Law Review

Choice of law is a mess. That much has become a truism. It is a "dismal swamp," a morass of confusion, a body of doctrine "killed by a realism intended to save it," and now "universally said to be a disaster." One way to demonstrate its tribulations would be to look at the academic dissensus and the hopelessly underdeterminative Restatement (Second) of Conflict of Laws. Another would be to examine the Supreme Court's abdication of the task of articulating constitutional constraints on state choice-of-law rules. This article will do both. At the outset, though, I want to suggest that one …


Gossip And Metaphysics: The Personal Turn In Jurisprudential Writing, Michael Ansaldi May 1996

Gossip And Metaphysics: The Personal Turn In Jurisprudential Writing, Michael Ansaldi

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Neil Duxbury, Patterns of American Jurisprudence and John Henry Schlegel American Legal Realism and Empirical Social Science


Evolutionary Jurisprudence: Prospects And Limitations On The Use Of Modern Darwinism Throughout The Legal Process, Steven Kasten May 1990

Evolutionary Jurisprudence: Prospects And Limitations On The Use Of Modern Darwinism Throughout The Legal Process, Steven Kasten

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Evolutionary Jurisprudence: Prospects and Limitations on the Use of Modern Darwinism Throughout the Legal Process by John H. Beckstrom


Friedrich: The Philosophy Of Law In Historical Perspective, Edgar Bodenheimer Feb 1959

Friedrich: The Philosophy Of Law In Historical Perspective, Edgar Bodenheimer

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Philosophy of Law in Historical Perspective. By C. J. Friedrich.