Abstract
Is it possible to articulate a genuine pure theory of law without it ceasing to be a positivist theory of law? The project of a pure theory of law can be held to presuppose a “nature of law” whose criteria lead to transcendence with respect to positive law, even though it is not its purpose. The difficulty facing the pure theory of law is: to be absolutely dependent on its object, in a manner analogous to the physico-chemical sciences, and, as a result, to be a necessarily “impure” theory. For, how is the pure theory of law then to conceive and respond to that which is not, or no longer, legal in the system of positive law? If the methodological purity of the theory is to be retained, and, thus, that there is a criterion, furnished by the pure theory of law, to distinguish ‘real’ legal norms from ‘false’ ones, is the capacity to utilize the criterion not immediately dissolved by the underlying empiricism of its dependence upon its object?
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Notes
- 1.
In a beautiful article, Paul Amselek (Amselek 1981) had ventured this bold conclusion.
- 2.
I am concentrating solely upon Kelsenian legal positivism and my position presumes that it is underlain by hypothetical ‘laws’ constantly subject to empirical verification following (Jabloner and Stadler 2001) and, in particular, the chapters by (Dreier 2001; Morscher 2001 and Thaler 2001). This interpretation presents an understanding of Kelsen’s legal science – its scientificity – which is at variance with Kelsen’s own self-interpretation of his project – see the Letter to Renato Treves of 1933 (Kelsen 1967) – and the academic commentary which has sought to argue that, the Neo-Kantian philosophy of Hermann Cohen is the foundation for its scientificity. See, in particular, (Edel 1997; Holzhey 1986; Holzhey 1984).
- 3.
This is clearly expressed in Kelsen’s later ‘Letter to Renato Treves’ of 1933 (Kelsen 1967). Here, one should also indicate that the Neo-Kantianism of Cohen’s project which Kelsen retains is one which has reconstructed the coherence of Kant’s philosophy by actively detaching it from its surrounding philosophical context. This becomes evident if one compares Cohen’s commentaries on Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason (Cohen 1871/1885; Cohen 1907) with the later historical reconstruction of the unity of Kant’s project undertaken in the later twentieth century in the work of Giorgio Tonelli (see, for example, Tonelli 1974; Tonelli 1975 and Tonelli 1994).
- 4.
See, from a different perspective, (Leiter 2007).
- 5.
It is also pertinent to note, beyond this potential affinity with Gödel, the influence of the Neo-Kantian philosophers, Vaihinger and Cassirer, whose respective theory of fictions, in particular juridical fictions, and critique of the notion of substance are explicitly acknowledged by Kelsen (see Kelsen, 1919 and Kelsen, 1967). On Cassirer’s critique of substance, (see Rudolf 1994); and, for Cassirer’s attempt to combine the developments in modern logic with the Neo-Kantianism of Marburg, (see Heis 2010, and Richardson 2006).
- 6.
On the wider question of Hobbes and Kelsen, (see Gentile 1982).
- 7.
- 8.
See Quiviger 2009 for the more detailed critique of the model of translation and the presentation of a more complex analytical perspective which accords a distinct position to three stages of conception, adoption and effectiveness of law.
- 9.
See Jabloner and Stadler 2001. In particular, the essays by Dreier (2001), Morscher (2001) and Thaler (2001). In addition, there is the question of the pertinence of the approach of Hermann Cohen, prefigured in Das Prinzip der Infinitesimal-Methode and seine Geschichte: Ein Kapitel zur Grundlegung der Erkenntniskritik 1883, and further developed in the first part of his philosophical system, Logik der reinen Erkenntnis, 1902, in which the relation to the physico-chemical sciences is that which accepts the ‘fact’ of the physio-chemical sciences and seeks to lay the ground for their comprehension in an approach which attempts to prevent its collapse into mere empiricism and remains distinct from the later, more sophisticated approach of the Vienna Circle. The pertinence of this approach to an understanding of the transcendental logic of Kelsen’s Pure Theory is developed by Edel (1997, 1998).
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Quiviger, PY. (2017). Natural Law and the Nature of Law: Kelsen’s Paradox. In: Langford, P., Bryan, I., McGarry, J. (eds) Kelsenian Legal Science and the Nature of Law. Law and Philosophy Library, vol 118. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51817-6_3
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