_Hans Kelsen and the Natural Law Tradition_ provides the first sustained examination of Hans Kelsen’s critical engagement, itself founded upon a distinctive theory of legal positivism, with the Natural Law Tradition.

This article compares and contrasts Hans Kelsen's concept of normative imputation, in the Lecture Course of 1926, with the concepts of peripheral and central imputation, in The Pure Theory of Law of 1934. In this process, a wider and more significant distinction is revealed within the development of Hans Kelsen's theory of positive law. This distinction represents a shift in Kelsen's philosophical allegiance from the Neo-Kantianism of Windelband to that of Cohen. This, in turn, reflects a broader disengagement of The (...) Pure Theory of Law from the more direct connection with a political project of a civitas maxima envisaged by the Lecture Course. (shrink)

This book critically examines the conception of legal science and the nature of law developed by Hans Kelsen. It provides a single, dedicated space for a range of established European scholars to engage with the influential work of this Austrian jurist, legal philosopher, and political philosopher. The introduction provides a thematization of the Kelsenian notion of law as a legal science. Divided into six parts, the chapter contributions feature distinct levels of analysis. Overall, the structure of the book provides a (...) sustained reflection upon central aspects of Kelsenian legal science and the nature of law. Parts one and two examine the validity of the project of Kelsenian legal science with particular reference to the social fact thesis, the notion of a science of positive law and the specifically Kelsenian concept of the basic norm. The next three parts engage in a critical analysis of the relationship of Kelsenian legal science to constitutionalism, practical reason, and human rights. The last part involves an examination of the continued pertinence of Kelsenian legal science as a theory of the nature of law with a particular focus upon contemporary non-positivist theories of law. The conclusion discusses the increasing distance of contemporary theories of legal positivism from a Kelsenian notion of legal science in its consideration of the nature of law. (shrink)

Hans Kelsen and Max Weber are conventionally understood as initiators not only of two distinct and opposing processes of concept formation, but also of two discrete and contrasting theoretical frameworks for the study of law. _The Foundation of the Juridical-Political: Concept Formation in Hans Kelsen and Max Weber _places the conventional understanding of the theoretical relationship between the work of Kelsen and Weber into question. Focusing on the theoretical foundations of Kelsen’s legal positivism and Weber’s sociology of law, and guided (...) by the conceptual frame of the juridico-political, the contributors to this interdisciplinary volume explore convergences and divergences in the approach and stance of Kelsen and Weber to law, the State, political science, modernity, legal rationality, legal theory, sociology of law, authority, legitimacy and legality. The chapters comprising _The Foundation of the Juridical-Political _uncover complexities within as well as between the theoretical and methodological principles of Kelsen and Weber and, thereby, challenge the enduring division between legal positivism and the sociology of law in contemporary discourse. (shrink)

Hans Kelsen and Max Weber are conventionally understood as the original proponents of two distinct and opposed processes of concept formation generating two separate and contrasting theoretical frameworks for the study of law. _The Reconstruction of the Juridico-Political: Affinity and Divergence in Hans Kelsen and Max Weber__ _contests the conventional understanding of the theoretical relationship between Kelsen’s legal positivism and Weber’s sociology of law. Utilising the conceptual frame of the juridico-political, the contributors to this interdisciplinary volume analyse central points of (...) affinity and divergence in the work of these two influential figures. Thus, the chapters collected in _The Reconstruction of the Juridico-Political _offer a comprehensive reconsideration of these affinities and divergences, through a comparison of their respective reconstruction of the notions of democracy, the State, legal rights and the character of law. From this reconsideration a more complex understanding of their theoretical relationship emerges combined with a renewed emphasis upon the continued contemporary relevance of the work of Kelsen and Weber. (shrink)