Abstract

ExcerptIt is often observed by H. L. A. Hart, and also by his friends and interpreters, that when he accepted Oxford's Chair of Jurisprudence in 1952 his field was in a bad way. Looking back in an interview, Hart remarks that at the time British jurisprudence “had no broad principles, no broad faith; it confronted no large questions…. It focused on technical, legal problems. There were no large-scale inquiries into the philosophical dimensions of law…. There was no legal philosophy. Jurisprudence had become a kind of closed subject, and very few people had ever thought of revising it.”1 Indeed, shortly…