Abstract
2018 marked the centenary of Wesley Hohfeld's untimely passing. Curiously, in recent years quite a few legal historians and philosophers have identified him as a Legal Realist. This article argues that Hohfeld was no such thing, that his work need not be understood in such lights either, and that he in fact made a smaller contribution to jurisprudence than is generally believed. He has nothing to do with theories of official decision-making that identify, among other things, extra-legal factors as the real drivers of judicial decision-making, nor must his schema of jural relations advance a Realist political agenda. Distinguishing Hohfeld from the Realists will help to correct some misunderstandings about his work and point to its utility in many more contexts than a Realist reading of it allows.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 291-344 |
Number of pages | 54 |
Journal | Legal Theory |
Volume | 24 |
Issue number | 4 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Dec 2018 |
Externally published | Yes |