The Critical Resources of Established Jurisprudence
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 11449054 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Paul Hirst (corresponding author), Phil Ian Jones (0000-0001-6455-1184), Phil Jones (0000-0001-5173-3245) |
| Year | 1987 |
| Volume | 14 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 21 |
| Publication date | 1987-01-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Law and Society (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0263-323X • E-ISSN: 1467-6478 |
| Publisher | JSTOR (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/1410294 |
| OpenAlex | W2335346640 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
| References cited | 2 |
Critical legal studies must reject the notion of 'critique' as its dominant intellectual principle. 'Critique' implies a double rejection of the criticised a new critical theory uncontaminated by established jurisprudence which will facilitate a new practice in relation to law and, ultimately, the emergence of an alternative which has shed all the undesirable features of existing laws and legal forms. Attachment to the notion of critique arises in part from the desire for distinctiveness, to show the critical legal studies movement to be decisively different from the ad hoc radical criticisms of law and from giving established modes of legal theorising and approaches to the study of law a radical twist. It implies a challenge to practitioners and academics who adopt a 'pink but expert' stance. All well and good, but the notion of 'critique' involves a real danger, the rejection in the name of radicalism of the genuine benefits entailed in western liberal legal systems and the forms of knowledge developed by legal theorists in the critical elaboration and defence of western liberalism. By liberalism we mean a primary concern with the freedom of the citizen and of associations freely formed by citizens. 'Critique' is a concept with a solid Marxist-Hegelian pedigree, but to adopt the stance of 'critique' one need subscribe neither to dialectical-materialist metaphysics nor to Frankfurt School critical theory. Aside from specific theorisations, the notion involves the supposition that contemporary reality contains within it an alternative, an emerging possibility that will supplant existing forms of organisation and which is superior to them. The task of theory or critical knowledge is to discern that alternative and to do so it must cast aside the forms which are tied to the existing conditions and the ideas implicated in them. This rejection need not imply a Marxist politics any more than a Marxist theory; anarchists, radical feminists and radical ecologists all advance versions of the notion of 'critique'. 'Critique' would be a harmless game played by intellectuals if it did not include one essential feature: it is a challenge to existing institutions and ideas
Jurisprudence · Law and economics · Political science · Sociology · Law · Law in Society and Culture
| Citations per year | 0.11 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 1988 - 2013 (26) |
| Highly cited | No |