Doctrinal Legal Science
A Science of Its Own
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21572234 |
|---|---|
| Authors | William Hamilton Byrne (0000-0002-6851-0344, University of Copenhagen, corresponding author), Henrik Palmer Olsen (0000-0001-8486-8752, University of Copenhagen) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 37 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 343-367 |
| Publication date | 2024-08-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Canadian Journal of Law & Jurisprudence (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0841-8209 • E-ISSN: 2056-4260 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/cjlj.2024.16 |
| OpenAlex | W4403109490 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
Doctrinal legal scholarship faces persistent challenges from empirical approaches, but such criticism rarely seeks to encounter doctrine on its own terms. In this article, we seek to excavate the theoretical and methodological basis of doctrinal legal scholarship by situating the discipline in a hermeneutic continuum between theory and practice, or law’s engagement with the social world. We first unfold this dynamic as an exercise in methodological interpretivism and ontological hermeneutics and then turn to explicate our analysis with examples drawn from tort law and international criminal law. We ultimately argue that law can never be strictly circumscribed as an empirical object because law cannot be disassociated from an agent’s reasons, which are continuously bound up in a hermeneutic circle, and which the scholar must enter into to achieve legal understanding. Unavoidably, therefore, doctrinal legal scholarship becomes part of the very object it is investigating
Engineering ethics · Legal science · Political science · Comparative and International Law Studies · Engineering · Law
| Citations per year | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2025 - 2026 (2) |
| Highly cited | No |