Upper Level Reading Group: Methodological Issues in General Jurisprudence (III)

Over the past two decades, discussions about methodological issues in the area of general jurisprudence of the Anglo-American tradition have been fruitfully advanced in terms of both the jurisprudential methodology and the nature of general jurisprudence. Specifically, the former is concerned with what kind of methods may properly facilitate our discovery of the nature of law, while the latter is concerned with how we shall conceive, evaluate and reflect upon the nature of such an enterprise from the meta-theoretical level. Among those methodological discussions, some persisting puzzles remain to be further elucidated. For instance, how is conceptual analysis actually deployed in the study of the nature of law? How are those so-called ‘essential’ and ‘necessary’ properties of law related to while different from each other? What is the nexus between general jurisprudence (sometimes identified interchangeably with analytical legal philosophy) and other branches of practical philosophy, such as moral, political and social philosophy? In this vein, this Reading Group aims to discuss some methodological issues in general jurisprudence divided into the following four sessions. 

Session III will ask whether law really has any necessary properties, how they are related to but different from essential properties, and what implications such a universal approach may have for general jurisprudence.

If you intend to participate in this reading group but have not made the registration, please sign up at https://nyu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_bElUxSc4MmXcrdk.

If you have any further inquiry, please feel free to contact xz2196@nyu.edu.