Philosophy of Law

Among books of similar scope, this is the recognized American classic. Those who read this book will have the strange privilege of thinking things together in the law from the beginning of written history to the moment Pound sent his writings to the printer. Through this writing of Pound's they can see what it is to deal with the whole objective world in the law as a freeman should, knowing how things have happened fortunately or unfortunately, logically or through some kind of hardly explicable human conduct.

Interpretation has emerged in recent years as one of the most interesting and important elements of legal scholarship. This collection of new essays in law and interpretation provides an overview of this important topic, written by some of the most distinguished scholars in the field. The collection assesses the role of legislative intent in the interpretation of statutes, and in determining legal standards. This collection will appeal not only to lawyers and to legal theorists, but to all scholars of legal discourse.

Why should sovereign states obey international law? In this groundbreaking study, Fernando Teson, both a lawyer & a philosopher, argues that an overlapping respect for human rights has created a moral common ground among the countries of the world. It is this common set of values rather than self-interest that ultimately provides legitimacy to international law. Using the tools of moral philosophy, Teson analyzes the concepts of sovereignty, intervention, & national interest; the contributions of social contact theory, game theory, & feminist theory; & the puzzles of self-determination & group rights.

One of the leading legal philosophers of this century, Kelsen published this short treatise in 1934, when the neo-Kantian influence on his work was at its zenith. An earlier, "constructivist" phase had been displaced by his effort to provide something approximating a neo-Kantian foundation for his theory. If this second phase represents the Pure Theory of Law in its most characteristic form, then the present treatise may well be its central text. And of Kelsen's many statements of the Pure Theory, this one is surely the most accessible. Topics covered include the legal norm and Kelsen's normativity thesis, law and morality, the role of ideology, the concept of the legal person, legal interpretation, the identity of law and state, and the theory of international law. Among the appendices is an annotated bibliography of secondary literature on Kelsen.

Feinberg is one of the leading philosophers of law of the last forty years. This volume collects recent articles, both published and unpublished, on what he terms "basic questions" about the law, particularly in regard to the relationship to morality. Accessibly and elegantly written, this volume's audience will reflect the diverse nature of Feinberg's own interests: scholars in philosophy of law, legal theory, and ethical and moral theory.

This exceptional collection of twenty-two essays on the philosophical fundamentals of tort law assembles many of the world's leading commentators on this particularly fascinating conjunction of law and philosophy. The contributions range broadly, from inquiries into how tort law derives from Aristotle, Aquinas, and Kant to the latest economic and rights-based theories of legal reponsibility. This is truly a multi-national production, with contributions from several distinguished Oxford scholars of law and philosophy and many prominent scholars from the United States, Canada, and Israel. A provocative closing essay by one of the world's leading moral philosophers illuminates how tort law enables philosophers to observe the abstract theories of their discipline put to the concrete test in the legal resolution of real-world controversies based on principles of right and wrong.

Philosophy can be intriguing--and at times baffling. It deals with the central problems of the human condition--with important questions of free will, morality, life after death, the limits of logic and reason--though often in rather esoteric terms. Now, in The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, readers have the most authoritative and engaging one-volume reference work on philosophy available, offering clear and reliable guidance to the ideas of all notable philosophers from antiquity to the present day, and to the major philosophical systems around the globe, from Confucianism to phenomenology. Here is indeed a world of thought, with entries on idealism and empiricism, ethics and aesthetics, epicureanism and stoicism, deism and pantheism, liberalism and conservativism, logical positivism and existentialism--over two thousand entries in all. The contributors represent a veritable who's who of modern philosophy, including such eminent figures as Isaiah Berlin, Sissela Bok, Ronald Dworkin, John Searle, Michael Walzer, and W. V. Quine. We read Paul Feyerabend on the history of the philosophy of science, Peter Singer on Hegel, Anthony Kenny on Frege, and Anthony Quinton on philosophy itself. We meet the great thinkers--from Aristotle and Plato, to Augustine and Aquinas, to Descartes and Kant, to Nietzsche and Schopenhauer, right up to contemporary thinkers such as Richard Rorty, Jacques Derrida, Luce Iragaray, and Noam Chomsky (over 150 living philosophers are profiled). There are short entries on key concepts such as personal identity and the mind-body problem, major doctrines from utilitarianism to Marxism, schools of thought such as the Heidelberg School or the Vienna Circle, and contentious public issues such as abortion, capital punishment, and welfare. In addition, the book offers short explanations of philosophical terms (qualia, supervenience, iff), puzzles (the Achilles paradox, the prisoner's dilemma), and curiosities (the philosopher's stone, slime). Almost every entry is accompanied by suggestions for further reading, and the book includes both a chronological chart of the history of philosophy and a gallery of portraits of eighty eminent philosophers, from Pythagoras and Confucius to Rudolf Carnap and G.E. Moore. And finally, as in all Oxford Companions, the contributors also explore lighter or more curious aspects of the subject, such as "Deaths of Philosophers" (quite a few were executed, including Socrates, Boethius, Giordano Bruno, and Thomas More) or "Nothing so Absurd" (referring to Cicero's remark that "There is nothing so absurd but some philosopher has said it"). Thus the Companion is both informative and a pleasure to browse in, providing quick answers to any question, and much intriguing reading for a Sunday afternoon. An indispensable guide and a constant source of stimulation and enlightenment, The Oxford Companion to Philosophy with appeal to everyone interested in abstract thought, the eternal questions, and the foundations of human understanding.