Jurisprudence: From The Greeks To Post-Modernity [Hardcover]

This challenging book on jurisprudence begins by posing questions in the post-modern context,and then seeks to bridge the gap between our traditions and contemporary situation.

It offers a narrative encompassing the birth of western philosophy in the Greeks and moves through medieval Christendom, Hobbes, the defence of the common law with David Hume, the beginnings of utilitarianism in Adam Smith, Bentham and John Stuart Mill, the hope for enlightenment with Kant, Rousseau, Hegel and Marx, onto the more pessimistic warnings of Weber and Nietzsche.

It defends the work of Austin against the reductionism of HLA Hart, analyses the period of high modernity in the writings of Kelsen, Hart and Fuller, and compares the different approaches to justice of Rawls and Nozick.

The liberal defence of legality in Ronald Dworkin is contrasted with the more disillusioned accounts of the critical legal studies movement and the personalised accounts of prominent feminist writers.

This challenging book on jurisprudence begins by posing questions in the post-modern context,and then seeks to bridge the gap between our traditions and contemporary situation.Chapter 1 The Problem of Jurisprudence, or Telling the Truth of Law: an entry into recurring questions?; Chapter 2 Origins: Classical Greece and the idea of Natural Law; Chapter 3 The Laws of Nature, Mans Power and God: the synthesis of mediaeval Christendom; Chapter 4 Thomas Hobbes and the Origins of the Imperative Theory of Law: or nana transformed into earthly power; Chapter 5 David Hume  Defender of Experience and Tradition Against the Claims of Reason to Guide Modernity; Chapter 6 Immanuel Kant and the Promotion of a Critical Rational Modernity; Chapter 7 From Rousseau to Hegel: the birth of the expressive tradition of law and the dream of Laws Ethical Life; Chapter 8 Adam Smith, Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill: the early development of a utilitarian founlÃV