Legal Doctrinal Scholarship - Legal Theory and the Inner Workings of a Doctrinal Discipline

The book offers a novel framing for conceptual legal theory and the functions of conceptual theorising in legal studies, exploring the ways in which doctrinal disciplines are anchored in doctrinal knowledge and the practice-specific normative knowledge used to navigate institutionalised social practices. It provides methodological support to legal scholars and facilitates a rich analysis of the three core models of interdisciplinary engagement characteristic of legal scholarship.

Format: Hardback
Length: 288 pages
Publication date: 27 July 2021
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd

Legal doctrinal scholarship is a complex and often misunderstood area of legal theory. This book offers a novel framing for conceptual legal theory and the functions of conceptual theorising in legal studies. It explores the ways in which a doctrinally-oriented legal theory may provide methodological support to legal scholars, arguing that making adequate sense of the rational reconstruction of law is pivotal in delivering such active support. The book's epistemological key is the idea that doctrinal disciplines are anchored in the concept of doctrinal knowledge, the practice-specific normative knowledge used to navigate institutionalised social practices. This grounding facilitates a rich analysis of the three core models of interdisciplinary engagement characteristic of legal scholarship. Considering how legal doctrinal scholarship cultivates doctrinal knowledge by way of hermeneutic engagement with positive law, this thought-provoking book will be a key resource for students and scholars of constitutional law, criminal law, private law, and international law. It will also be of benefit to legal theorists, philosophers, and practitioners.

Weight: 538g
Dimension: 242 x 166 x 22 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781788114059