jurisprudence: The Philosophy and zone between nornativity and actuality.

" (191)
However much Bodenheimer's treatise is distinc-
Method of the Law tive for its inclusion of this natural law component,
By Edgar Bodenheinier. Cambridge: the first part of the treatise is largely a descriptive ac-
Harvard University Press, 1974. count of the hlstory of jurisprudential thought. Be-
sides this section devoted to history, Bodenheimer
Reviewed by Vincent Luizzi structures hls discussion with sections on the nature
Dept. of Philosophy
and functions of the law and on the sources and
Southwest Texas State University technlques of the law. In his historical introduction
San Marcos, Texas. to the philosophy of law, Bodenheimer includes
For the legal profession in America, a treatise is a chapters on the theories of ancient Greece and
comprehensive study and descriptlon of an area of Rome, of the middle ages, and of the classical era of
law. Whether the treatise be on torts, contracts, natural law, along with chapters on German tran-
property, or evidence, it will be a compilation and scendental Idealism, historical and evolutionary the-
organization of the rules and principles of the field, ories, utiiitarlanism, analytical positivism, sociologi-
together with a presentation of cases and statutes in cal jurisprudence and iegal realism, and the revival
whlch they are articulated, of the rationale for and of natural law and value-oriented jurisprudence.
debate surrounding these rules, and of their history. It Is In the next parts of the book that Boden-
In law the treatise seeks to establish no particular heimer veers from thls descriptive narrative and as-
thesis as correct, and thus essentlaliy it differs from sumes at times the voice of critic and advocate. The
a philosophical treatise whose purpose is one of ar- part on the nature and functions of the law includes
guing for the truth of a particular position. chapters on order, on justice, and on law as a syn-
Insofar as the late Edgar Bodenheimer's treatise thesis of the two. Bodenheimer also devotes a chap-
on jurisprudence stands for a rejection of any rigid ter to distinguishing law h-om other agencies of so-
separation of legal and philosophical treatises, it is an cial control. Another is devoted to the advantages
interesting analogue to a natural law theorist's relec- and disadvantages of the rule of law. In the last part
tion of any rigid separation of law as It is and law as of the treatise, Bodenheimer includes chapters on
it ought to be. In effect, Bodenheimer is unwilling to the formal and nonformal sources of law and on the
make a statement of what jurisprudence is, without technlques of science and the judlcial process,
an inclusion of hls view on what it ought to be. What Prof. John B. OaMey, a colleague of Prof. Boden-
makes this analogy even more interesting is that Bo- heimer's at U.C. Davls Law School, observed in his
denhelmer's views on the nature of jurisprudence tribute on the occasion of Bodenheimer's death in
and law are those of a natural law theorist. 199 1 : "Throughout his long career in jurisprudence,
Says Bodenheimer, "no Jurisprudential treatise Edgar relentlessly championed the Importance of
should bypass or ignore the burning questions con- human rights to the validity of law and the legiti-
nected with the achievement of justice in human rela- macy of legal systems." ("Tribute," U. C. Dank Law
tions....It is submitted that the theory and philosophy of Revlew, vol. 26. no. 3, Spring 1993, p. 504.)* Bo-
the law must remain sterile and arid if they fall to pay denheimer's treatise on jurisprudence, with its in-
attention to the human values which it Is the Function clusion of Bodenheimer's natural law views about ju-
of the law to promote." (vli) As for his view on the na- risprudence and law, stands at once as an iliustration
ture of law understood as a iegal system, Bodenheimer and a confirmation of what Prof. Oakley observed.
teils us that "a legal system acts as a mediator between
social ideals and soclal reallty. In terms of average so- 'See "In Memoriam", VERA LEX,vol. XI, no. 2, 1991. 4
cial experience, It may be said to hover In a twilight
Hegel and Legal Theoly
JlYWl wishjng to give a rigld or an all-ernbmivedeflnl. By Drucilla Corneii, Michael Rosenfeld, David Gray
don of nqtwal law, 1wauld in general use the term to
denote certain hdamental ptlnclples of justlce whose Carlson (eds.). New York: Routledge, 199 1 .
recognltlon and obsenrance is hdlspensahle, or at least Reviewed by John Hund
h@Jy necessary, in a workable order of sqlety,,.. It is Dept. of African Law
my oplnlon that a solidly g o a d e d pNlosophy of Law University of the North
mu$t pay attention to the problem of natural Northern Transvaal, South Africa.
law,,.whlch..,forms a mk bottom on whlch the ediflce
of law and justlce must rest... Natural law thinking The editors of this volume are iaw professors at the
should be non&gmadc, qexible, and open-minded. Benjamin N. Cardozo Schooi of Law in New York
-Edgar BodenheMer, VERA LF3, ML V, no. 1 City. They think that the birth of Hegelian studies in
American iegal scholarship can be traced back to a

Vera Lex, Vol. XIV,Nos. 1 and 2, 1994