Legal Philosophy

Jurisprudence, also known as legal theory or legal science, is the philosophy of law. The cited article, titled Jurisprudence because the title Philosophy of law redirects to it, says the field applies philosophical methods to legal questions, such as what the law is or how it ought to be, and that evidence of jurisprudential thought appears in the writings of ancient philosophers including Confucius, Aristotle and St Augustine. It names natural law theories, instrumental theories of law and law as reflective of social norms and custom among the oldest conceptions of law, and reports that by the twentieth century the legal positivism of H. L. A. Hart and Hans Kelsen had become the dominant focus. Doctrines grouped under this entry are those concerned with the nature and validity of law itself.