CAN BE GENERAL THE GENERAL THEORY OF LAW?

Abstract

During the last two centuries the Theory of Law has been characterized as a "general" discipline concerning the nature or the concept of law. After a brief characterization of the meaning of a general theory, this paper will undertake the main criticism which has been directed toward such a sort of theories in law: its utility. Thereafter, this paper will be structured in two parts. On the one hand, it will face two major open strongly semantic questions on the feasibility of a general theory of law, such as the issue of whether the overall task should focus on the nature of the law or on its concept and the problem of characterizing something as changeable as the law. Furthermore, we will try to give a plausible approach to the general theory of law based on the key idea that the attribute of generality is predicable only about the theory (and in particular, about a naturalized theory), but not about the concept of law.

Keywords: General Theory of Law. Methodology. Semantics. Conceptual Analysis. Naturalism