The Scientific Approach to Law and the Role of Legal Consciousness

Abstract

The present article constructs the concept of a scientific approach to law as consisting of non-cognitivism, monistic ontology, non-formalism, non-reductionism of law to linguistic outputs, a (two-level) description of reality, falsifiability and rationality. The article claims that: the scientific approach to law, as constructed in this article, presents the key element of Alf Ross’ theory on law; and that the concept of legal consciousness plays important methodological and explanatory roles in this scientific approach to law.