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    The burning armchair: can jurisprudence be advanced by experiment?


    Flanagan, Brian (2024) The burning armchair: can jurisprudence be advanced by experiment? Jurisprudence, 15 (3). pp. 325-340. ISSN 2040-3313

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    Abstract

    Is the field of general jurisprudence catching up – or is it simply getting distracted? Whereas legal philosophy has always featured claims about the content of the folk concept of law, it is only in the last few years that it has begun to self-consciously test those claims. Kenneth Himma’s recent review of this effort in Jurisprudence is a milestone: it reveals X-Jur as having progressed to the point of attracting broader philosophical attention, and it challenges X-Jur’s practitioners to persuade those not already convinced of the potential of alternatives to the analytic method. I take Himma’s critique as an opportunity to sketch some preliminaries for a theory of experimental jurisprudence, considering, in turn, the nature of jurisprudential truth, the role of expertise, and how empirical data might best be interpreted to help adjudicate claims about the content of the folk concept. I conclude with a brief discussion of the field’s future.
    Item Type: Article
    Keywords: experimental jurisprudence; analytic legal philosophy; intuitions; folk concept of law;
    Academic Unit: Faculty of Social Sciences > Law
    Item ID: 19994
    Identification Number: 10.1080/20403313.2023.2290954
    Depositing User: Brian Flanagan
    Date Deposited: 16 Jun 2025 15:47
    Journal or Publication Title: Jurisprudence
    Publisher: Taylor and Francis Group
    Refereed: Yes
    Related URLs:
    URI: https://mural.maynoothuniversity.ie/id/eprint/19994
    Use Licence: This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

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