To what extent can legal doctrine benefit from the theory of science? On the basis of three influential currents of the 20th century - logical empiricism, falsificationism and historical epistemology - Johannes Herb analyzes how legal knowledge moves in the conflicting fields of normativity and context.

The scientific status of law has long been a source of unease within legal scholarship. This interdisciplinary study offers a systematic exploration of what jurisprudence can learn from the philosophy of science. Adopting a historical and contextual approach, the author engages with three major theoretical traditions of the twentieth century: logical empiricism, Karl Popper's falsificationism, and Thomas Kuhn's historical epistemology. Popper's critical rationalism profoundly shaped legal thought, yet it addresses questions that do not arise within the domain of legal doctrine. The empiricists' critique of metaphysics, by contrast, reveals striking parallels to Hans Kelsen's Pure Theory of Law. Both, however, fall short of achieving the conceptual purification they envision. In this respect, Thomas Kuhn's re-evaluation of the distinction between validity and genesis marks a decisive shift. His model of paradigm change, though imperfect as historiography, exposes the deep contextuality of all knowledge practices - including legal reasoning. The study concludes that the pursuit of a purely "scientific" legal method is misguided if it seeks to emulate an idealised image of empirical science that even the natural sciences themselves do not uphold. Instead, the conceptual resources of historical epistemology allow for a more productive reflection on how legal doctrine negotiates its social, cultural, and historical contexts while preserving its normative autonomy.

Autorentext
Born 1996; 2020 First Law Exam (Bayreuth); PhD in 2025 (Bayreuth); legal clerkship (Referendariat) at the Higher Regional Court of Berlin.

Inhalt

Einleitung: America und das Astrolabium
Kapitel 1: Annäherung an den Begriff der Rechtsdogmatik
Kapitel 2: Das Induktionsproblem
Kapitel 3: Der Logische Empirismus
Kapitel 4: Der Falsifikationismus
Kapitel 5: Einwände gegen die Übertragung des Falsifikationismus auf die Rechtsdogmatik
Kapitel 6: Verbleibende Impulse der frühen Wissenschaftstheorie
Kapitel 7: Vom Pfeil zum Kreis - und wieder zurück
Kapitel 8: Schluss - Asche zu Asche