Legal Doctrine between Empirical and Rhetorical Truth. A Critical Analysis of Alf Ross' Conception of Legal Doctrine Henrik Zahle* Full text available: PDF format ** Abstract The Danish philosopher of law Alf Ross established a theory of legal doctrine with the intention of bringing legal doctrine into line with logical positivism. Ross was aware of the fact that propositions of legal doctrine (as of social science in general) might influence the 'object' of the doctrine, for instance they could influence judicial decision-making. Such influence could be considered fundamental for a theory of legal doctrine. Although Ross considered words which create their object and therefore their own truth to be magic, he did not or could not recommend that legal doctrine refrain from such influence. In this way Ross faced an element of legal doctrine that was incompatible with his positivistic theory. * Professor of Law, University of Copenhagen. An earlier version of this paper was presented at a seminar in June 1999 at Carlsberg Academia, Copenhagen, celebrating Ross' 100th anniversary. I thank the participants for comments on my presentation and Ole Spiermann for comments on a later version.
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