Tamanaha on How History Bears on Jurisprudence

Brian Z. Tamanaha, Washington University, Saint Louis, School of Law, is publishing How History Bears on Jurisprudence in Law in Theory and Jurisprudence (Maks Del Mar and Michael Lobban eds.; Oxford: Hart Publishing 2016). Here is the abstract.

The relevance of history to jurisprudence is a burning topic of late, the focus of a forthcoming book, Law in Theory and Jurisprudence, as well as of a recent symposium issue in the Virginia Law Review, “Jurisprudence and (Its) History,” both with contributions from eminent historians and theorists. That jurisprudence neglects history to its impoverishment is the thrust of these collections. The editors for the Virginia symposium write, “there may be reason to think that turning to history could broaden the boundaries, and raise the ambitions, of a [jurisprudential] field that many lawyers, judges, and even legal scholars have written off as esoteric and dominated by concerns remote from their own.” This essay, the Afterword to the former volume, examines how history bears on jurisprudence. The presentation is organized around the following themes that emerge from the collection: Law is historical or temporal; Law and jurisprudence interact over time; Jurisprudence is influenced by social-historical circumstances; Historical jurisprudence; Must legal philosophy be historical? (No); Should legal philosophy be historical? (Yes).

Download the essay from SSRN at the link.