5 - Doctrinal Scholarship

Summary

Can a doctrinal scholarship which is based on the normativist-positivist framework espoused in this book do any better than mainstream legal scholarship? Starting from a critique of certain hyper-systematising approaches, the chapter introduces Kelsen’s idea of legal scholarship properly so called, one devoid of external influences because these make it impossible to correctly cognise the law. Reconstructed in this manner, doctrinal scholarship can provide a structural analysis of the law, both on the macro-level of system-coherence and on the micro-level as frame-determination. It can also give practical information on how awards have exercised their freedom within the frame of possible meanings.