Epistemological Foundations of Legal Realism: Empiricism, Logical Positivism and Speech Acts

Abstract

This paper describes direct and indirect relations between legal realism and philosophical movements such as British empiricism, logical positivism and ordinary language philosophy. Legal realism is showed in its emergence context, and thereafter the paper exposes the main representatives of British empiricism, background and epistemological foundation of legal realism. Distinctive features of logical positivism and its theoretical affinity with legal realism are also synthesized. Afterwards, the links between the philosophy of ordinary language and legal realism from speech acts theory are shown. It is concluded that the renewed validity of legal realism requires an understanding of its philosophical foundations.