Study On Holmes’ S Pragmatism Law Thought

Justice Holmes is the founder and representative of American pragmatism law. The mind of law of Justice Holmes mainly lies in his speeches, essays and judicial opinions. The evaluations of his mind of law are polarized and mixed. Based on the analysis of three specific views of Justice Holmes thought, trying to overall for pragmatism ideas to make more pertinent evaluation of law.Justice Holmes emphasized his view of the theory of experience in his speeches and essays several times. He wrote in the preface of his book <The Common Law>, “The life of the law has not been logic; it has been experience.” This became a classic statement of the theory of experience. However, paying attention to the function of the experience does not mean that Holmes is anti-logic. In contrary, he believed that logic was important in the law. The theory of prediction gives a new concept to the law. In his opinion, the prophecies of what the courts will do in fact through the point of view of a bad man are what he means by the law. There are many different opinion of the point of view of a bad man, and the theory of prediction has some antinomies, which cannot be ignored. But on the other hand, the theory of prediction is meaningful to jurisprudence and the judicial practice. Justice Holmes puts forward the separation theory of law and moral in his lecture the path of law. He thinks although there is connection between law and moral, the law has its own meaning and mixture of law and moral will cause disorder of law activities.Although there are limitations in the theories of Holmes, Holmes’ s legal pragmatism is still remarkably influential to legal theories, also contributes to American judicial practice.