Positivism And Analytical Jurisprudence

Analytical jurisprudence arose in the Occident in the early 19 century.It originated from positivism,a trend of philosophic thought with a great impact upon jurisprudence.Due to the ground of positivism,analytical jurisprudence refuses metaphysics,expecting to limit the study of law within the scope of positive law and make jurisprudence a science.Representative personages of analytical jurisprudence include Austin,Kelsen and Hart.Their theories have some common grounds,such as adhering to the separation of law and morality.However,Their theories are different in many aspects;they respectively take different philosophical thoughts as their own premises,such as Neo-Kantianism,Logic Positivism,etc.,and this makes their theories differ in theoretical emphasis,disagree over some essential questions such as the nature of law,and as a result,different schools of analytical jurisprudence arise.In this article,we will analyze three schools of analytical jurisprudence—Austin,Kelsen and Hart,to probe into their thought foundations and forming processes,to grasp their main standpoints,and their similarities and differences,and maybe this analysis can also show how a philosophic thought does exert an influence upon other fields of science and play a dominant role among them.This article is divided into three parts: philosophical origins of analytical jurisprudence,formation and standpoints of the three genres of analytical jurisprudence,and similarities and differences among these three schools of analytical jurisprudence.