In search of the hidden nature – natural kinds and legal language

English abstract: In the theoretical legal literature there are views that consistently want to combine natural kinds with semantics of legal language (M. Moore, D. Brink, N. Stavropoulos). The motivation for creating such a theories is the desire to get the semantics of the legal language to be realistic. This semantics should enable the formulation of an objective theory of legal determination. Very often, the obvious objection to such theories is that the legal terms do not correspond to any objects in the world. The purpose of this article is to examine these ideas and attempt to show that the nature of the legal terms directly shows the impossibility of building an objective discourse for such terms (where objectivity is understood as objectivity in the scientific sense). Regardless, such theories can be formulated and treated as objective but the objectivity of those theories will come from methods of construction of the objects and not from their nature.

Keywords: natural kinds, essentialism, legal theory, realism