Herbert L.A. Hart (1907–1992) – British legal philosopher, the leading representative of twentieth-century legal positivism and author of The Concept of Law (1961). He understood law as a union of primary and secondary rules, with the rule of recognition at its foundation.
Texts in the „Archive”
New Challenge to Legal Positivism
Herbert L.A. Hart (translation) · Issue 2(9)/2014
A lecture delivered at the Autonomous University of Madrid on 29 October 1979, in which Hart replies to the challenge posed to positivism by Ronald Dworkin.
A Prequel to Hart’s ‘Postscript’ – the Missing Link in the Hart-Dworkin Debate
Andrzej Grabowski · Issue 2(9)/2014
The translator’s note to the lecture above: Grabowski sets out the circumstances of the Madrid address and its place in the debate with Dworkin.
The Rule of Recognition – a Remedy for the External Uncertainty of Law?
Urszula Anna Kosielińska-Grabowska · Issue 1(4)/2012
Hart’s rule of recognition was meant to remedy the uncertainty of primary rules. The article asks how far it succeeds.
See also the Legal Positivism collection.