Faith in Reason: The Process Tradition in American Jurisprudence

Even the most cursory survey of the history of jurisprudence reveals a remarkable tendency on the part of legal philosophers to develop concepts, for want of a better word, which are purportedly foundational to the existence of a legal system. Positivists and natural lawyers alike have long been committed to the search for that special concept which stands as the fons et origo of law. Legal philosophers typically frame this search in terms of a quest to discover something singular; and when they do try to conceive of a legal system as founded on a plurality of concepts, their assertions, though often highly enlightening, are more frequently considered to be inordinately complex or abstruse.