Pierre Schlag’s “The Problem of the Subject”: Law’s Need for an Analyst

Pierre Schlag's book-length law review article, The Problem of the Subject, sets out to reveal, and succeeds in revealing, nothing - Schlag reveals a gap or void in contemporary legal philosophy with respect to the subject. Of course, the subject (for now, the "I" or self or individual) can be found in legal theory-people reflect on law, make law, and obey or break the law-but legal theorists generally avoid the question of who the subject is. Thus, accounts of the subject are rare in legal scholarship, and the problems that such accounts would raise are generally evaded. Of course, Schlag explains, addressing the subject would raise different problems for different theories of law.

Ironically, however, formalists, critical legal theorists, pragmatists, and "cultural conservati[ves]," notwithstanding their disagreements, all seem to share an uncritical attitude toward the subject of (e.g., within the field of) law. So the subject is missing.