One of the most notable characteristics of Hägerström’s legal theory is its criticism of traditional concepts and notions of law, an influence for which he credits Karl Marx,97 but closer scrutiny reveals his critique to have a stricter philosophical orientation than Marx’s political analyses of law have.98 The rudimentary account given above of Hägerström’s legal theory makes an adequate point of departure for the following investigation of his legal theory, insofar as it describes the keystones of his theory: anti-voluntarism, anti-metaphysics, and positivism.99 Taken together this description shows that positive law (which according to Hägerström’s epistemology is the only system of law that is cognizable) is a human artifact formulated by certain interests for the purposes of regulating and controlling the activities of the legally instituted organs of state. It is the only system of law from which it is possible to infer the existence of the legal advantages that the individual is granted, that is, the individual’s subjective rights, and what these advantages in reality amount to. In addition to the program mentioned above, I propose to add case studies on specific points of interest, such as analyses of Hägerström’s outline of the doctrine of sources and legal methodology, and his analysis of specific fundamental notions and concepts of law, in order to bring my analysis of Hägerström’s legal theory to a conclusion.The first thing to be said is that Hägerström’s analysis of law is governed by two principles that constitute a substratum to observations of the aforementioned program, namely his program of conceptual analysis and his critique of legal science. a ca l l f o r s c i e n t i f i c p u r i t y 323 97 Hägerström, “Marx och filosofin. (Karl Marx: Uttalanden Kring 50-Årsminnet),” pp. 147-148. 98 See Hägerström’s analyses of Marxist theory, in Hägerström, Social teleologi i marxismen, passim; De socialistiska idéernas historia, passim. 99 Cf. Hägerström’s description of his philosophy in Hägerström, “ ‘Ein Stein ...’”
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