is valid. In other words, it is only possible provided that positive law and valid law are identical with one another; that positive law in itself constitutes a perfect system of law (albeit filled with gaps); that interpretation and application are logically closed activities, rather than logically open ones; that legal positivism is interpreted in a strict and closed grammatical-logical manner (akin to Hans Kelsen’s ideas of how law is to be interpreted and applied); and that the systematically closed deductive method of the so-called Begriffsjurisprudenz is valid, and should be applied exclusively. However, Hägerström rejected the validity of the aforementioned legal doctrines. He believed that legal positivism as a legal theory concerned itself with the determination of whether or not the use of force was in accordance with positive law, and declared that the interpretation as well as the application of law had to be a logically open process. Consequently, his outline of a teleological method of interpretation cannot be said to be in conflict with his general theory of law. Therefore, rather than experimenting with circumstantial constructions attempting to base the entirety of the law upon one sole principle, be it the legislator’s will, or the identity between positive law and valid law, or the idea of a perfect and logically closed system of positive law lacking gaps, Hägerström accepted interpretation and application as being logically open activities, analyzed the concept of law, separated the concept of valid law from the concept positive law and, finally, admitted that positive law was full of gaps, loopholes and imperfections.These weaknesses could be rectified by an application of the legal method itself, rather than by reference to a set of pre-existent but not yet manifest objective standards of positive law. Once this is pointed out, Hägerström’s teleological method ceases to be inconsistent with the principles of legal positivism. One might, on the contrary, state that the teleological method simplified, rather than complicated, legal argumentation as well as emphasized what society expected of jurists, namely to give objective accounts of p a r t v i , c h a p t e r 8 558
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