been demonstrated earlier, Hägerström’s juridical realism is of a nature other than the sociological. To him, reality and realism constitutes formal criteria rather than exclusively material criteria (see, Parts II and III, as well as Part VI, Chapters 3 and 68). And his realism is restricted by its adherence to the sources of law, as he, for example, wishes to make the interpretation of statutes more real than before, which can be construed as a demand that the interpretation is real in both a formal meaning as well as a factual.What is true, however, is that Hägerström’s metatheory of law is sociological insofar as it construed law as being a function of society rather than as a purely formal and conceptual issue. When studying Hägerström’s theory of law it must be kept in mind that his realism does not constitute an attempt to introduce any empirical elements such as legal sociology or legal psychology into the normative analysis of law, legal dogmatics.The empirical and dogmatic studies of law have different methods.The first relies upon empirical and statistical methods in its attempts to establish general principles from which reality may be described, while the second relies upon analytical and interpretative methods in its attempts to establish general principles, from which human actions may be described normatively - that is, to be described legally.5 If the ideas of Hägerström are analyzed it is clear that his demand for “real” concepts, facts, and so on should be understood as being a question of method rather than as an issue of empirical content. In fact, the issue can be reduced to realism perceived as an issue of scientific perspective, for if one looks at the philosophical content of many legal notions one easily finds that their “real” content, according to Hägerström’s use of the terminology, is non-existent. It is in this manner that Hägerström himself applies philosophical analysis as a method of uncovering or exposing the philosophically, that is, logically, incoherent thoughts a ca l l f o r s c i e n t i f i c p u r i t y 651 5 Cf., e.g., Hägerström, Magistratische Ius, pp. 1-5.
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