Law teory

The theory of law or general theory of law is the legal science that studies the elements of law or legal order existing in any social organization and the scientific and philosophical foundations that have allowed it to evolve to the present day.

The theory of law has as its fundamental objective the analysis and determination of the basic elements that make up the law, understood as a unitary legal order, that is, a set of norms that make up a single right or legal order in a society or certain companies.

Only through the understanding of the legal system in its entirety can the characteristics of the legal phenomenon be individualized, which we usually use, to differentiate the law from other systems such as morality and social customs.

Fundamentals of legal theory

The study of the foundations of law makes use of specific philosophical-legal disciplines, namely:

• Ontology: focuses on the right being; that which separates it from any other object of reality, determining its essence and quality. He wondered whether the norm was a purely abstract object separated from social and axiological facts, or whether it contained or implied them.
• Axiology: focuses on values immersed in the normative world, mainly justice, common good and legal security.
• Deontology: focuses on the purposes of law, in particular order, peace and social harmony.
• Epistemology: focuses on the extent and contradictions in the science of law, which is the one that studies the norm, diluting its ontological character a priori or a posteriori. Its fundamental problem is to lay the foundations for the science of law, establish fundamental legal concepts and axiomatic classifications. It therefore seeks to establish a set of statements concerning a set of dogmas (right).
• Methodology: focuses on discovering the principles to make the legal dogmatic work and evolve, so it goes hand in hand with epistemology. It defines the scientific nature of the peculiar method of law, rational, and its points of union with those of other social disciplines.

Schools of Thought

Sociology of Law

The sociology of law, also called legal sociology, is that discipline that studies the problems, the implications, and everything concerning the relations between law and society. Unlike legal theory and political philosophy, the main problem or object of study of legal sociology is the effectiveness of law.

Critical legal theory

Critical legal theory refers to a movement in legal thought that applies methods of critical theory (the Frankfurt school) to law. In general terms, this thought postulates notions such as: law is simply politics. Legal language is a false discourse that helps to perpetuate hierarchies: men over women, rich over poor, majorities over minorities.

But, as is the case in Brazil now, there are critical theory perspectives that are very diverse among themselves, and that are not connected to philosophical categories of the century XX, but from the XXI century. An example is the work of critical theory in the theory of law, which can be found in the theory of realist humanism, a very Latin American conception, which turns to democracy, justice and human rights.

Analytical theory of law

The law is a language that helps us to know the legally considered reality, which is a part of the universal physical reality. Every object is real if it can be measured in mathematical dimensions: volume, weight, density, etc. Therefore, the law, when speaking of social reality, becomes a meta-language, which in turn is the object language of the science of law. Any legal order is, therefore, a scheme of interpretation of reality that says what is law; and it is prescriptive because it indicates what the man should do.

On the other hand, legal science, unlike law, is descriptive and tells us how it is and how it works the coercive normative system, its only object of study. The theory of law should not deal with notions outside its object of study, such as the values or social causes that motivate the creation of legal norms. These notions are the field of research of ethics and sociology. It is pertinent to clarify that it is enough to know the bases of the language of law, its paradigm and rules of creation and application, to describe it and provide its effectiveness.