Blackstone's Tower: The English Law School - College of Social ...

The Quest For a Core
lem-solving—how much detail is appropriate is context specific. By
itself the idea of problem-solving is too general to be very helpful. 61
(e) Pluralism—Let Many Flowers Bloom
This selective tour of a few prominent attempts to construct a
coherent core for the discipline of law reflects a variety of concerns
and purposes: Kelsen's Pure Theory, for example, is primarily an
epistemological quest for a distinct form of legal knowledge within
a quite strong conception of the autonomy of disciplines. Ronald
Dworkin's philosophical assumptions and his legal theory are significantly
different from Kelsen's, but both emphasise the idea of law
as an integrated normative system. Dworkin locates the distinctive
feature of law in an argumentative attitude that is part of an activity;
Kelsen identifies what might be unique about legal knowledge and
legal science as a product rather than a practice. Attempts to define
a core curriculum for general or professional legal studies in terms
of a settled body of knowledge, basic concepts or basic legal skills
operate at a different level and are more pragmatic and contingent:
they are mainly efforts to develop a coherent and appropriate
system of initial preparation for legal practice in the context of one
particular legal culture and higher education system. Judge Harry
Edwards in arguing for a return to "practical doctrinal scholarship"
as the primary activity of American law schools is concerned with
both professional training and the provision of important services
to practitioners and judges by institutions that are assumed to be
there mainly to serve the profession. Given time, we could explore
other attempts to establish cores or coherences for the legal academic
enterprise or particular sectors of it for specific purposes.
The examples I have chosen illustrate the diversity, the fragility and
the persistence of such efforts.
In the post-modern era there is a general tendency to emphasise
contingency and to resist closure. There is a more general scepticism
about the autonomy of disciplines. So why not agree that the
possibilities are infinite and accept unfettered pluralism? There are
other factors that may contribute to the growth of pluralism: the
academic legal enterprise is now sufficiently large and its subjectmatter
so diverse as to require some division of labour and more
opportunities for specialisation; the principle of free enquiry
encourages multiple perspectives and a free market in ideas; some
attempts have been made to counteract the tendencies of the rigid
departmental system in our universities to reinforce "artificial bar-
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