On Leon Petrażycki's Critical Realism and Legal Realism

The author shows that Petrażycki adopted a form of critical realism, and that, despite him never using the exact term “legal realism”, his approach to legal phenomena can be regarded as a form of legal realism—if understood as critical realism applied to legal phenomena. In the first part of the chapter, the author presents Petrażycki’s critical realism. Here, his theory of perception and his conceptualization of deduction/induction as a scientific method (akin to Popper’s method) is presented. In the second part of the chapter, the author shows that Petrażycki’s theory of law, as well as his legal dogmatics and legal policy, should be all regarded as forms of legal realism. To this goal, after presenting Petrażycki’s distinction between objective-cognitive and subjective-relational sciences, the manner in which Petrażycki uses terms meaning “real”, “realist”, “realistic”, is examined. When reconstructing Petrażycki’s conception of legal dogmatics, the author also draws on Lande’s writings—the most consistent developer of Petrażycki’s ideas.