Abstract
Abstract: This paper reflects on Christoph Kletzer’s absolute positivism and puts a focus on a view of the basic norm that grounds the validity of law in the law itself. I will try to explain the significance of this idea against the backdrop of Hans Kelsen’s transformation of the basic norm from a “hypothesis” to a “fiction.” I shall argue that the goal of an ultimate foundation of the objective validity of a legal order can only be accomplished by a fictional basic norm. In my eyes, contrary to what Kelsen claimed in his later work, such a norm cannot amount to a genuine epistemological fiction (echte Fiktion) in the sense of Hans Vaihinger’s “The Philosophy of ‘As If,’” but has to be regarded, rather, as a practical legal fiction.
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