Kelsen, Hans

Abstract

Abstract Hans Kelsen (1881–1973) was born in Prague. Three years later, the family moved to Vienna, where Kelsen attended a Protestant primary school and then Vienna's highly respected Akademisches Gymnasium . In 1906 he took a doctorate in law at the University of Vienna, and, five years later, he completed the Habilitation , a procedure in the German‐speaking countries that includes a major dissertation and leads to the venia legendi or state license to hold university lectures. Kelsen published the dissertation under the title Hauptprobleme der Staatsrechtslehre (1911; Main Problems in the Theory of Public Law). Notwithstanding its title, the treatise is decidedly juridico‐philosophical in character, and its profound challenge to psychologism and naturalism ( see Nature and the Natural) in legal science distinguished Kelsen, from the beginning, as a figure to reckon with.