Reading Of Reality Research Articles

“Historical turn” in the Research on Hans Kelsen?

The “Pure Theory of Law” has been very well researched in relevant literature, but its historical origins and impacts have been taken less into account. According to my hypothesis, the “Pure Theory of Law” cannot just be read as an abstract legal theory “fallen from heaven”. It is both an intellectual product of a multiethnic empire, and a reflection in the face of a polarized society. In my paper, I therefore aim to subject Kelsen’s theory to a historical contextualization, and to elaborate its legal concept as prerequisite for any legal historical work. I am examining the question of how the “Pure Theory of Law” was shaped by the experiences of the Habsburg Empire and the First Republic – especially with regard to Kelsen’s rule as constitutional judge –, and which interpretation of Kelsen’s theory can support, in terms of legal theory, a historical approach. Based on the theories of the “New History of International Law” and the realistic reading on Kelsen (ie the Schools of Genoa and Nanterre), I argue for the historical contextualization and the dynamic reading of the “Pure Theory of Law”, which – according to my hypothesis – enables legal theory and legal history to be thought together.

Being Realistic about Kant’s Idealism (Translated by M. Rouba)

This paper deals with the question of whether Kant's transcendental idealism allows for an explanation of the a posteriori aspects of mental content by the properties of empirical objects. I first show that a phenomenalist interpretation has severe problems with assuming that we perceive an object as being red or as being cubical partly because the perceived object is red and cubical, and then present an interpretation that allows us to save the realistic intuition behind these claims. According to this interpretation, Kantian phenomenal properties are understood as response-dependent properties of extra-mental objects that also have to have some response-independent (in-itself-) properties. I show that this interpretation is well supported by Kant's remarks about the transcendental object in the A-edition of the first Critique and that it also makes intelligible why Kant took explanations of mental content by means of empirical properties to imply an explanation by means of noumenal properties without thereby violating his own doctrine of noumenal ignorance. This not only allows us to establish a realistic reading of Kant idealism but also to discern the true kernel in Adickes’ infamous talk about Kant's theory of double affection.

'You cannot assimilate Indian ghosts' : a magical realist reading of Louise Erdrich's The Night Watchman

'You cannot assimilate Indian ghosts' : a magical realist reading of Louise Erdrich's The Night Watchman

Sulu Şartlar İçin Geliştirilen Ekmeklik Buğday Çeşitlerine Optik Sensor ile Azotlu Gübre Tavsiyesi

Bu çalışma, 2017-2019 yılları arasında Eskişehir Geçit Kuşağı Tarımsal Araştırma Enstitüsü arazisinde yürütülmüştür. Çalışmada, dört kışlık (Atay85, Hat 31, Yunus ve Nacibey) buğday çeşidinin sulu koşulları altında azot gübrelemesine verdikleri tepkiler, spektral yansımaya dayalı bitki örtüsü indeksleri ve bu endekslerden hesaplanan Mevsimsel Verim Tahminleri ile karşılaştırılmıştır. Bu amaçla GreenSeekerTM (NTech Industries, Inc., Ukiah, CA) el tipi sensör kullanılmıştır. Deneme, Tesadüf Bloklarında Faktöriyel deneme deseninde ve 6 farklı 0, 4, 8, 12, 16 ve 20 kg N/da azot oranları kullanılmıştır. Vejetasyon indeksleri (NDVI) Zadoks2.4, Zadoks3,0, Zadoks3,1 ve Zadoks3,2 büyüme dönemlerinde okunmuştur. Zadoks3,0 (sapa kalkma dönemi) en gerçekçi okuma dönemi olarak belirlenmiştir. Sistemin geleneksel çiftçi uygulamaları ile karşılaştırıldığında, 3 deneme ortalamasına göre, yeni sistemin, ilkbahar dönemi azot uygulamalarında 2,8 kg/da daha az N (ZD3,0) ile benzer verimler sağladığı ve ekonomik açıdan ümit verici olduğunu görülmüştür. Sensör uygulamasının çiftçi uygulamasından % 2 daha ekonomik olarak etkin olduğu belirlenmiştir. Ekonomik azot dozu sırasıyla Atay85, Hat 31, Yunus ve Nacibey 12,6 kg N/da, 14,1 kg N/da, 14,4 kg N/da ve 17,9 kg N/da azot dozu olarak belirlenmiştir.

Acute Pain Medicine

Acute Pain Medicine is a book with an innovative goal to apply case-based learning to acute pain medicine. This is a very readable book, in which leading physicians in pain medicine communicate their lifetime professional experience and knowledge, to give the reader the impression of having learned a valid clinical approach by being with them for years. The book is organized into 3 sections with chapters that treat several topics related to perioperative and nonperioperative pain conditions. Section I (The Practice of Acute Pain Medicine, Chapters 1–2) details the economic problem of implementing acute pain medicine services. This section underlines the value of pain management as a service and the centrality of acute pain services in the integration between multimodal analgesia, regional analgesia, protocols of enhanced recovery after surgery (ERAS), and the use of procedure-specific postoperative pain management (PROSPECT) protocols. Section II (Case-Based Acute Pain Medicine, Chapters 3–25) constitutes the most interesting part of the book. It offers a variety of scenarios in acute pain medicine that can be encountered in practice. The range of topics is wide and includes orthopedic, thoracic, abdominal, and pediatric surgery, as well as some nonperioperative pain conditions and polytrauma. The structure of the case-based chapters is exceptional and represents an excellent method of clinical thinking. The authors start with questions that arise daily in clinical practice. At the beginning of each chapter, the authors put forward a case-based pain problem (in Greek πρό [pró, “before”] + βάλλω [bállō, “throw, cast”] mean, “to put forward”). The authors advance their reasoning through the problem’s fundamental expression, “the question,” spanning clinical, diagnostic, and therapeutic considerations. All chapters contain a special focus on pharmacology. Up-to-date references and guidelines support each section. This is a book made of many good questions with corresponding concise but sufficiently detailed answers. Readers will find an immediate response to all aspects of the proposed pain problem. They will also appreciate the fact that questions and answers cover all aspects of each single case in a truly holistic fashion. For future editions, we expect that clinical cases will be organized into a more defined etiological classification and also include obstetrical pain syndromes and more nonorthopedic pain conditions. The third section of the book (Advanced Regional Anesthesia and Analgesia, Chapters 26–60) is an updated version of the Military Advanced Regional Anesthesia and Analgesia Handbook (MARAA II) where almost every type of regional block can be found. Image quality of regional procedures for specific areas of the body is good; the text is simple but complete and includes basic pediatric regional anesthesia, acupuncture treatments on the battlefield, acute pain nursing, acute pain treatment in the battlefield, and air transport of the critically injured patient. With this text, the authors underline the problem of experience and its transmission into medical education in the 21st century. Dealing with pain clinics requires a skilled use of intelligence. In its Latin origin (intus/inter + legere) the word “intelligence” means literally “to read through, read inside.” However, who can help us to read reality and increase our clinical experience? In this unique era of the history of medicine, we have plenty of readily available information supported by improved scientific methodology, but we again need to “read through” and to pick what is more adapted to the individual clinical situation, because every patient is unique. “Experience, as development of the person, connotes the fact of becoming aware of one’s growth in the understanding of reality.”1 As opposed to what happens in the scientific field, where we can add today’s advances to those of the past, experience in its basic form is not simply an additional process.2 Experience needs to be transmitted by someone who has gained it through intelligence and needs to be renewed during a lifetime’s work for knowledge. The clinical eye of a good mentor on the treatment of a patient can be learned only from the mentor himself (Figure 1).3 That is why mentorship and case-based learning are the original and fundamental methods of learning in medicine. The Acute Pain Medicine book is unique, and it attempts to bridge the gap by transmitting the experience of great mentors. For these reasons, fellows and residents should have this book, and the book is also recommended to those physicians who know that the long journey to knowledge never ends.Figure.: André Brouillet. Un Leçon Clinique à la Salpêtrière (Jean-Martin Charcot demonstrating in a clinical lecture to his colleagues). 1887. Université Paris Descartes, Paris. From Wikipedia; available at: https://www.google.com/search?q=andre+brouillet+salpetriere&client=ms-android-huawei&prmd=nimv&sxsrf=ALeKk02q9w_Ks2S-6pf45k2zrdUDNk86Ug:1591737381299&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjt_L_p0_XpAhW1WxUIHfM1DK0Q_AUoAnoECBUQAg&biw=480&bih=656#imgrc=wEDppSZRfwtxvM.Zhirajr Mokini, MDDhurata Vrenozi, MDDepartment of AnesthesiologyClinique Saint FrançoisChâteauroux, France[email protected]

Sensor based calibration study for in-season nitrogen management of winter wheat in Turkey

The aims of this study were to compare the responses of four winter wheat cultivars to nitrogen fertilization with vegetation indices calculated using spectral reflection (GreenSeeker hand-held sensor) and to estimate in-season yield (INSEY) using the vegetation indices. The field experiment was conducted at Transitional Zone Agricultural Research Institute of Eskisehir province, Turkey in 2007-2008, 2008-2009 and 2009-2010 growing seasons. The experimental layout was a 2factor factorial in the randomized complete block design. Nitrogen rates were 0, 40, 80, 120, 160 and 200 kg N ha-1. Vegetation Index (NDVI) was obtained at growth stages of Zadoks 24 (tillering stage), Zadoks stage 30 (stem elongation), Zadoks stage 31 (the first node is visible) and Zadoks stage 32 (the second node is visible). The results revealed that Zadoks stage 30 was the most realistic reading time. NDVI had the advantage of providing information on biomass, in addition to nitrogen nutrition status of crops, enabling in-season yield estimation possible. Therefore, NDVI based calibration equations were preferred for testing in the fields of actual farmers for the last year of study. A comparison of the system with traditional farmer applications indicated that yield estimation obtained by the new system was quite similar yields with 13.2 kg ha-1 less N in the spring (ZD 3.0), showing its economically promising value.
 Asian J. Med. Biol. Res. June 2020, 6(2): 204-211

Arctic Diplomacy: A Theoretical Evaluation of Russian Foreign Policy in the High North

Abstract International interest in the Arctic is heating up along with the planet’s atmosphere and the region is increasingly presented as a new potential hotspot for inter-state competition and discord. Inevitably, Russia is often at the centre of this implicitly ‘realist’ narrative. This study provides an evaluation of Moscow’s Arctic policy between 2000 and 2019 from an international relation theory perspective by building upon the burgeoning literature on the Arctic and sources on Russian foreign policy in general. This study postulates that several elements of Russian regional policy in the High North do indeed follow realist readings of the international politics yet it also demonstrates how structural realism fails to adequately account for the institutionalization of regional relations and, most notably, neglects the importance of domestic factors, specifically historical memory, towards understanding Moscow’s contemporary Arctic policy.

Spinoza on Composition, Monism, and Beings of Reason

In this paper, I argue that Spinoza holds a perspectivalist view of mereological composition, a form of anti-realism. The paper has two parts: In the first half of the paper, I introduce interpretive puzzles for the standard realist reading of Spinoza’s mereology. In the second half of the paper, I discuss Spinoza’s positive view on mereological composition and present a perspectivalist reading that avoids the interpretive puzzles.

A Realistic Reading of The Picture of Dorian Gray: An Inter-disciplinary Approach

오스카 와일드는 사실주의에 대해 회의적이었다. 그러나 그의 유일한 소설『도리안 그레이의 초상』은 그의 문학 세계가 가진 미학적 현실성에 대한 논의를 가능하게 한다. 이와 관련하여 이 논의는 크게 두 가지의 측면에서 소설을 조명하고자 한다. 첫째, 그의 문학 세계가 가지고 있는 문학의 사회 비평성에 대해 논의한다. 이 문학의 사회비평성은 와일드의 제국주의에 대한 비판적 시각과 세기말 영국의 귀족사회에 대한 비판적 시각을 담고 있으며 소설의 내연적 범위 내에서 논할 수 있는 그의 현실 인식과 그것이 소설에서 표현된 양상에 관한 연구이다. 이 논의의 두 번째 주요한 측면은 와일드의 문학 세계와 그가 연루된 1895년의 소송을 되짚어 봄으로써 소설과 19세기법의 문화사의 연관성에 대해 논하는 과정에서 그의 소설이 문학 외연에서 지닐 수 있는 정치적, 사회 비평적 성격에 대해 논해보는 것이다. 이 논의는 기존의『도리안 그레이의 초상』의 연구에서 다소 미흡했던 학문간 융합적 연구의 시도에 그 주안점을 두고 있다. 문학적, 역사적, 법의 문화사적으로 다층화된 소통적 연구의 시각으로 와일드의 문학 세계를 재조명해 볼 때 기존의 심미주의적 해석의 지배성에 가려져 간과되었던 그의 문학의 현실 비판적 측면은 더욱 확연하게 드러나고 설득력 있게 논의될 수 있다.Oscar Wilde was skeptical toward literary realism, but The Picture of Dorian Gray opens up the possibility for the reader’s investigation of the aesthetically realistic aspects of this fiction. In this paper, the subject of multiple realistic approachableness on Wilde and his works is explored in two major ways. The first is to explore the way in which social criticism is conveyed ‘inside’ the fiction. It does this by identifying Wilde’s Anglo-Irish criticism of the British imperial system in the form of the use of ‘double-ness’ in a number of the characters in the fiction, as suggested in Terry Eagleton’s term on Wilde, the “subversive wit.” The paper explores the way in which the ideology of hedonistic individualism advocated by Lord Henry Wotton, the mode of ‘confessional realism’ and ‘honesty of being’, offers an literary representation of the moral decline of the English upper class at the end of the Victorian era. The second way is to explore the way in which the inter-disciplinary perspective social criticism is conveyed ‘outside’ Wilde’s literary world. By means of a collaborative examination of Wilde’s literature and the criminal prosecution of Wilde in April-May 1895, the paper suggests a reevaluation of Wilde’s fiction that takes account of the prevailing conservative social circumstances of censoring literature and imperial political aspects of the legal system in the end of Victorian era during The Picture of Dorian Gray was published.

E-Reading in Organizations: Users’ Satisfaction and Preference

This paper defines electronic reading (e-reading) and then continues to discuss the diverse definitions of the main resource of e-reading, which are, electronic books (e-books). It then proceeds to describe the formats and standards of existing e-book initiatives, which are gaining wider interest since the introduction of portable electronic reading devices and software-based readers that provide users with a more realistic book reading experience. Advantages, disadvantages, and problems with paper-based reading are also explained. In addition, a study concerning an evaluation of e-reading satisfaction is described. Three different e-book formats (LIT, PDF, and HTML) were utilised to accomplish the primary aims of the study, which were to identify the most preferred format, associated software-based reader (Microsoft Reader, Adobe Acrobat Reader, Internet Explorer), and the potential of e-reading in the workplace. Based on a proposed preferred index, the results seem to suggest that Microsoft Reader is more preferable when compared to the other two. However, most participants preferred reading on paper rather than on screen. Although this was the case, some participants would e-read depending on resources and situations.

Emancipation as subjectification. A critical realist reading of Biesta’s educational philosophy

ABSTRACT‘Subjectification', the cornerstone concept of Biesta's philosophy of education, refers to how autonomy should be realized in educational settings and to the fact that explanation is irrelevant to emancipation. In this article a critical realist reading is provided of how Biesta links narrative learning to emancipation and of the shortcomings that spring from this connection. The central thesis of my argument is that truth and values should take center stage in an educational philosophy of emancipation and that these two concepts are left out of Biesta's conception of emancipation. It is suggested that Biesta's philosophy of emancipation has no criteria for distinguishing what is true from what is false and valuable from invaluable. This happens because it cannot adequately address (i) how one passes from ‘is' to ‘ought’ (ii) the ways in which rational thinking could be emancipatory and (iii) the grounds on which emancipatory living is better than non emancipatory living.

“Symbolic Mediation” in Alphabetical Processes: Cultural Heritages, Territories and Multiliteracies

The contribution addresses the problem of the relationship between patrimonies, territories, multiliteracies. In it, culture is basically understood as a process of symbolic elaboration of stimuli, objects and cultural experiences that contribute to building the cultural, alphabetic and identity profile of the individual, as well as his personal and social experience. The cultural heritage, as a diversified set of forms, refers to a symbolic universe that must be made accessible to everyone through special mediation tools, which can give continuity and meaning to the experiences of use. The article reflects on how it is possible to construct meanings starting from the symbolic elaboration that the individual puts in place and from the experiences in which he is immersed. The experience of use is in fact an opportunity that must be guaranteed to everyone, since it is the foundation of the interpretative universe that serves to read reality in depth. It is a question here of the importance for the individual of accessing a symbolic universe through which he interprets and relates to the world and the various cultural forms. At a time when literacy processes have widened their boundaries becoming multiple (multilteracies), there is a specific need for a pedagogy of the heritage that knows how to correspond to the emerging alphabetic needs typical of a society in transformation and increasingly technological and which looks to cultural and museum heritage as tools to access the profound meaning that culture expresses.

A realistic reading of the parable of the Lost Coin in Q: Gaining or losing even more?

This article aims to present a realistic reading of the parable of the Lost Coin in Q. A realistic reading of the parable focuses on the social realia invoked by the parables, that is, the social realities and practices (cultural scripts) embedded by any given parable. As will be indicated, available documented papyri can be used to identify the possible social realia invoked by the parables, and this can help the modern reader to identify what is ‘normal’ or ‘abnormal’ in a parable being interpreted. This, in turn, can help the modern reader to come to grips with the probable intended meaning of the parable. In a realistic reading of the Lost Coin, it is argued that two things are important: the price and daily consumption of oil, and the Lost Coin being one of the gendered doublets in Q. Apart from proposing a possible meaning of the Lost Coin, it is also indicated that a realistic reading explains why the seeking of the woman is described as being ἐπιμελῶς [diligent].

Hume on the Unity of Determinations of Extension

We do not fully understand Hume’s account of space if we do not understand his view of determinations of extension, a topic which has not received enough attention. In this paper, I argue for an interpretation that determinations of extension are unities in Hume’s view: I argue for an interpretation that determinations of extension are unities in Hume’s view: single beings in addition to their components. This realist reading is reasonable on both textual and philosophical grounds. There is strong textual evidence for it and no textual reason to reject it. Realism makes perfect sense of the metaphysics of determinations of extension along Humean lines and Hume’s view of spatial relations.

A representationalist reading of Kantian intuitions

There are passages in Kant’s writings according to which empirical intuitions have to be (a) singular, (b) object-dependent, and (c) immediate. It has also been argued that empirical intuitions (d) are not truth-apt, and (e) need to provide the subject with a proof of the possibility of the cognized object. Having relied on one or another of the a-e constraints, the naive realist readers of Kant have argued that it is not possible for empirical intuitions to be representations. Instead they have argued for a relationalist reading of empirical intuitions in terms of an acquaintance relation between the subject and the intuited object. For the sake of argument, I will grant the naive realist reader of Kant that empirical intuitions should satisfy all the (a)–(e) constraints. Nevertheless, by incorporating these constraints, one by one, into a representationalist theory of empirical intuitions, I will show that not only doesn’t a naive realist reading of empirical intuitions follow, but also that the naive realist has hastily overlooked a range of perfectly representationalist readings of intuitions available to Kant and his representationalist allies. On the positive side, I will argue that there is an extra constraint on intuitions—i.e., that givenness does not require presence to consciousness—that directly goes against any naive realist account of intuitions.

Dos versiones de realismo en torno a Wittgenstein

El presente trabajo gira en torno a dos lecturas realistas del "segundo Wittgenstein", una de carácter no metafísico surgida en The Realistic Spirit (1991) de Cora Diamond y otra lectura "realista metafísica", presentada a partir de la interpretación de H. Mounce en "Wittgenstein and Classical Realism" (2005). A partir de la confrontación de ambas posiciones, el hilo de lectura crítica que conducirá nuestro trabajo será que no podemos sostener ninguna posición realista "metafísica" (para denominarlo de un modo muy general) en relación con las tesis del segundo Wittgenstein. El trasfondo práctico sobre el que se apoyan las descripciones de este autor muestra ese fundamento no metafísico sino contingente sobre el que basamos nuestros hechos, conceptos y objetividad. Esto nos acerca a una noción de realismo en el que conceptos y realidad ya cuentan con significado de antemano en tanto la praxisen la que se enraízan garantiza nuestro trato con lo que nos rodea. El fundamento no es la razón, la conciencia, la correspondencia o adecuación a una realidad "desnuda"; es la praxis, el lugar común y el equilibrio entre los seres humanos y mundo.

Impacto de las habilidades de comprensión lectora en el aprendizaje escolar: Un estudio realizado en una comuna de la región metropolitana, Chile

The acquisition of skills for reading comprehension is essential in today’s society, because it is not only a way of learning new contents, but also a necessary element to be inserted in life in society. In this article, we propose to investigate the impact of reading comprehension skills on the learning outcomes of fifth grade students from ten schools in a commune of the Metropolitan Region, Chile. A quantitative methodology was used. Data were analyzed through descriptive statistics, correlations, and hierarchies. It is intended to get a conclusion and to know the skills that have the greatest impact on the results obtained by the students in the tests indicated above and with that, to give guidelines for the strengthening of more realistic reading comprehension abilities.

Précis of Imagined Causes

Précis of Imagined Causes Stefanie Rocknak (bio) By Hume's own account, his most ambitious project, the Treatise on Human Nature, was a notoriously immature undertaking, choked with immutable difficulties.1 Perhaps as a result of this immaturity, and perhaps because, as Kant suggests above, Hume is perpetually misread, his view on objects remains obscured. What are they? Are they ideas? Impressions? Mindindependent objects? All three? None of the above? To date, scholars have not provided a unified, much less exhaustive, answer to these questions. Rather, four somewhat fragmented interpretations have been circulating in the literature. We may characterize them (in partial response to Marjorie Grene)2 as follows: 1.) The phenomenonalist reading, where objects are impressions (for example, Grene, "The Objects of Hume's Treatise"; Bennett, Locke, Berkeley and Hume; Steinberg, "Hume on the Continued Existence and the Identity of Changing Things"; and Dicker, "Hume on the Intermittent Existence of the Objects of the Senses"); 2.) The intentional reading, where objects are the objects of thought (for example, Salmon, The Central Problem of Hume's Philosophy); 3.) The realist reading, where objects are mind-independent things (for example, Wilson, "Is Hume a Skeptic with Regard to the Senses?"; Flage, David Hume's Theory of Mind; Costa, "Hume and Causal Realism"; Strawson, "David Hume: Objects and Power"; Wright, "Hume's Causal Realism: Recovering a Traditional Interpretation"; 4) The imagined, but non-causal reading, where objects, to varying degrees (depending on the scholar at hand) are imagined, but are not imagined as causes (for instance, Price, Hume's Theory of the External World; Kemp Smith, The Philosophy of David Hume; Wilbanks, Hume's Theory of Imagination; and Waxman, Hume's Theory of Consciousness). This book presents a new interpretation of Humean objects, where I focus on just Book 1 of the Treatise. In the course of doing so, I show that although in places, Hume surely does suggest that objects are impressions, or are intentional, or are imagined but are not imagined as [End Page 47] causes, these intermittent uses of the word "object" do not reflect Hume's more comprehensive position. Nor does Hume think that objects are mind independent things; he is not a realist. Rather, throughout Book 1 of the Treatise, Hume struggled with two positions on the nature of objects. On the one hand, Hume believed that despite what we, in our common, that is, "vulgar" state of mind, or alternatively, in our more sophisticated "philosophical" state of mind, think that objects are, what we actually and always do, is imagine that objects are the causes of our various and interrupted perceptions. Objects are nothing more than complex, imagined ideas, as such, they are perceptions. Moreover, objects are necessarily imagined (as causes) because they constitute certain conditions of possibility for experience, making them functions of what we may refer to as a "transcendental" faculty of the imagination: "we always imagine that there is some cause that separates or unites [objects]" (T 1.3.2.2; SBN 74; emphasis added). In this very general respect, Hume anticipates the Kantian transcendental turn. But Hume also seemed to think that we only imagine causes (although unwittingly) when we reach a certain "philosophical" level of thought. Thus, when we imagine a cause of a set of interrupted and varying perceptions—where we believe that this cause is a real mind-independent thing—we are "philosophers," as they are described at the end of 1.4.2 ("Of skepticism with regard to the senses"). However, such philosophers are not aware that they are imagining causes. Instead, they mistakenly think that they are using reason to conclude that objects are real, mind-independent things. As a result, on this second reading, imagining causes is a natural, although unacknowledged, culmination of human thought, as opposed to being something that all of us, always—although unknowingly—do. The tension between these two positions on objects manifests itself in Hume's much discussed account of personal identity, presented in 1.4.6 of the Treatise. In fact, Hume openly acknowledges this tension in the Appendix to the Treatise. Here, he suggests that the philosophical account of perfect identity is mistaken, while his account of...

HOHFELD VS. THE LEGAL REALISTS

ABSTRACT2018 marked the centenary of Wesley Hohfeld's untimely passing. Curiously, in recent years quite a few legal historians and philosophers have identified him as a Legal Realist. This article argues that Hohfeld was no such thing, that his work need not be understood in such lights either, and that he in fact made a smaller contribution to jurisprudence than is generally believed. He has nothing to do with theories of official decision-making that identify, among other things, “extra-legal” factors as the real drivers of judicial decision-making, nor must his schema of jural relations advance a “Realist” political agenda. Distinguishing Hohfeld from the Realists will help to correct some misunderstandings about his work and point to its utility in many more contexts than a Realist reading of it allows.

Aristotle’s realist regime theory

The ambition of this article is threefold. First, it is to offer a realist reading of Aristotle’s regime theory as it is laid out mostly in Books IV–VI of his Politics. The author argues that Aristotle’s regime theory has three fundamentally realist claims about the workings of politics: first, the search for a perfect regime is not the only legitimate subject of political theory; second, every regime is built on a delicate balance of a particular understanding of political justice, a variety of sociological factors and the institutional design and political virtues of its politicians; third, there are almost as many different regimes as polities, and although they can be grouped into major regime types, there are many sub-types and mixed and transitory regimes. Second, the article argues that modern democratic theories have an unacceptable ‘moralistic bias’ from a realist point of view. Third, that a neo-Aristotelian regime theory can offer an attractive realist alternative to the predominant contemporary understandings of political regimes.