How the Law Thinks: Toward a Constructivist Epistemology of Law

Abstract

Twas bryllig, and the slythy toves did gyre and gymble in the wabe: all mimsy were the borogoves; and the mome raths outgrabe. American law professor commenting on Niklas Luhmann, “The Unity of the Legal System” European and American scholars of law and society apparently have problems in communicating with each other. To invoke Lewis Carroll's authority on a piece of legal theory indicates how serious the problems are. After all, traced to its true origins, “Jabberwocky,” the famous “Stanza of Anglo-Saxon Poetry” (Carroll, 1855; 1871: 191), means “weeks of woe” in its original German version (Scott alias Chatterton, 1872). And inextricably involved in the interpretation of the poetry is a certain Hermann von Schwindel . . .