From a Realist Point of View combines new essays with revised versions of the most important recent work of preeminent legal realist Brian Leiter. This collection offers a systematic and philosophically ambitious account of legal realism and links it, for the first time, to political realism. The new introductory essay offers a systematic reconstruction of legal and political realism, contrasting it with “moralist” approaches to law and politics. Part I, “Realism about Law and Legal Reasoning,” examines the problem of theoretical disagreement, the relation between legal positivism and realism, and the realist theory of precedent, concluding with a penetrating critique of the recent metaphysical inflation of general jurisprudence. Part II, “Realism about Courts, Politics, and Morality,” brings the realistic perspective to bear on courts and democracy, as well as on morality (understood as a culturally variably human artifact) and moral philosophy (treated as ethnographic data, irrelevant to political practice).
Machiko Hatsuda, Ondrej Hulık, William D. Linch
et al.
A-theory realizes U-duality symmetry by extending the string worldsheet to a higher dimensional brane worldvolume, in which the worldvolume and the spacetime belong to different representations of the exceptional group. The closure of the brane Virasoro algebra requires the Gauss law constraint. The Gauss law constraint promotes spacetime coordinates to gauge fields and extends the string worldsheet into the brane worldvolume. While the Virasoro constraint is used to reduce the spacetime coordinate, the Gauss law constraint is used to reduce both the worldvolume and the spacetime coordinates. As in conventional gauge theories, the treatment of the Gauss law constraint is a technically important aspect of the quantization of A-theory. We show that the string solution is only consistent solution of the Gauss law dimensional reduction condition for D=3 and 4 cases. This result implies that the physical symmetry of the theory is two-dimensional conformal symmetry, suggesting that the theory admits a string-like quantization. We further construct a string solution that is covariant under the exceptional group symmetry. The relation between this solution and the constant charge parameter appearing in the exceptional σ-model is also discussed.
This paper looks at the influence of the developments in technology on the evolution of the legal map of the world and the individual elements thereof through the prism of the philosophy of law, general theory of law, and comparative law. The analysis is based on the comparative legal and comparative historical methods. The author comes to the conclusion that the maxims of the Fourth Industrial Revolution have led to the emergence of a new legal tradition, and outlines the key characteristics of this tradition. The analysis of the aforementioned tradition is preceded by a look at the legal traditions already explored in the history of legal thought, the key position among which is occupied by the Western legal tradition. The “symptoms” of the new legal tradition described in the paper represent not only a certain stage in the development of global jurisprudence (albeit being at an initial phase), but also an element of the civilizational evolution of a universal social order. Like any previously non-actualized phenomenon, the new legal tradition does not only give new attributes and characteristics to the legal world, but also generates discussions about further paths of its own development. The final section of the paper deals with the problematic areas of the evolution of the new legal tradition.
This article explores the critical relationship between justice, feminist jurisprudence, and legal pluralism in the context of Indonesia's multilayered legal system. While classical legal philosophy particularly Aristotelian thought has long conceptualized justice in terms of distributive and corrective fairness, such frameworks often fall short in addressing systemic gender inequality. In societies marked by legal pluralism, including Indonesia, women remain structurally marginalized within state law, customary law, and religious law. This study examines how feminist jurisprudence provides an alternative lens for reinterpreting justice by centering the lived experiences of women and exposing patriarchal power structures embedded in legal institutions. Feminist jurisprudence challenges the presumed neutrality of law, revealing its complications in reinforcing male dominance and silencing women's voices. In the plural legal landscape of Indonesia, patriarchal norms are often preserved through the state's accommodation of discriminatory practices under the guidance of respecting cultural traditions or religious autonomy. Customary inheritance laws, the positioning of women in marriage, and religious family law disproportionately disadvantage women. Despite formal legal reforms such as the enactment of the Domestic Violence Law and the Sexual Violence Law, implementation remains hindered by institutional gender bias and cultural resistance. By integrating feminist legal theory into the discourse on justice, this paper advocates a shift from formal equality to substantive, transformative justice. Legal pluralism, rather than being a neutral space of cultural expression, must be critically interrogated to prevent the legitimization of systemic gender oppression. Ultimately, the article argues that feminist jurisprudence offers both a theoretical and practical pathway for reconstructing inclusive legal systems that uphold the rights and dignity of women in pluralistic societies.
В статье анализируются подходы белорусского законодателя в сфере борьбы с распространением недостоверной информации через средства массовой информации либо с использованием интернет-ресурсов. Обращается внимание на то, что в современных условиях фейковая информациярассматривается как новый феномен информационной эпохи. Данное явление сегодня существуети на территории Российской Федерации, и на территории Республики Беларусь. Обосновывается необходимость на государственном уровне определить методы и способы борьбы с ним. В Беларуси противодействие фейкам осуществляется по следующим направлениям: правовое просвещение гражданпутем проведения соответствующей разъяснительной работы среди населения на предмет «незнакомых» звонков или сообщений; обсуждается вопрос о создании комиссии по защите государственного суверенитета, в которую войдут представители многих министерств, а также должностные лица,связанные со СМИ; контрпропаганда, которая включает раскрытие ложной информации, ее опровержение в официальных источниках; усиление ответственности за распространение фейков (в 2021 г.были внесены соответствующие изменения в уголовное законодательство).
Comparative law. International uniform law, Jurisprudence. Philosophy and theory of law
Kamran Behnia, Shiyan Li, Johnpierre Paglione
et al.
Recently, Wang et al. [1] reported on an unusual violation of Wiedemann-Franz law in three semimetals. We compare their observations to our observations in a variety of systems, where the apparent WF law violations in the same temperature range arise as a consequence of electron-phonon decoupling. Given the empirical similarity of their data with these cases, the most plausible explanation for the reported violation is an experimental artefact.
Privacy law and regulation have turned to "consent" as the legitimate basis for collecting and processing individuals' data. As governments have rushed to enshrine consent requirements in their privacy laws, such as the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), significant challenges remain in understanding how these legal mandates are operationalized in software. The opaque nature of software development processes further complicates this translation. To address this, we explore the use of Large Language Models (LLMs) in requirements engineering to bridge the gap between legal requirements and technical implementation. This study employs a three-step pipeline that involves using an LLM to classify software use cases for compliance, generating LLM modifications for non-compliant cases, and manually validating these changes against legal standards. Our preliminary findings highlight the potential of LLMs in automating compliance tasks, while also revealing limitations in their reasoning capabilities. By benchmarking LLMs against real-world use cases, this research provides insights into leveraging AI-driven solutions to enhance legal compliance of software.
This paper examines Bruno Leoni’s attempt to reconcile a minimal concept of natural law with an evolutionary, common-law–based legal order. Rejecting both rigid legalism and historicist relativism, Leoni argues that individual freedom is best protected by a polycentric, jurisprudence-driven system grounded in universal ethical principles—most notably the golden rule—while remaining adaptable to social experience. The article contrasts Leoni’s approach with that of libertarian theorists such as Rothbard, Block, and Kinsella, and partly aligns with Frank van Dun’s critique of strict non-aggression legalism. It argues that a coherent libertarian legal theory must combine general moral axioms with the contextual wisdom of legal practice, taking into account causal complexity, historical evolution, and the practical dimension of adjudication. The study concludes that Leoni offers a “third way”: a libertarian legal philosophy rooted in classical natural law, enriched by evolutionary insight, and resistant to both dogmatic codification and relativistic skepticism.
The Roman and Greek roots of jurisprudence, philosophy, sociology, and many other branches of scientific knowledge make it natural for modern researchers to turn to ancient terms and stable expressions and use them in their own scientific texts and public speeches. This fact actualizes the problem of the accuracy of translation and interpretation of terms and phraseological units, comparing their historical and modern meanings, which is directly related to the literary quality of modern authorial opinions. Purpose: based on specific examples of the use of ancient terms and phraseological units in scientific literature, we propose for public discussion the issue of the correctness and utility of this usage. Methods: the historical method is used to describe and analyze natural historical transformations in legal vocabulary and phraseology; the specific legal method allows to assess the meaning of various legal terms and proverbs in specific national legal systems; the method of comparative law makes it possible to evaluate the functioning of similar phenomena of legal reality in different states; the method of structural-systemic analysis and synthesis is used to evaluate the meaning of individual terms of Latin and Greek origin in the system of law and legal science. Result: the article concludes that the incorrect use and spelling of foreign-language terms and phraseological units not only does not contribute to a better theoretical content of modern scientific research, but can also play the exact opposite role in them.
The article is devoted to the problem of the general theoretical legal disciplines’ correlation, which examines the correlation of philosophy of law, theory of law and sociology of law, clarifies the specifics of their research and the subject field of studying a complex and multidimensional phenomenon as law. It is argued that the general theoretical legal disciplines represent an organic unity in the system of jurisprudence, are closely interrelated with all legal sciences, but at the same time have “movable” boundaries in the study of law and a close connection with other socio-humanitarian knowledge. A theoretical position is made on the need to develop an appropriate theory and methodology in the field of studying legal phenomena and the integrated development of domestic general theoretical legal sciences that meet modern social relations emerging in the life of Russian society.
The author explores the concept of “truth” in jurisprudence, positioning it both as the ultimate goal of legal research and as an autonomous entity with independent value due to its ability to reflect objective reality in scientific knowledge. While the classical correspondence theory (“truth is the adequation of things and intellect”, Latin: Veritas est adaequatio rei et intellectus) provides a foundation, its methodological tools are often insufficient for the general theory of law and legal dogmatics. To address this, the article proposes enhancing classical approaches with modern scientific advancements, specifically incorporating the concept of supervenience from contemporary analytic philosophy. Despite the formality, abstractness, and temporality associated with legal reality, these should be recognized as intelligible elements of the objective mental existence of participants in legal relations. The article posits and substantiates the independent ontological status of legal phenomena, emphasizing the priority of rational identification over sensory perception, characteristic of objective idealism. Legal reality objects are categorized as essential, torsion, and fictitious to reflect, distort, or deform the true essence. The article pays special attention to the algorithm for distinguishing between real and apparent phenomena of legal reality. Achieving these goals is feasible through the use of dialectical, systemic, logical, normative-value, structural-functional, historical-legal, formal-legal, and theoretical-prognostic methods of cognition. The research findings demonstrate the relevance of combining the correspondence theory of truth with the concept of supervenience of legal reality to establish the ontological prerequisites for the emergence of legal constructions.
This paper delves into the emergence of sensory dimensions of law and the reasons behind it. This shift in legal studies is known by various names such as sensori-legal studies, sensory, or sensational jurisprudence. Contemporary scholars are exploring how law is perceived and its relationship to embodied experience in society through the senses by posing various research questions. Some focus on a specific sense within legal reality, while others emphasize the unity of their diverse nature. Nevertheless, the common thread among these endeavours is to highlight the overemphasized role of reason in the law and explore how our sensory experiences contribute to and shift legal norms and their implementation. The following theoretical introduction aims to enlighten readers on key theoretical findings in the emerging field and draw new approaches to conducting legal anthropological research. How many senses are there? Should legal senses such as judicial sense or sense of justice be included? Where is the borderline between senses and affects? Focusing on the court as an institution where the law is put into action and the place where people encounter the coldness of procedural requirements, I briefly touch on the sense of hearing and its role in the administration of justice. I contemplate how the sensory ambiance of the courtroom contributes to the judicial procedure and whether the formal act of a hearing genuinely ensures that parties to the process feel heard. Finally, this essay invites reflection on how the capacity to listen influences making fair decisions and ensuring that justice is served.
Romuald Hube was one of the most prominent Polish legal historians of the 19th century. He was also a very active jurist who was a member of several governing authorities in the Kingdom of Poland. As a very distinguished lawyer, characterized by a loyalistic attitude towards the government of the Kingdom of Poland, he was appointed to a Commission whose goal was to codify Russian law and unify with it the law in force in the Kingdom of Poland. The most significant of these codifications the result of Romuald Hube’s work was the Code of Principal and Corrective Penalties issued for Russia in 1845, and in 1847 for Poland. The introduction of this Code, which was very critically received by the Polish society, brought down a wave of criticism on Romuald Hube, related not only to the legal solutions adopted in this Code itself, but above all to the role he played in the repressive policies of the Russian authorities against the Polish population. Romuald Hube’s participation in the creation of the Code still raises many controversies in Polish academic circles.
Damiano Azzolini, Elena Bellodi, Rafael Kiesel
et al.
Solving a decision theory problem usually involves finding the actions, among a set of possible ones, which optimize the expected reward, possibly accounting for the uncertainty of the environment. In this paper, we introduce the possibility to encode decision theory problems with Probabilistic Answer Set Programming under the credal semantics via decision atoms and utility attributes. To solve the task we propose an algorithm based on three layers of Algebraic Model Counting, that we test on several synthetic datasets against an algorithm that adopts answer set enumeration. Empirical results show that our algorithm can manage non trivial instances of programs in a reasonable amount of time. Under consideration in Theory and Practice of Logic Programming (TPLP).
The effectiveness of Large Language Models (LLMs) in legal reasoning is often limited due to the unique legal terminologies and the necessity for highly specialized knowledge. These limitations highlight the need for high-quality data tailored for complex legal reasoning tasks. This paper introduces LegalSemi, a benchmark specifically curated for legal scenario analysis. LegalSemi comprises 54 legal scenarios, each rigorously annotated by legal experts, based on the comprehensive IRAC (Issue, Rule, Application, Conclusion) framework from Malaysian Contract Law. In addition, LegalSemi is accompanied by a structured knowledge base (SKE). A series of experiments were conducted to assess the usefulness of LegalSemi for IRAC analysis. The experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of incorporating the SKE for issue identification, rule retrieval, application and conclusion generation using four different LLMs.
Muhammad Zubair Khan, Oleg E. Peil, Apoorva Sharma
et al.
In the rapidly expanding field of two-dimensional materials, magnetic monolayers show great promise for the future applications in nanoelectronics, data storage, and sensing. The research in intrinsically magnetic two-dimensional materials mainly focuses on synthetic iodide and telluride based compounds, which inherently suffer from the lack of ambient stability. So far, naturally occurring layered magnetic materials have been vastly overlooked. These minerals offer a unique opportunity to explore air-stable complex layered systems with high concentration of local moment bearing ions. We demonstrate magnetic ordering in iron-rich two-dimensional phyllosilicates, focusing on mineral species of minnesotaite, annite, and biotite. These are naturally occurring van der Waals magnetic materials which integrate local moment baring ions of iron via magnesium/aluminium substitution in their octahedral sites. Due to self-inherent capping by silicate/aluminate tetrahedral groups, ultra-thin layers are air-stable. Chemical characterization, quantitative elemental analysis, and iron oxidation states were determined via Raman spectroscopy, wavelength disperse X-ray spectroscopy, X-ray absorption spectroscopy, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. Superconducting quantum interference device magnetometry measurements were performed to examine the magnetic ordering. These layered materials exhibit paramagnetic or superparamagnetic characteristics at room temperature. At low temperature ferrimagnetic or antiferromagnetic ordering occurs, with the critical ordering temperature of 38.7 K for minnesotaite, 36.1 K for annite, and 4.9 K for biotite. In-field magnetic force microscopy on iron bearing phyllosilicates confirmed the paramagnetic response at room temperature, present down to monolayers.