Weekend Wordery: “Realism”
Matt Yglesias is right. Legal realism is pretty much the opposite of philosophical realism. In philosophy, realism is basically the position that the world is not mind-dependent. In legal theory, realism (usually qualified as “legal realism” for this reason, I think) means that the law is mind-dependent. So, legal realism is associated with the cynical view that the law is whatever the judge says it is.
Yglesias also notes that people who don’t go to law school are invariably legal realists, which I suppose is probably true. I’d also note that, apart from the theoretically minded, high-achieving law students who go on to become law professors, practically all law students are legal realists. Which means that almost all lawyers are, too.
I’ve worked around the terminological confusion by simply boycotting the term—which is hopelessly two-dimensional anyway. Pragmatism, in law and in philosophy, captures the helpful insights of realism within a framework that is grounded in constructive and socially aware thinking about three-dimensional problems in a three-dimensional world.
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