I shall compare two views of legal concepts: as nodes in inferential nets and as categories in an ontology (a conceptual architecture). Firstly, I shall introduce the inferential approach, consider its implications, and distinguish the mere possession of an inferentially defined concept from the belief in the concept’s applicability, which also involves the acceptance of the concept’s constitutive inferences. For making this distinction, the inferential and eliminative analysis of legal concepts proposed by Alf Ross will be connected to the views (...) on theoretical concepts in science advanced by Frank Ramsey and Rudolf Carnap. Consequently, the mere comprehension of a legal concept will be distinguished from the application of the concept to a particular legal system, since application presupposes a doctrinal commitment, namely, the belief that the inferences constituting the concept hold in that system. Then, I shall consider how concepts can be characterised by defining the corresponding terms and placing them within an ontology. Finally, I shall argue that there is a tension between the inferential and the ontological approach, but that both need to be taken into account, to capture the meaning and the cognitive function of legal concepts. (shrink)

In his new book, The Force of Law, Frederick Schauer maintains that law has no necessary properties, and that therefore jurisprudents should not assume that an inquiry into the nature of law has to be a search for such properties. I argue, however, that Schauer's attempt to show that legal anti-essentialism is a defensible position fails, because his one main argument is either irrelevant or else incomplete, depending on how one understands it, and because the other main argument is false.