The Philosophical Substance of the General Theory of Law

Contemporary law is considered a social science with important positivist features, this image being comforted by the technical nature of judicial procedures and codes of laws of all kinds. Although it recognizes its "relationships" with the philosophy of law and even with the political theology, current legal science prefers to make few references to these areas of reflection, considering them fictional narratives that are not relevant to the functioning of a concrete legal system. Although most branches of law are currently well anchored in the positivist paradigm, recourse to philosophy becomes necessary again when we deal with subjects such as the genesis of the legal order and the state or when the administration of justice is a judgment on competing (even contradictory) societal values. In such areas of reflection and action, law manifests itself as a philosophical approach, and in some places as an ideological one.