On Leon Petrażycki's Critical Realism and Legal Realism

The author shows that Petra\u17cycki adopted a form of critical realism, and that, despite him never using the exact term \u201clegal realism\u201d, his approach to legal phenomena can be regarded as a form of legal realism\u2014if understood as critical realism applied to legal phenomena. In the first part of the chapter, the author presents Petra\u17cycki\u2019s critical realism. Here, his theory of perception and his conceptualization of deduction/induction as a scientific method (akin to Popper\u2019s method) is presented. In the second part of the chapter, the author shows that Petra\u17cycki\u2019s theory of law, as well as his legal dogmatics and legal policy, should be all regarded as forms of legal realism. To this goal, after presenting Petra\u17cycki\u2019s distinction between objective-cognitive and subjective-relational sciences, the manner in which Petra\u17cycki uses terms meaning \u201creal\u201d, \u201crealist\u201d, \u201crealistic\u201d, is examined. When reconstructing Petra\u17cycki\u2019s conception of legal dogmatics, the author also draws on Lande\u2019s writings\u2014the most consistent developer of Petra\u17cycki\u2019s ideas