Law and Lawyers vs “Political Turn” and the “Return of Political Philosophy”

Abstract

The title of the article refers to P. Manent’s essay, describing “the return of political philosophy”. Using the distinction between science and art, suggested by thinkers such as J.S. Mill, an analysis was made of the possible responses of legal theory to the so-called “political turn” in social sciences and humanities. Attempts were made to show that transplanting such terms as “politics”, “the political”, “polity” (in the text they function under more theoretically neutral term: “politicalness”) into the field of legal discourse leads to the rejection of the so far dominant (referring to the ideal of Ch. Montesquieu) image of the activity of lawyers as “artisans” practicing the art of law and to replacing it with the image of a lawyer-artists or lawyer-scientist.

Keywords

• legal theory
• social sciences
• the political
• politics