Groundless Law: Hans Kelsen’s Critical Legal Theory

This book explores the critical edge of Hans Kelsen’s pure theory of law, often muted in doctrinal interpretations, and highlights how Kelsen sought to radically redefine both legal science and legal reality.

The pure theory’s foundational concept of the Grundnorm (the basic norm) serves as the unifying thread of this book, demonstrating Kelsen’s conviction that any content whatsoever can be law, as he was wary of ideological justifications of positive law. While Kelsen understood law as a result of material political struggles, he prioritized the normative over the factual and thus slipped into a mystification of his object of cognition. To flesh out the iconoclastic features of Kelsen’s thought and the limitations of his neo-Kantian rationality, this book engages with Kelsen’s affinity with Friedrich Nietzsche’s unruly philosophy. The deconstructive ethos of the pure theory is considered through a parallel reading of Kelsen and Jacques Derrida, demonstrating that the pure theory deploys deconstruction avant la lettre, but is self-deconstructing. Concluding with a restatement of the Grundnorm, the book provides a fresh perspective on Kelsen’s seminal theory and its confrontation with a world in crisis.

The book is intended primarily for scholars and researchers in legal philosophy and jurisprudence, as well as academic audiences in political theory, social sciences, history, and the humanities.