Law in Disagreement

The debate between interpretivism and legal conventionalism

Ronaldo Porto Macedo Junior

• Publisher: Editora Dialética
• Year: 2026
• Topic: Law
• eBook ISBN:
  9786528806126
• Subtopic: Law Theory & Practice
• Index: Law

This book examines a particularly important chapter in the history of the jurisprudential debate that has dominated recent decades: the reactions that certain works — and, most notably, Ronald Dworkin's work — provoked among defenders of the social-sources thesis, according to which the sources of law are exclusively social. These authors, also called methodological positivists, sought to respond to the Dworkinian challenge by presenting a "conventionalist theory of law." That challenge consisted in a critique of the explanations offered by Hartian positivism of how the rule of recognition becomes normative and generates obligations for the officials for whom it serves as a basis, as well as of the nature of disagreements in the ordinary argumentative legal practices of our courts. These kinds of "theoretical disagreements" — disagreements about the concept of law — affect our disagreements within law. Written in direct and rigorous language, the book offers a rich and convincing overview of the central questions of contemporary legal theory.

Table of contents

• Capa
• Folha de Rosto
• Página de Créditos
• Note on the English Translation
• Preface
• Contents
• Introduction
• CHAPTER I Legal conventionalism and Dworkin’s early critique
• CHAPTER II The critique of conventionalism in Law’s Empire
• CHAPTER III Refinements of the conventionality thesis
• CHAPTER IV Conventionalism revisited (Jules Coleman and Andrei Marmor)
• Conclusion
• References