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Scott Brewer, Logic and the Life of the Law (Professor): A Logocratic Lesson from Hohfeld, in Wesley Hohfeld A Century Later (Shyamkrishna Balganesh, Ted M. Sichelman & Henry E. Smith eds., 2022).


Abstract: This chapter is an essay, literally an attempt, to present and solve a puzzle about Wesley Newcomb Hohfeld. In addition to being a doctrinal legal scholar, he was – and is justly renowned for his work as – a legal theorist, legal philosopher, and logician operating without, but anticipating, the formal grammar of logic (deontic logic, specifically1). Given the huge influence of his work, he had surprisingly few publications, resulting in a high yield of impact per page – and, indeed, per year of his short life.2 Wesley Hohfeld was also a law professor who had difficulty getting his students to see the value of his method as a tool for learning and mastering legal argument.