Nuova meditazione sul realismo giuridico. Realisti d’America

The article discusses American legal realism, the movement of jurists that emerged in the United States in the 1920s and 1930s. After recalling the historical context in which legal realism is situated (a context characterized by a rapid and complex transformation of American society), the essay then focuses on the philosophical roots of the movement, represented mainly by the pragmatism of Peirce, James and Dewey. In a kind of realist manifesto, Karl Nickerson Llewellyn pointed to the prediction of court behavior as the main task of legal science. This is, in Marra’s view, an untenable scientist position. Human actions, including judges’ actions, are cultural conduits, inherently non-predictable. The goals and temporal direction of legal science are elsewhere; they are concerned with understanding and explaining what has been and what is occurring in the present time within the processes of social regulation.