ABSTRACT
The more or less declared acceptance of the Kelsenian theory of law is—in the modest opinion of this writer—one of the fundamental reasons for the essential sterility of contemporary philosophy of law in our country. By uncritically assuming, with Kelsen, concepts and problems of dogma in the area of “general theory” of the law, we have too often ended up transforming the methodological problems of dogmatics into false problems of “general theory,” without really facing the preliminary problem of the relationship between general theory and dogmatics. An analogous phenomenon has taken place with the theory of the state, still understood by some as an exclusively dogmatic theory of the juridical system, 1 although there have been some vigorous reactions to this argument. 2
