ABSTRACT
This chapter challenges the image of jurisprudence rooted in Hart's Concept of Law. It motivates a fresh consideration of the fundamental issues dividing competing theories of the nature of law and undermines the appeal of certain kinds of arguments that have been used to dismiss some of these theories out of hand. The author argues that the arguments that seem to support the Hartian conception fail, and the reasons motivating it better support his alternative proposal. The confusion of "external" and "internal" infects Hart's critique of competing jurisprudential theories, especially those of Holmes and the Classical Positivists. Hart's legal theory is grounded in a fundamental insight that we would do well to preserve. The chapter concludes that Hart's mistake was to articulate his fundamental insight in terms of interpretive observer theory. Law and other similar social practices present those who encounter them, whether in practice or in thought, with meaningful, rule-governed behavior.
