ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that philosophy of law or jurisprudence seeks to provide theories. It briefly claims that Thomas Aquinas and John Austin presented different types of theories of law and that their definitions of law should be seen as conceptual tools to unify their theories, not as semantic analyses. The chapter then discusses H. L. A. Hart's criticism of definitions of 'law' and briefly considers interpretations of his work as offering definitions. It considers Ronald Dworkin's attack on semantic theories and what he thinks is the subject matter of jurisprudence. One might take Dworkin to be concerned with a nonsemantic sense of legal propositions. On such an interpretation he would be concerned to present a conceptual-explanatory theory. The chapter considers Dworkin's claim that jurisprudential theories must be normative and that positivism is therefore wrong. Dworkin's arguments fail, and he and positivists such as Hart can be seen to be offering different kinds of theories.
