ABSTRACT
The analysis of property and property law is used primarily to illustrate a view of the nature of legal theory and of some of its applications. This chapter illustrates a conception of legal theory than with unravelling contemporary problems of the property law field and shows how theory may help to clarify some of these problems. Property law provides a particularly interesting field within which to explore the relationship between legal theory and legal doctrine. Legal doctrine in the property field thus has a formidable 'rational strength'. At the same time its central social and economic importance in changing Western societies creates tensions within it which appear increasingly serious. For lawyers, classification of legal doctrine is part of the enterprise of rationalizing legal rules and ideas; organizing the complexity of law as doctrine in ways which make it manageable as a body of knowledge and predictable in its consequences.
