ABSTRACT
Both the Scandinavian and American schools of legal realism have raised questions that ought to concern anthropologists of law. The American legal realists emphasized fact skepticism rather than rule skepticism, for in the latter instance, while the rule itself may be absolutely clear, doubts may arise as to its correct application in any given situation. On the other hand, the grand style has to pay more attention to the dubiousness inherent in the facts of the case, which, in turn, implies greater reliance on standards of reasonableness as a means to assess the facts. It is the American realists' emphasis on the facts of the case, rather than on the search for the relevant rule, that brings the concepts of situation sense and reasonableness into close proximity. If legal realism, in its critical capacity, makes a useful contribution, it is in its dimunition of the pretence that law is a science.
