ABSTRACT
This chapter describes a theoretical understanding of legal pluralism as contextualism. It explores the substantive issue of whether it is possible to conceptualize the law in an a priori but still pluralistic manner. In addressing this issue the chapter asks whether it is possible to acquire some objective knowledge of what counts as law without, at the same time, abandoning the project of legal pluralism. The chapter demonstrates that, in order to sustain this position, it is necessary to subscribe to a contextualist understanding of law, which entails not giving up altogether on the possibility of saying something about the law in an a-contextual, universal manner. Nicholas Rescher has offered a comprehensive and careful categorization, although my aim is not to advance a theory of alethic pluralism. A discussion can be hosted in the realm of legal theory, understood as an interperspectival, open, democratized dialogue, relieved from the constraints of expertise.
