Understanding of Legal Concepts by Western Legalists

When answering the basic questions of legal theory, western legal scholars have formed different theoretical systems and schools because of their different positions and different methods to solve problems. This paper briefly analyzes and combs the inheritance of western legal theory schools, grasps the basic theoretical context of western legal scholars as a whole, and makes a useful exploration for forming a legal concept and legal theory system suitable for China.

According to Bodenheimer's historical reading guidance on legal philosophy in Jurisprudence-Philosophy of Law and Legal Method, in addition to the legal theories of ancient Greece and Rome and the legal philosophy of the Middle Ages, western legal philosophy mainly includes: natural law in classical times, German transcendental idealism, historical law and evolutionary law, utilitarianism, analytical positivism, sociological law and legal realism, and the revival of natural law and value-oriented law. Professor Shen mainly studies new natural law and axiology law, analytical positivism law and sociology law in modern western law. The narrative style in Bodenheimer's works does not provide a clear classification and a picture of all schools under this classification. This phenomenon may be due to the inability to arrange the jurisprudence of different theories in an orderly manner. Accurate classification is a method for the great development of natural science, and the classification of law also promotes the construction and integrity of law discipline. However, for the same research object, various theoretical schools formed from different perspectives and different theoretical premises cannot be clearly distinguished.