| Abstract: | Legal theory and scholarship are currently characterized by a division between traditional, doctrinal methods and approaches derived from extra-legal disciplines. This paper proposes a different though related distinction between two methods of understanding law and interpreting authoritative legal texts.Internal method reflects the viewpoint of the participant in a legal system and traditional doctrinal study; it is practical and decision-oriented. Limitations on the range of arguments and interpretations employed are accepted in order to render its results serviceable for practical tasks.The purposes of external method are cognitive and theoretical; it is oriented toward a comprehensive philosophical and scientific rationality. Its premises and results are therefore not restricted by received professional opinion or social or institutional restraints, and may reflect the conceptual resources of extra-legal disciplines.The paper discusses the antecedents of these methods, describes the structure of each and relations between them, and suggests that the criterion of internal method is practical effectiveness, that of external method truth or falsity. |
