Pizhuhish nāmah-i intiqādī-i mutūn va barnāmah hā-yi ̒ulūm-i insāni (Critical Studies in Texts & Programs of Human Sciences)

John Austin and the Foundation of Jurisprudence as an Independent Science: A Focus on The Book "Province of Jurisprudence Determined"

Document Type : Research

Authors

Mahnaz Bayat Komitaki 1
Ebrahim Dehnavi 2

1 Assistant Professor of Public Law, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran

2 PhD Candidate in Public Law, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran

https://doi.org/10.30465/crtls.2025.51135.2909
Abstract
John Austin (1790-1859), an English jurist and legal philosopher, played an unparalleled role in the establishment of jurisprudence as an independent science.  Emphasizing positive law as the object of legal science and the analytical-conceptual method as its method of study, Austin, in his book "The Province of Jurisprudence Determined", paved the way for transforming law into an autonomous discipline. This article employs an analytical-conceptual approach to examine Austin's thought on the foundation of legal science. To this end, while reviewing Austin's life and times, the necessity of defining the province of jurisprudence and its distinction from other normative domains is explained. Subsequently, by elucidating the distinction between "law" and "the science of law," the difference between the natural object and the legal object, and positive law as the object of legal science, the concepts of sovereign and sovereignty in Austin's thought, and the issue of the validity of law and "habit of obedience" in the command theory of law are addressed.  Then, Austin's separation of law from morality is examined, and his project for transforming law into an independent science is described. The results of this research show that, despite all the criticisms leveled against him, Austin, by putting forward this idea, paved the way for the independence of legal science and its transformation into a distinct discipline, and his legacy remains alive and dynamic in legal discourse.

Keywords

Legal Positivism
Analytical Jurisprudence
Positive Law
Sovereign
Sovereignty
Science of Law
Jurisprudence

Subjects

Austin, John (1832). The Province of Jurisprudence Determined, W. Rumble (ed.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
------ (1837). Lectures on General Jurisprudence, Edited by Sarah Austin, London: Publishing  House.
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Bix, Brian, "John Austin", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2024 Edition), Edward N. Zalta & Uri Nodelman (eds.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2024/entries/austin-john/>.
Haac, O. A. (1995) The Correspondence of John Stuart Mill and Auguste Comte. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction.
Pickering, M. (2023). "Comte, Auguste". In: Zanetti, G., Sellers, M., Kirste, S. (eds) Handbook of the History of the Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy (Studies in the History of Law and Justice, vol 23) Netherlands: Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-19546-4_7
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Ross, Janet (1893). Three Generations of English Women: Memoirs and Correspondence of Susannah Taylor, Sarah Austin, and Lady Duff Gordon. ‏ NewYork: Cornell University Library.
Rumble, Wilfrid E. (2005). Doing Austin Justice: The Reception of John Austin’s Philosophy of Law in Nineteenth-Century England. London: Continuum.
Schwarz, Andreas B. (1934). “John Austin and the German Jurisprudence of His Time,” Politica, 1:  178–199.
The Jurist, Or, Quarterly Journal of Jurisprudence and Legislation. (1827). United Kingdom: Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy.
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  • Receive Date 02 April 2025
  • Revise Date 15 June 2025
  • Accept Date 21 July 2025

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