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D EFINING EFINING J J URISPRUDENCE URISPRUDENCE INTRODUCTION BENTHAM once described jurisprudence as “the art of being methodically ignorant of what everybody knows.” 1 The gibe loses some of its sharpness when we remember that it is perhaps better to be methodically ignorant than to be unmethodically learned. What puzzles one in the epigram is the confident assumption of “what everybody knows”; for if, as Bentham avers, everybody knows what jurisprudence is about, nobody seems to know exactly what it is. Some of the most famous descriptions of it seem to state either too little or too much. When, for example, Ulpian, and Justinian after him, tell us that it is “the observation of things human and divine, the knowledge of the just and the unjust,” we feel that the definition might equally well apply to religion or philosophy. And some comparatively modern definitions seem to be hardly less vague-for example, that of Sheldon Amos: “The Science of Jurisprudence may be said, broadly, to deal with the necessary and formal facts expressed in the very structure of civil society, as that structure is modified and controlled by the facts of civil government and of the constitution of human nature and of the physical 1 John Frost Dillon, Bentham’s Influences in the Reforms of the Nineteenth Century, The Online Library of Liberty,http://oll.libertyfund.org/? option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php %3Ftitle=2081&chapter=158278&layout=html&Itemid=27 (Retrieved on 24/10/2013). 1 | Page

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Defining Jurisprudence

INTRODUCTIONBENTHAM once described jurisprudence as the art of being methodically ignorant of what everybody knows.[footnoteRef:1] The gibe loses some of its sharpness when we remember that it is perhaps better to be methodically ignorant than to be unmethodically learned. What puzzles one in the epigram is the confident assumption of what everybody knows; for if, as Bentham avers, everybody knows what jurisprudence is about, nobody seems to know exactly what it is. [1: John Frost Dillon, Benthams Influences in the Reforms of the Nineteenth Century, The Online Library of Liberty,http://oll.libertyfund.org/?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=2081&chapter=158278&layout=html&Itemid=27 (Retrieved on 24/10/2013).]

Some of the most famous descriptions of it seem to state either too little or too much. When, for example, Ulpian, and Justinian after him, tell us that it is the observation of things human and divine, the knowledge of the just and the unjust, we feel that the definition might equally well apply to religion or philosophy. And some comparatively modern definitions seem to be hardly less vague-for example, that of Sheldon Amos: The Science of Jurisprudence may be said, broadly, to deal with the necessary and formal facts expressed in the very structure of civil society, as that structure is modified and controlled by the facts of civil government and of the constitution of human nature and of the physical universe.[footnoteRef:2] The very term "jurisprudence," as denoting a separate branch of study, is not very ancient in our law. Austin was the first scholar who attempted to prescribe an exact scope for it; and it is a little discouraging to find that, though he devotes much effort to determining its province, he never throughout the whole of his voluminous work attempts to define it, except by telling us what it is not-and chiefly he tells us that it is not moral philosophy. It is impossible, and it would be unprofitable, to collate the many experimental definitions of jurisprudence. [2: Sheldon Amos, A Systematic View of the Science of Jurisprudence, [London: Longmans Green & Co., 2005] at p. 239.]

Broadly speaking, they suggest three distinct conceptions of jurisprudence-as a science, as a philosophy, and as a method.

OBJECTIVES1. To analyse the definitions of jurisprudence as per the existing schools of thought.2. To discuss how far the jurists have been successful in defining jurisprudence.

SOURCES OF DATAFor the purpose of project the student has relied on secondary sources to hunt for information relating to the topic. Secondary sources include textbooks, encyclopaedias, dictionaries, law reviews, etc.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGYThe research methodology for the project work is doctrinal i.e., library based research. The researcher has employed this methodology as doctrinal research deals with what the law is on a particular issue. It is concerned with analysis of the legal doctrine and how it has been developed and applied. In case of doctrinal research the sources of data are legal and appellate court decisions.

MEANING AND CONCEPT OF JURISPRUDENCE

EtymologyThe Latin word juris is the genitive form of jus meaning "law." So, juris means "of law" or "legal." Prudentia, meaning "knowledge" in Latin, translates into English as "prudence." The native English word is "wisdom," which originally also meant "knowledge."History of jurisprudenceJurisprudence already had this meaning inAncient Rome, even if at its origins the discipline was a monopoly of theCollege of Pontiffs (Pontifex), which retained an exclusive power of judgment on facts, being the only experts (periti) in thejusoftraditional law(mos maiorum, a body oforal laws and customs verbally transmitted "by father to son").[footnoteRef:3] Pontiffs indirectly created a body of laws by their pronunciations on single concrete (judicial) cases. [3: Sir Henry Sumner James Maine, Ancient Law, Its Connection with the History of Early Society, at p. 11.]

Their sentences were supposed to be simple interpretations of the traditional customs, but effectively it was an activity that, apart from formally reconsidering for each case what precisely was traditionally in the legal habits, soon turned also to a more equitative interpretation, coherently adapting the law to the newer social instances. The law was then implemented with new evolutive Institutions (legal concepts), while remaining in the traditional scheme. Pontiffs were replaced in 3rd century BC by a laical body of prudentes.[footnoteRef:4] Admission to this body was conditional upon proof of competence or experience. [4: http://neohumanism.org/j/ju/jurisprudence.html (Retrieved on 24/10/2013). ]

Under theRoman Republic, schools of law were created, and the activity constantly became more academic. In the age from the early Roman Empireto the 3rd century, a relevant literature was produced by some notable groups including theProculiansandSabinians. The degree of scientific depth of the studies was unprecedented in ancient times and reached still unrivalled peaks of skill. It is about this activity that it has been said that Romans had developed anartout of the law.After the 3rd century, Jurisprudentia became a more bureaucratic activity, with few notable authors. It was during theByzantine Empire (5th century) that legal studies were once again undertaken in depth, and it is from this cultural movement thatJustinian'sCorpus Juris Civiliswas born.[footnoteRef:5] [5: Ibid.]

Jurisprudence is thetheoryandphilosophyoflaw. In 1880 Sir Thomas Erskine Holland offered the first English definition which at least had the merit of being succinct.[footnoteRef:6] His six-word formula is well known: "The formal science of positive law." It is the weakness of all definitions that they substitute one conception for another, and the substitute often needs as much definition as that for which it is substituted. The explanation has to be explained. Holland's compact definition is not altogether free from the common infirmity of its kind. What, we immediately ask, is a formal science? [6: 42 Juridical. Review 275 1930.]

The author explains-what is certainly not self-explanatory -that by the term "formal" he means that jurisprudence concerns the human relations which are governed by rules of law rather than the material rules themselves; for these latter are the subjects of legal exposition, criticism, or compilation rather than of jurisprudence.Inevitably, we next inquire what is meant by positive law? Holland employs the word in the same sense as Austin. It is actual, existing law, as distinguished from hypothetical, ideal law. Therefore Holland insists at the outset-and remains faithful to his principle-that jurisprudence must work a posteriori and not a priori.This is consistent with-and indeed dictated by-the conception of jurisprudence as a science rather than as a philosophy. Can there be a science of law in any intelligible sense of the word "science "?A science is a system of knowledge. The mere accumulation of knowledge is valueless by itself, except, of course, as a kind of manual labour which may provide the material for constructive intelligence. There is no greater ignoramus than the man who knows everything and understands nothing-and such persons abound. Information is barren until it is brought systematically into relationship with some part of the general meaning of existence.The object of a science is "to reach the highest point of a generalisation founded upon acquaintance with phenomena, consequently upon that relative knowledge which is thesubject of the special sciences." Its method is inductive. It begins with the observationof separate things, events, phenomena, and, bringing them into a rational concatenation, arrives at some general principle which they exhibit. It is not creative: its material is beyond its own choice or control. It takes the "things given" to it-its data-and tries to discover the animating principle within. Instead of deducing a principle of ought from an ideal which is assumed ab ante, it induces a principle of is from what is observed and correlated. If jurisprudence is inductive in this sense, or, as Holland puts it, a posteriori, clearly it is at once distinguished from morals.[footnoteRef:7] [7: Ibid.]

It may therefore sound contradictory to say, as we are bound to say, that if it is a science at all, it is one of the moral sciences. It is needless to observe that the term "moral" in this connection is used in a conventional sense, which is opposed to the "physical." The physical sciences deal with things and forces of the macrocosm which is outside the microcosm-the "little kingdom"-of man himself. Jurisprudence does not deal with the facts and forces of the physical universe, but with certain manifestations of man's reason and consciousness. It issystematised investigation, not of the manner in which man is affected by physical environment, but of the ways which he has devised for regulating his relationships in society.Finally, science is general and it is uniform. There is no such thing as a science which is local. Locality may greatly affect the conditions in which science has to work, it may colour some parts of its data, but it cannot in itself affect a principle of knowledge. This is so self-evident that it would scarcely bear assertion were it not that it seems to be ignored in certain controversies as to the terminology of jurisprudence.It is said that there cannot be any such thing as a general science of law which holds good, as a system of knowledge, with any real uniformity and universality.

JURISPRUDENCE AS PER VARIOUS SCHOOLS OF LAWNatural lawNatural law theory asserts that there are laws that are immanent in nature, to which enacted laws should correspond as closely as possible. This view is frequently summarised by the maxim an unjust law is not a true law, in which 'unjust' is defined as contrary to natural law. [footnoteRef:8]Natural law is closely associated with morality and, in historically influential versions, with the intentions of God. To oversimplify its concepts somewhat, natural law theory attempts to identify a moral compass to guide the lawmaking power of the state. Notions of an objective moral order, external to human legal systems, underlie natural law. What is right or wrong can vary according to the interests one is focused upon. Natural law is sometimes identified with the slogan that "an unjust law is no law at all", but asJohn Finnis, the most important of modern natural lawyers has argued, this slogan is a poor guide to the classical Thomistposition. [8: http://www.academia.edu/4408954/School_of_Laws_in_Modern_Western_Law (Retrieved on 24/10/2013).]

AristotleAristotle is often said to be the father of natural law. Like his philosophical forefathers,SocratesandPlato,Aristotleposited the existence ofnatural justiceor natural right. His association with natural law is due largely to the interpretation given to him byThomas Aquinas. This was based on Aquinas' conflation of natural law and natural right, the latter of which Aristotle posits in Book V of theNicomachean EthicsAquinas' influence was such as to affect a number of early translations of these passages, though more recent translations render them more literally.Aristotle notes thatnatural justiceis a species of political justice, viz. the scheme ofdistributiveandcorrective justicethat would be established under the best political community; were this to take the form of law, this could be called a natural law, though Aristotle does not discuss this and suggests in the Politics that the best regime may not rule by law at all.The best evidence of Aristotle's having thought there was a natural law comes from theRhetoric, where Aristotle notes that, aside from the "particular" laws that each people has set up for itself, there is a "common" law that is according to nature. The context of this remark, however, suggests only that Aristotle advised that it could be rhetorically advantageous to appeal to such a law, especially when the "particular" law of ones' own city was averse to the case being made, not that there actually was such a law; Aristotle, moreover, considered two of the three candidates for a universally valid, natural law provided in this passage to be wrong. Aristotle's theoretical paternity of the natural law tradition is consequently disputed.ShariaSharia refers to the body ofIslamiclaw. The term means "way" or "path"; it is the legal framework within which public and some private aspects of life are regulated for those living in a legal system based on Islamicprinciples of jurisprudence.[footnoteRef:9] Fiqh is the term for Islamic jurisprudence, made up of the rulings of Islamic jurists. A component of Islamic studies, Fiqh expounds the methodology by which Islamic law is derived from primary and secondary sources. [9: M. Kabir Hassan, Mervyn K. Lewis, Handbook of Islamic Banking, [U.S.A: Elgar Original Reference, 2006] at p. 232.]

Mainstream Islam distinguishes fiqh, which means understanding details and inferences drawn by scholars, from sharia that refers to principles that lie behind the fiqh. Scholars hope that fiqh and sharia are in harmony in any given case, but they cannot be sure.Thomas AquinasSaint Thomas Aquinas [Thomas of Aquin, or Aquino] (c. 1225 7 March1274) was aphilosopherandtheologianin thescholastic tradition, known as "Doctor Angelicus, Doctor Universal is". He is the foremost classical proponent ofnatural theology, and the father of the Thomisticschool of philosophy, which was a long the primary philosophical approach of theRoman Catholic Church. The work for which he is best-known is theSumma Theological. One of the thirty-three Doctors of the Church, he is considered by many Catholics to be the Church's greatest theologian. Consequently, manyinstitutions of learning have been named after him.Aquinas distinguished four kinds of law. These are the eternal, natural, human, and divine law. Eternal law is the decree of God which governs all creation.Natural lawis the human "participation" in the eternal law and is discovered by reason. Natural law, of course, is based on "first principles":. . . this is the first precept of the law, that good is to be done and promoted, and evil is to be avoided. All other precepts of the natural law are based on this . . .The desire to live and to procreate are counted by Aquinas among those basic (natural) human values on which all human values are based. Human law ispositive law: the natural law applied by governments to societies. Divine law is the specially revealed law in thescriptures.Thomas HobbesIn his treatiseLeviathan, (1651), Hobbes expresses a view of natural law as aprecept, or general rule, found out byreason, by which a man is forbidden to do that which is destructive of his life, or takes away the means of preserving the same; and to omit that by which he thinks it may best be preserved. Hobbes was asocial contractarianand believed that the law gained peoples' tacit consent. He believed that society was formed from astate of natureto protect people from the state of war between mankind that exists otherwise. Life is, without an ordered society, "solitary, poore, nasty, brutish and short". It is commonly commented that Hobbes' views about the core of human nature were influenced by his times. TheEnglish Civil Warand the Cromwellian dictatorship had taken place, and he felt absolute authority vested in a monarch, whose subjects obeyed the law, was the basis of a civilized society.Lon FullerWriting afterWorld War II, Lon L. Fuller notably emphasised that the law must meet certain formal requirements (such as being impartial and publicly knowable). To the extent that an institutional system of social control falls short of these requirements, Fuller argues, we are less inclined to recognise it as a system of law, or to give it our respect. Thus, law has an internal morality that goes beyond the social rules by which valid laws are made. Fuller andHartwere colleagues at Oxford University. One of the disagreements between Fuller, a natural lawyer, andHart, a positivist, was whetherNazilaw was so bad that it could no longer be considered law.John FinnisSophisticated positivist and natural law theories sometimes resemble each other more than the above descriptions might suggest, and they may concede certain points to the other "side". Identifying a particular theorist as a positivist or a natural law theorist sometimes involves matters of emphasis and degree, and the particular influences on the theorist's work. In particular, the older natural lawyers, such as Aquinas and John Locke made no distinction between analytic and normative jurisprudence. But modern natural lawyers, such as John Finnis claim to be positivists, while still arguing that law is a basically moral creature.

Analytic jurisprudenceAnalytic, or 'clarificatory' jurisprudence is using a neutral point of view and descriptive language when referring to the aspects of legal systems. This was a philosophical development that rejected natural law's fusing of what law is and what it ought to be.David Humefamously argued in A Treatise of Human Nature that people invariably slip between describing that the world is a certain way to saying therefore we ought to conclude on a particular course of action.[footnoteRef:10] But as a matter of pure logic, one cannot conclude that we ought to do something merely because something is the case. So analysing and clarifying the way the world is must be treated as a strictly separate question to normative and evaluative ought questions. [10: http://www.suu.edu/faculty/franklinc/analyticjuris.txt (Retrieved on 24/10/2013).]

The most important questions of analytic jurisprudence are: "What are laws?"; "What is the law?"; "What is the relationship between law and power/sociology?"; and, "What is the relationship between law and morality?" Legal positivism is the dominant theory, although there are a growing number of critics, who offer their own interpretations.Legal positivistsPositivism simply means that the law is something that is "posited": laws are validly made in accordance with socially accepted rules. The positivist view on law can be seen to cover two broad principles: Firstly, that laws may seek to enforce justice, morality, or any other normative end, but their success or failure in doing so does not determine their validity. Provided a law is properly formed, in accordance with the rules recognized in the society concerned, it is a valid law, regardless of whether it is just by some other standard. Secondly, that law is nothing more than a set of rules to provide order and governance of society. No legal positivist, however, argues that it follows that the law is therefore to be obeyed, no matter what. This is seen as a separate question entirely. What the law is - is determined by social facts (or "sources') What obedience the law is owed - is determined by moral considerations.Bentham and AustinOne of the earliest legal positivists was Jeremy Bentham. Bentham was an early and staunch supporter of the utilitarian concept (along with Hume), an avid prison reformer, advocate fordemocracy, and strongly atheist. Bentham's views about law and jurisprudence were popularized by his student,John Austin. Austin was the first chair of law at the new University of Londonfrom 1829. Austin'sutilitariananswer to "what is law?" was that law is "commands, backed by threat of sanctions, from a sovereign, to whom people have a habit of obedience". Contemporary legal positivists have long abandoned this view, and have criticised its oversimplification, H.L.A. Hart particularly.Hans KelsenHans Kelsen is considered one of the preeminent jurists of the20th century. He is most influential in Europe, where his notion of a Grundnormor a "presupposed" ultimate and basic legal norm, still retains some influence.[footnoteRef:11] It is a hypothetical norm on which all subsequent levels of alegal systemsuch asconstitutional lawand "simple" law are based. Kelsen's pure theory of law described the law as being a set of social facts, which are normatively binding too. Law's normativity, meaning that we must obey it, derives from a basic rule which sits outside the law we can alter. It is a rule proscribing the validity of all others. [11: http://legalpoint.blogspot.in/2007/11/hans-kelsen.html (Retrieved on 24/10/2013).]

Kelsen was a Professor around Europe, notably theUniversity of Vienna. In1940, he moved to theUnited States, giving theOliver Wendell Holmes LecturesatHarvard Law Schoolin1942and becoming a full professor at the department ofpolitical scienceat theUniversity of California, Berkeleyin1945. During those years, he increasingly dealt with issues ofinternational lawand international institutions such as theUnited Nations.H.L.A. HartIn the Anglophone world, the pivotal writer wasH.L.A. Hart, who argued that the law should be understood as a system of social rules. Hart rejected Kelsen's views that sanctions were essential to law and that a normative social phenomenon, like law, can not be grounded in non-normative social facts. Hart really revived analytical jurisprudence as an important theoretical debate in the twentieth century through his bookThe Concept of Law. As the chair of jurisprudence atOxford University, Hart argued law is a 'system of rules'.Rules, said Hart, are divided into primary rules (rules of conduct) and secondary rules (rules addressed to officials to administer primary rules). Secondary rules are divided into rules of adjudication (to resolve legal disputes), rules of change (allowing laws to be varied) and the rule of recognition (allowing laws to be identified as valid). The "rule of recognition", a customary practice of the officials (especially judges) that identifies certain acts and decisions as sources of law. A pivotal book on Hart was written by Neil MacCormickhttp://www.law.ed.ac.uk/staff/neilmaccormick_51.aspxin 1981 (second edition due in 2007), which further refined and offered some important criticisms that led MacCormick to develop his own theory (the best example of which is his recently published Institutions of Law, 2007). Other important critiques have included that ofRonald Dworkin,John Finnis, andJoseph Raz.In recent years, debates about the nature of law have become increasingly fine-grained. One important debate is within legal positivism. One school is sometimes calledexclusive legal positivism, and it is associated with the view that the legal validity of a norm can never depend on its moral correctness. A second school is labeledinclusive legal positivism, and it is associated with the view that moral considerations may determine the legal validity of a norm, but that it is not necessary that this is the case.Ronald DworkinRonald Dworkin is a leading philosopher. In his book 'Law's Empire' Dworkin attacked Hart and the positivists for their refusal to treat law as a moral issue. Dworkin argues that law is an 'interpretive' concept that requires judges to find the best fitting and most just solution to a legal dispute, given their constitutional traditions. According to him, law is not entirely based on social facts, but includes the morally best justification for the institutional facts and practices that we intuitively regard as legal. It follows on Dworkin's view that one cannot know whether a society has a legal system in force, or what any of its laws are, until one knows some moral truths about the justifications for the practices in that society. It is consistent with Dworkin's view- in contrast with the views of legal positivists or legal realists--that no one in a society may know what its laws are (because no one may know the best justification for its practices.)Interpretation, according to Dworkin's law as integrity theory, has two dimensions. To count as an interpretation, the reading of a text must meet the criterion of fit. But of those interpretations that fit, Dworkin maintains that the correct interpretation is the one that puts the political practices of the community in their best light, or makes of them the best that they can be. But many writers have doubted whether there is a single best justification for the complex practices of any given community, and others have doubted whether, even if there are, they should be counted as part of the law of that community.Legal realismLegal realism was a view popular with some Scandinavian and American writers. Skeptical in tone, it held that the law should be understood and determined by the actual practices of courts, law offices, and police stations, rather than as the rules and doctrines set forth in statutes or learned treatises. It had some affinities with the sociology of law. The essential tenet of legal realism is that all law is made by human beings and, thus, is subject to human foibles, frailties and imperfections.It has become quite common today to identify JusticeOliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., as the main precursor of American Legal Realism (other influences includeRoscoe Pound,Karl Llewellynand JusticeBenjamin Cardozo). Karl Llewellyn, another founder of the U.S. legal realism movement, similarly believed that the law is little more than putty in the hands of a judge who is able to shape the outcome of a case based on personal biases. The chief inspiration for Scandinavian legal realism many consider to be the works ofAxel Hgerstrm. Despite its decline in facial popularity, realists continue to influence a wide spectrum of jurisprudential schools today, includingcritical legal studies(scholars such asDuncan KennedyandRoberto Unger),feminist legal theory, critical race theory, andlaw and economics.The Historical SchoolHistorical jurisprudence came to prominence during the German debate over the proposed codification of German law. In his book On the Vocation of Our Age for Legislation and Jurisprudence,Friedrich Carl von Savignyargued that Germany did not have a legal language that would support codification because the traditions, customs and beliefs of the German people did not include a belief in a code. The Historicists believe that the law originates with society.Normative jurisprudenceIn addition to the question, "What is law?", legal philosophy is also concerned with normative, or "evaluative" theories of law. What is the goal or purpose of law? What moral or political theories provide a foundation for the law? What is the proper function of law? What sorts of acts should be subject topunishment, and what sorts of punishment should be permitted? What is justice? What rights do we have? Is there a duty to obey the law? What value has the rule of law? Some of the different schools and leading thinkers are as follows.Virtue jurisprudenceAretaic moral theories such as contemporaryvirtue ethicsemphasize the role of character in morality. Virtue jurisprudence is the view that the laws should promote the development of virtuous characters by citizens. Historically, this approach is associated mainly withAristotleorThomas Aquinaslater. Contemporary virtue jurisprudence is inspired by philosophical work on virtue ethics.DeontologyDeontology is "the theory of duty or moral obligation." The philosopherImmanuel Kantformulated one influential deontological theory of law. He believed that morality is that which if one person does, would also be good for everyone to do. A contemporary deontological approach can be found in the work of the legal philosopherRonald Dworkin.UtilitarianismUtilitarianism is the view that the laws should be crafted so as to produce the best consequences. Historically, utilitarian thinking about law is associated with the great philosopher,Jeremy Bentham.John Stuart Millwas a pupil of Bentham's and was the torch bearer forutilitarianphilosophy through the late nineteenth century. In contemporary legal theory, the utilitarian approach is frequently championed by scholars who work in thelaw and economicstradition.John RawlsJohn Rawls was anAmericanphilosopher, aprofessorofpolitical philosophyatHarvard Universityand author ofA Theory of Justice(1971),Political Liberalism,Justice as Fairness: A Restatement, andThe Law of Peoples. He is widely considered one of the most important English-language political philosophers of the 20th century. His theory of justice uses a device called the original position to ask us which principles of justice we would choose to regulate the basic institutions of our society if we were behind a `veil of ignorance.' Imagine we do not know who we are - our race, sex, wealth status, class, or any distinguishing feature - so that we would not be biased in our own favour. Rawls argues from this 'original position' that we would choose exactly the same political liberties for everyone, like freedom of speech, the right to vote and so on. Also, we would choose a system where there is only inequality because that produces incentives enough for the economic well-being of all society, especially the poorest. This is Rawls' famous 'difference principle'. Justice is fairness, in the sense that the fairness of the original position of choice guarantees the fairness of the principles chosen in that position.There are many other normative approaches to the philosophy of law, includingcritical legal studiesandlibertarian theories of law.

DEFINING JURISPRUDENCE A number of definitions of jurisprudence have been given by various jurists taking into consideration one facet of it or the other. The Roman Jurist, Ulpian, defined Jurisprudence as "The observation of things human and dive, the knowledge of just and unjust."Salmonddefines Jurisprudence as the "Science of the first principles of civil law". In Salmond's point of view, Jurisprudence thus deals with civil law or the law of the state. This kind of law consists of rules applied by courts in the administration of justice.Austin defines Jurisprudence as the "Philosophy of Positive Law". Positive Law means the law laid down by political superior to regulate the conduct of those subjects in his authority. The positive law is identical to civil law. However, the term Philosophy is misleading. Philosophy is the theory of things, man and divine, while Jurisprudence only deals with man-made law.Holland defines Jurisprudence as "The Formal Science of Positive Law". He says "Jurisprudence deals with the human relations which are governed by rules of law rather than with the material rules themselves." Formal science differs from material science in the way that formal science deals with fundamental principles underlying and not concrete details.According to the realists, law is what courts do, not what they say. Since law is defined in terms of official action, it follows that any force that will influence a judge in reaching a decision is a fit subject for jurisprudence.[footnoteRef:12] [12: G.N. Garland, Legal Realism and Justice [London: Oxford University Press, 1941] at p. 135.]

Therefore, there are a number of definitions to jurisprudence. Kelsen, in his pure science, would divorce jurisprudence from ethics and sociology. Pound would study law in action and the sociologist would turn to a science of society itself. The teleological school plumb the depths of metaphysics to discover absolute values on which to build. Jurisprudence attempts to discover as much as possible concerning legal method to study the concepts of the law, and trace the influence of the social forces upon their development. It is the functional study of the concepts which legal systems develop, and of the social interests which law protects. Karl Llewellyn says Jurisprudence is as big as law, bigger. Therefore, it is very difficult to define Jurisprudence or to give a universal definition of it. To quote Dias who says the answer to what jurisprudence is whatever anybody intends it to mean. It includes political, social, economic and cultural ideas.CONCLUSIONIn modern studiesJurisprudenceis both the branch of humanist sciences that studies the law and the complex of legal principles. Jurisprudence refers to two different things. First, incommon lawjurisdictions, it means simply "case law", i.e. the law that is established through the decisions of the courts and other officials. Second, it means thephilosophy of law, or legal theory, which studies not what the law is in a particular jurisdiction (say, Turkey or the United States) but law in general--i.e. those attributes common to all legal systems.Jurisprudence in the second sense is conventionally divided into two parts: descriptive, or analytic, jurisprudence, and normative jurisprudence. Analytic jurisprudence studies what law 'is', normative jurisprudence studies what law 'ought to be'.Each school of jurisprudence is not a self-contained body of thought. The lines separating positivism from realism and natural law from formalism often become blurry. The legal philosophy of Justice Holmes, for example, borrowed from the realist, positivist, pragmatic, and historical strains of thought.In this regard, some scholars have observed that it is more appropriate to think of jurisprudence as a spectrum of legal thought, where the nuances of one thinker delicately blend with those of the next. For example, Harold Berman, a leading authority on comparativeLegal History, has advocated the development of an integrative jurisprudence, which would assimilate into one philosophy the insights from each school of legal theory. The staying power of any body of legal thought, Berman has suggested, lies not in its name but in its ability to explain the enterprise of law.

BIBLIOGRAPHYBOOKS & ARTICLES1. Amos Sheldon, A Systematic View of the Science of Jurisprudence, London: Longmans Green & Co., 2005.2. Hassan, M Kabir, Mervyn K. Lewis, Handbook of Islamic Banking, U.S.A: Elgar Original Reference, 2006.3. Maine Sir Henry Sumner James, Ancient Law, Its Connection with the History of Early Society.4. 42 Juridical. Review 275 1930.

WEBSITES1. www.suu.edu/faculty/franklinc/analyticjuris.txt.2. neohumanism.org/j/ju/jurisprudence.html.3. http://www.academia.edu/4408954/School_of_Laws_in_Modern_Western_Law.4. http://oll.libertyfund.org/?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=2081&chapter=158278&layout=html&Itemid=27, John Frost Dillon, Benthams Influences in the Reforms of the Nineteenth Century, The Online Library of Liberty.5. legalpoint.blogspot.in/2007/11/hans-kelsen.html.

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