What is Jurisprudence? — KSLU Jurisprudence Notes

What is Jurisprudence?

Jurisprudence (from juris prudentia — “knowledge of law”) is not a branch of law but the theory and philosophy of law itself: it asks what law is, where it comes from, and what makes it binding — questions every other law subject takes for granted. Salmond defined it as “the science of the first principles of the civil law”; Holland called it “the formal science of positive law.” Its value: it sharpens the lawyer’s reasoning, supplies the grammar (right, duty, ownership, possession, liability) used by every statute, and — as Laski put it — serves as “the eye of law.”