The Formalism in the legal science pre-modern era: Monism and Pluralism in law Lucas André Viegas Carvalho de Siqueira

Abstract

This article discusses the need to revisit the theoretical assumptions of Juridical Science, making it the overarching instrument subject to a qualification and material recognition of the legality rules.

For that purpose, it engages in a brief foray  about two usually opposing theoretical perspectives, understood here as strictly formalist legal thought: the traditional legal doctrine, dating back to the abstract Kelsenian normativism, and  the so called legal pluralism.

We propose, then, that the criticisms generally opposed to dogmatic thinking are the same way and for the same reasons, opposable to the so called Alternative Law Movement. The failure of both perspectives lies, as our central hypothesis, precisely in the formalism which we intend to report.

To finish up, with some of the mentioned authors, placing our science in a stage of scientific pre-modernity and in the end, claiming as a new scientific paradigm in law, to be respected at least two negative requirements for defining criteria in order for juridical recognition.