Canterbury, United Kingdom

Law and Philosophy

Bachelor's
Language: EnglishStudies in English
Subject area: law
Qualification: LLB
Kind of studies: full-time studies, part-time studies
Bachelor of Laws (LLB)
University website: www.kent.ac.uk
Law
Law is a system of rules that are created and enforced through social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior. Law is a system that regulates and ensures that individuals or a community adhere to the will of the state. State-enforced laws can be made by a collective legislature or by a single legislator, resulting in statutes, by the executive through decrees and regulations, or established by judges through precedent, normally in common law jurisdictions. Private individuals can create legally binding contracts, including arbitration agreements that may elect to accept alternative arbitration to the normal court process. The formation of laws themselves may be influenced by a constitution, written or tacit, and the rights encoded therein. The law shapes politics, economics, history and society in various ways and serves as a mediator of relations between people.
Philosophy
Philosophy (from Greek φιλοσοφία, philosophia, literally "love of wisdom") is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. The term was probably coined by Pythagoras (c. 570–495 BCE). Philosophical methods include questioning, critical discussion, rational argument, and systematic presentation. Classic philosophical questions include: Is it possible to know anything and to prove it? What is most real? Philosophers also pose more practical and concrete questions such as: Is there a best way to live? Is it better to be just or unjust (if one can get away with it)? Do humans have free will?
Law
If you reason instead of repeating what is taught you; if you analyze the law and strip off those cloudy fictions with which it has been draped in order to conceal its real origin, which is the right of the stronger, and its substance, which has ever been the consecration of all the tyrannies handed down to mankind through its long and bloody history; when you have comprehended this, your contempt for the law will be profound indeed. You will understand that to remain the servant of the written law is to place yourself every day in opposition to the law of conscience, and to make a bargain on the wrong side; and, since this struggle cannot go on forever, you will either silence your conscience and become a scoundrel, or you will break with tradition, and you will work with us for the utter destruction of all this injustice
Peter Kropotkin, "An Appeal to the Young" (1880).
Philosophy
There exists a definite misunderstanding between scientists and philosophers; a misunderstanding which might easily have been avoided had philosophers possessed a proper realisation of their inevitable limitations when discussing scientific matters.
A. D'Abro, The Evolution of Scientific Thought from Newton to Einstein (1927) p. 343
Law
It is my province to lay down the law. Every lawyer knows that the law is the result of a great deal of learning.
Erie, J., Queen v. Dowling (1848), 7 St. Tr. (N. S.) 438.
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