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JURISPRUDENCE
NATURE, SCOPE AND UTILITY
By SUNISHTHA MOGHE
BALLB, LLM, NET

 Jurisprudence is prescribed by almost every leading
university to be covered as different discipline altogether.
 Jurisprudence is about shaping the legal acumen of law
student and enables students to get the nerve of every law.
 Jurisprudence is not about learning the technicalities of any
enactment, rather it is about real working of enactment
once it reaches the common man.
 Jurisprudence, if understood well, will help student in the
long run in developing his/her own opinion about any given
law. However, jurisprudence, if not studied properly, could
turn into a nightmare before examination.
WHY JURISPRUDENCE ?

 Romans were first to recognize legal science as distinct
branch of learning. They realized that there are certain
basic principles which govern every legal system.
 Thus, behind all concrete laws, there exists fundamental
principles which lend authenticity and explain the working
of laws.
 Once the core of legal system was started to be explained,
law was attempted to be defined in much wider
perspective.
 Such attempts culminated into development of
jurisprudence as a formal science by Hobbes, Bentham,
and Austin.
EVOLUTION OF JURISPRUDENCE

 Every legal system reflects the social background in which it
operates. Jurisprudence, as a science of law, can not be
divorced from society. Thus, jurisprudence is closely related
with other social sciences.
 ‘Juris’ and ‘prudence’ denote the knowledge of law or the
science which gives knowledge about law.
 The nature of jurisprudence has been changing due to
dynamic nature of law. It had to respond to changing
patterns of society as well and thus, its scope has been
considerably increased.
 It is the elucidation of ‘general or basic’ principles upon
which actual or concrete rules of law are based. It uses law
in its ‘abstract’ sense and not in its ‘concrete’ sense. For
example, criminal law and principles of liability.
NATURE OF JURISPRUDENCE

 As jurisprudence is the study of law, whether it can be called
as science or not depends upon how such study is being
conducted.
 If such study rejects moral considerations and considers only
legal values then it can be treated as science. For example,
positivism.
 In order to call any study as scientific study, it must be based
on observation, factual, empirical, logical, and
methodological.
 Jurisprudence has been accepted to be a scientific study.
IS JURISPRUDENCE A SCIENTIFIC
STUDY ?

DEFINITIONS OF JURISPRUDENCE
BY VARIOUS JURISTS

 Ulpian : The observation of things human and dive, the
knowledge of just and unjust.
 Holland : The Formal Science of Positive Law. (Positive Law
means the general rule of external human action enforced by a
sovereign political authority.)
 Austin : Science of Jurisprudence is concerned with Positive Laws
that is laws strictly so called. It has nothing to do with the
goodness or badness of law. Austin divides jurisprudence into
two classes : 'general Jurisprudence and Particular
Jurisprudence.
Keeton : Jurisprudence as the study and systematic arrangement
of the general principles of law.
 Dias : Jurisprudence as any thought or writing about law rather
than a technical exposition of a branch of law itself.

 Salmond : Jurisprudence is the science of the first principle
of the civil law. He divided Jurisprudence into generic and
specific jurisprudence.
 Roscoe pound : the science of law, using the term law in the
juridical sense, as denoting the body of principles
recognized or enforced by public and regular tribunals in the
administration of justice.
 Allen : Jurisprudence is the scientific synthesis of all the
essential principles of law.
 J Stone : Jurisprudence is the lawyer's extraversion. It is the
lawyer's examination of the precepts, ideals and techniques
of the law in the light derived from present knowledge in
disciplines other than the law.
 John Gray : Jurisprudence is the science of law, the
statement and systematic arrangement of the rules
followed by the Court and the principles involved in those
rules.

 With the change in nature of society and resultantly law, the
realm of jurisprudence has been widened to include anything
that concerns with state and society.
 P. B. Mukherjee : new jurisprudence is both an intellectual and
idealistic abstraction as well as behaviouristic study of man in
society. It includes political, social, economic, and cultural
ideas. It covers the study of man in relation to state and
society.
 Thus, it does not discover the legal rule, rather, it reflects on
already existing rules of legal system.
SCOPE OF JURISPRUDENCE

 It is often regarded as subsidiary subject as it does not give any
concrete knowledge about existing law. However, being an
abstract subject, it rather paves way for other concrete
subjects.
 It rationalizes the concepts of law which enables one in solving
the usual problems of implementation of law. It, thus, increases
the quality of law.
 It widens the outlook of lawyers by providing them with
broader perspective of law. It connects law with every possible
aspect of society and thus gives very comprehensive view of
law.
 It reduces the rigidity of formalism in law and focusses on the
functional aspects of law.
UTILITY OF JURISPRUDENCE

 It reveals the fundamental principles of legal system and thus, is also
called by some jurists as ‘the eye of law’.
 It helps in ascertaining the true intention of law. It improves the
quality of interpretation of law and unearths the defects in it.
 It helps, in turn, the legislature also in improving the quality of law
framed by it.
 Dr. M. Sethna : the value of jurisprudence lies in examining the
consequences of law and its administration on social welfare and
suggesting changes for the betterment of the superstructure of
laws.
 Thus, jurisprudence teaches law students ‘how to think about law’
and not to ‘know about law’.
 Dias : the study of jurisprudence is an opportunity for the lawyer to
bring theory and life into focus, for it concerns human thought in
relation to social existence.
UTILITY OF JURISPRUDENCE

 Since jurisprudence is necessarily related with human actions,
inter-relationship between jurisprudence and other social
science is inevitable.
 Ethics
 Psychology
 History
 Sociology
 Economics
RELATION WITH OTHER SUBJECTS

 Jurisprudence is a scientific study of fundamental
principles of legal system.
 It is inter-related with other subjects of social
science.
 It covers all the aspects of society and state.
 It sharpens the understanding about law and
improves the legal reasoning.
CONCLUSION

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Jurisprudence introduction .

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