Quine’s Two Dogmas of Empiricism and the Continuing Viability of Conceptual Jurisprudence

The project of conceptual jurisprudence has been challenged on the ground it lacks normative implications that can help us to improve our legal practices. But the most serious challenge to the project has nothing to do with its practical value; it is has to do with its viability. Willard Van Orman Quine argues, in Two Dogmas of Empricism, that conceptual analysis is impossible because its objective is to explicate so-called analytic claims that, he argues, do not exist. This essay offers a new criticism of Quine’s arguments, namely that they misconceive the objective of conceptual analysis and that, in consequence, these arguments fail to refute its viability. The project of conceptual jurispudence remains alive and well.