Strengthening the Theoretical Commitments Underpinning Therapeutic Jurisprudence Research: Ontology and Epistemology

Abstract

Therapeutic Jurisprudence is a legal philosophy concerned with the human effects of the law. Its scholarly work promotes greater interaction between law and the social sciences to draw attention to the therapeutic and/or anti-therapeutic side-effects of law. Despite significant headway having been made in therapeutic jurisprudence scholarship during its relatively short lifespan, there remain gaps in theory, not least, in terms of the ontological and epistemological commitments that underpin and drive its research, as well as how its methodology resonates with those from its predecessor schools: legal realism and sociological jurisprudence. This essay will respond to these gaps and, in doing so, will also acknowledge some of the key similarities and differences in the methodological underpinnings of the claims from legal realism and sociological jurisprudence (as well as legal positivism and formalism).