Bulygin and the neo-Kantian Kelsen

Abstract

According to Eugenio Bulygin, kelSen abandoned, sometimes implicitly, the four theses that shape up his NeoKantian phase: legal norms are ideal entities; the validity of norms means they are binding; legal science is normative and the basic norm is a transcendental category. To argue against Bulygin's tenents I firstly emphasize the normative character of the acts of norm creation/derogation and put forward a transcendental way to understand the notion of efficacy; secondly, I reject the idea that there is in kelSen a notion of justified validity; then I turn to clarify in what sense the science of law is prescriptive and descriptive; finally, I maintain that kelSen did not dispose of his doctrine of the basic norm because it is intended as an answer to an epistemological question that pervades all his work.