Sociology os Law’s Method: Ehrlich visited by Pachukanis

Abstract

This paper proposes an theoretical and methodological approach on Sociology of Law, which is constructed parting from the definition of this discipline and the contribution of Eugen Ehrlich, analyzing these on the light of the dialectical materialist method constructed by Evgeni Pachukanis. The introductory context of the article takes account of the explanation, by Alysson Mascaro, of the three paths of contemporary legal thought. Ehrlich’s conception opposes to the most traditional normativism, settled by Hans Kelsen, after this, it advances on finding the social institutions of Law and not the formalism of norms. Pachukanis points towards Law as a specific phenomenon of capitalist societies, that introduces the notions of equality and liberty in the abstract legal plane in order to sustain the necessary relations for the production and circulation of merchandise, arriving at the concepts of legal subject and of legal relation. The paper’s structure is based, in this manner, in Ehrlich’s critique to Kelsen and Pachukanis’ critique on both Kelsen and Ehrlich, concluding in a relevant contribution through which the legal sociologist can capture the reality behind of legal relation’s abstraction