This book investigates one of the oldest questions of legal philosophy---the relationship between law and legitimacy. It analyses the legal theories of three eminent public lawyers of the Weimar era, Carl Schmitt, Hans Kelsen, and Hermann Heller. Their theories addressed the problems of legal and political order in a crisis-ridden modern society and so they remain highly relevant to contemporary debates about legal order in the age of pluralism. Schmitt, the philosopher of German fascism, has recently received much attention. Kelsen is well-known as one of the main exponents of the philosophy of legal positivism. Heller is virtually unknown outside Germany. Dyzenhaus exposes the dangers of Schmitt's legal philosophy by situating it in the legal context of constitutional crisis to which he responded. He also points out the severs inadequacies of Kelsen's legal positivism. In a wide-ranging account of the predicaments of contemporary legal and political philosophy, Heller's position is argued to be the most promising of the three.

作者簡介：

大衛·戴岑豪斯（David Dyzenhaus） 加拿大多倫多大學法學院法律與哲學教授，加拿大皇傢學會（The Royal Society of Canada，RSC）會員，牛津大學哲學博士。

譯者簡介：

劉毅 ，字春澤，北京理工大學法學院副教授，法學博士，北京大學法學院博士後，德國法蘭剋福大學訪問學者。