This book offers a conceptual reconstruction of the legal relation on the basis of a critique of legal positivism.

Alexander Somek is Professor of Legal Philosophy at Universität Wien, Austria and Global Affiliated Professor of Law at the University of Iowa, where he previously held the position of the Charles E. Floete Chair in Law. He has been a Fellow of the Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin, a LAPA fellow, and visiting professor at Princeton University, New Jersey, and at the London School of Economics. He is the author of eleven books.

Introduction. The pursuit of theory; 1. Late legal positivism; 2. Legality and irony; 3. Legal science and the common law; 4. The legal relation; 5. Equality, freedom and dignity; 6. The quest for agency.