Rudolf von Jhering

Life and ideas

Rudolf von Jhering was a German jurist who taught at Basel, Rostock, Kiel, Giessen, Vienna and Göttingen. He first made his name with a brilliant account of Roman law in its 'spirit', and became associated with the jurisprudence of concepts, in which law is treated as a logical system of concepts. In the later part of his career he came to doubt this and mocked the 'heaven of legal concepts'. In The Struggle for Law (1872), a lecture that became a worldwide success, he argued that law is won in a struggle, and that to defend one's right is a duty to oneself and to the community. In Law as a Means to an End he held that law is made by society for a purpose and that its purpose, social utility, must guide it. He thus opened the way to sociological jurisprudence.