Abstract

This contribution pursues a (relatively) modest task. I will attempt a comparative reading of some well-known pages of Karl Olivecrona and Karl Llewellyn, two prominent representatives of both Scandinavian and American Legal Realism. In addition to the numerous and relevant contextual differences, I would also like to point out some perhaps underestimated similarities between their views. Particularly, I will suggest, both realists shared a similar outlook about the opportunity (and the very possibility) of formulating a concept of law. Examining such similarities, I would also argue, is not only an interesting historical overview of the works of two classics of the philosophy of law. Such an investigation could in fact provide us with very useful and provocative suggestions for current debates in legal philosophy.