Emil Lask sul valore scientifico dell'empiria giuridica

Moving from of the role that the Lask’s legal philosophy had since the first half of the twentieth century – in particular thanks to the Radbruch’s recovery – in view of the acknowledgment of dimensional multiplicity of the law and therefore in critical function in regard to kelsensian normativistic monism, the paper aims to focus the notion of legal empiria, and its scientific value, in its three meanings: one methodological, one formal-content and one of material-content. The attention to the determination of the legal content – in other respects, so widespread to the anti-formalism in the Germany of Weimar Age – makes it possible to grasp the specific differences of laskian thought and the role played by legal-philosophical reflections in his maturity. Significant part of such a development is the review of the first volume of Richard Schmidt, Allgemeine Staatslehre, published in 1904, in which the laskian idea of legal empiria clashes with the empiricist, practical and political declination that Schmidt intended to impose on Theory of State.