Gregory Klass, George Letsas and Prince Saprai (eds), Philosophical Foundations of Contract Law
| DOI | 10.3366/elr.2016.0382 |
| Published date | 01 September 2016 |
| Date | 01 September 2016 |
| Author | |
| Pages | 417-418 |
“Contract theory is not one thing, but a collection of related inquiries. There is variety both in the questions theorists ask and in the methods they use to answer them” (1). So begins Gregory Klass's introductory chapter to this fine collection of essays. In a full and very useful introduction he succeeds admirably both in laying a foundation for the papers that will follow and in sketching the vitality and diversity of modern contract law theory.
Thereafter, the book is divided into two parts. Part 1 is comprised of ten essays which deal with general or over-arching theoretical questions, while Part 2 is comprised of seven pieces which address more specific doctrinal analyses. The chapters were first presented at the inaugural Bentham House conference at University College, London, in 2013. In the introduction, Klass notes that, had the publishers permitted a second volume, further papers could have been included which would have expanded both the substantive content and methodological approaches adopted within the work (13). It is perhaps to be regretted that page-count had such a significant effect upon the scope of the work. As it stands, we still have nigh on 400 pages of tightly-packed content. It must have been quite a conference.
Part 1 contains a fine piece by Bagchi on distributive justice in the contractual context and an essay by Avery on the economic foundations of contract law which is both insightful and more accessible for the non-specialist than is often true of papers within this field. What a pleasure it is to see a master of his subject take time to engage in exposition, rather than obfuscation. However, the great majority of the pieces in this Part – eight essays in all – are concerned in some way or another with promissory theory. In many ways, they form the heart of the book; and this is so largely because Charles Fried took the opportunity presented by the conference to revisit the themes and concepts of his seminal
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