Margaret Martin, Judging Positivism, Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2014, 185 pp, hb £45.00.
| Date | 01 July 2015 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2230.12136 |
| Published date | 01 July 2015 |
even ordinarily. Indeed, that they had a rationale at the time of their appearance
should not be taken for granted.
Yet, without embarking on a discussion on the philosophy of history for which
he is not qualified, the present reviewer would like to suggest that this reverse
process should not be pressed too far. Once we have granted that reality is
immensely complex, in fact so complex that we are unable to cope with it without
simplifying it, it remains a given that one of the main tasks of the human intellect,
in its quest for understanding, is precisely to discover commonalities. We cannot
hope to go anywhere without treating individual objects, facts, people or ideas as
exemplifications of a wider genus. Indeed, without this process of abstraction, we
would not even possess the language which allows us to reflect on the world. Like
any other object of intellectual enquiry, the history of English tort law in the first
half of the twentieth century combines elements of singularity and of common-
ality. It is not sheer chaos. Paul Mitchell’s book gives us a fascinating insight into
some aspects of this singularity, having examined – especially in some areas – a
considerable number of primary, unpublished sources. It is a remarkable piece of
legal history written by a superb scholar. It will be of utmost interest not only to
tort lawyers, but to all private lawyers who appreciate the continued relevance of
the past for the present. Yet, to this reviewer at least, it is a matter of regret that the
author, quite deliberately it seems, did not attempt more of a synthesis of his
materials to try and reach what Oliver Wendell Holmes called ‘simplicity on the
other side of complexity’. It is as if he saw his role as presenting facts to his reader
but never forcing, or even encouraging, him to interpret them in a particular way.
Yet this is precisely what the reader, at least this reader, would like to know: all
things considered, what does the author make of it all? It is not violating the
reader’s freedom to help him discern the key elements of the story. We must not
leave it to those who only understand simplicity on this side of complexity to tell
us what we ought to believe.
Eric Descheemaeker*
Margaret Martin,Judging Positivism, Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2014, 185 pp, hb
£45.00.
Margaret Martin has an odd view of philosophy. She thinks there are two kinds
of philosophers, each with its own ‘task’. Some, the ‘castle-builders’, are the ones
who come up with ‘new way[s] of thinking or conceiving of an issue or
phenomenon’. They are ‘the rare few’. As for ‘the rest of us’, we are left to ‘spend
our days contemplating the virtues and vices of the castles built by others’ (vii).
This is not a view I share. The castle-gazing picture is false, I think, and it would
be regrettable if it were true. But it is the view that animates Martin’s book.
*University of Edinburgh.
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© 2015 The Author. The Modern Law Review © 2015 The Modern Law Review Limited. 699(2015) 78(4) MLR 695–726
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