Understanding the Law and Legal Philosophy No.3

Introduction to Understanding Law It's been 30 years since I began my career as a scholar at one local university in South Korea. As I approach an age of retirement, I've been spending more time reflecting on my life. Over the reflections, it was impressive that a professor of commercial law ogled the audience of big classroom about German legal philosopher, who proposed that the ultimate objective of law is presumed to pursue a predictability and legal stability. An experience on my undergraduate days had been stupendous within the legal thought of Hans Kelsen and Hart, who adduced that the inherent nature of law is about hierarchy and authority. The years of graduate studies had exposed me to the prodigious world of Jellinek's law and social sciences. As a professor, I studied the politics and constitutional law, grappling with a churning of Karl Schmitt's determinism and the ideals of integrationist view propounded by Rudolf Smend. Later in the professional career, it had been hyped with a realistic meaning squinnied with such utopian thought of Kant and Duguit's, who asserted that law should be supreme about people and philosophy. These days, I am unfeigned to find a self filled with a sense of remoteness and self-loathing. My career life as a law professor had been devoted to seek a veracity of law in the two-dimensional world of analytical and normative jurisprudence concerning the constitutional and international laws. While I regret if I had been dilatory and less talented over thirty years of law professorship, a desire to construct a bit of meaning suddenly struck me. It is solely due to a grace of god on health and family consort that I recollected past writings into a book despite a sense of shallow knowledge and modest abilities. As common with the scholars, this amazing reward of publishing a piece of work had also been indebted to the precious comment and criticism as well as, in no small part, ascribed to the support of fellow scholars on the faculty of law and juridical science Not only the great teachers of law at Seoul National University Law School, especially Kwon Young-seong and Kim Cheol-soo, but also Professor Seong Seung-hyeon on the Roman and Civil Laws at Chonnam National University Law School; Professor Kim Yeon-mi, president of the Korean Society of Legal Philosophy, who generously provided me with a hard-to-find copy of Herbert Hart; and Professor Lee Yeong-rok, who always had been kind and adamant as a paragon of scholarship and a model for researchers. It is difficult to mention in this book, a countless number of thankful scholars, notwithstanding distinguished international pundits, who had assisted, inspired and influenced squarely over the years of professional career. In publishing this book, one teacher who cannot be left out is the late Professor Choi Hong-yeop, who passed away recently. When I first took office, we laughed together, saying, "International trade law is private law, but international trade law is public law, right?" My juniors, who shared my lifelong journey as environmental activists, reminded me of the red leaves of a mountain full of crimson leaves, reminding me of the love of my fellow countrymen and the sentiments of old age, saying, "Our homeland is both South and North Korea." Even amidst the material abundance of the ever-growing South Korea, our humble moments spent with the North Korean people, the window between the two Koreas. Looking back, a deep sorrow pierces my heart. Professor Choi, a native of Gwangju, studied abroad in Seoul for many years, and despite numerous choices, returned to Chosun University with a noble spirit of "Let's nurture future generations in our hometown!" He became a lifelong scholar, a figure of respect for his students, and a role model for his fellow professors. This book is sparse but comprehensive. While there are many influential scholars on the s