Realism’s Illusions

This review essay argues that Hanoch Dagan’s self-styled via media between functionalism and formalism is functionalism in another guise, not the synthesis it claims to be. More specifically, it examines Dagan’s claim to have vindicated, from a realist perspective, what may be called the three autonomies: judge-made law’s autonomy vis-à-vis politics, legal theory’s autonomy vis-à-vis other disciplines that study law, and private law’s autonomy vis-à-vis public law. And it argues in each case that the autonomy Dagan believes he has vindicated is illusory