Shankar Narayanan, a practicing advocate in Delhi writes on a methodology in law.

Abstract

In Part II, the paper discusses three aspects of methodology. The paper briefly deals with the major points of tension between various methodological claims in the theories discussed in Part I. The paper goes on to suggest that rather than construct grand theories of law attempting to explain all that is associated with law, we might be better off attempting to uncover the mysteries of law, little by little. Second, the paper questions the claim that a theory of law if successful must be true of all legal systems. The paper argues that the claims that a theory makes should ordinarily be thought of as valid only for the normative systems that it has considered. Last, the paper comments on the extent to which empirical inputs must be considered necessary in building a theory of law. It is suggested that imposing a condition that theories must be empirically justified does not necessarily mean theorising has to be preceded by some act of scientific data gathering.