Abstract
<jats:p>Before Emil Lask wrote The Logic of Philosophy (1911) he outlined the main theses of his future philosophical project in The Philosophy of Right (1905): critique of the “two worlds theory”, the problem of pre-reflective cognition, the emphasis on the role of “pre-scientific” pre-theoretical reality. But how, according to Lask, does the transition from “pre-legal” to “legal” reality take place? The Philosophy of Right criticises the “two worlds theory”, interpreted in the spirit of Platonism, as a mixing of value and reality in the natural law and historism. Lask claims that such a shift can be avoided in the critical philosophy of law. Instead of choosing between absolutisation of extra-historical legal norm and absolutisation of historical factuality the critical philosophy of law works with the real world as a “semi-finished product” (Halbfabrikat) which corresponds to the meanings of culture. In the “semi-finished product” the realm of right is partly “scientific” and partly “pre-scientific”, which makes the question of transition from the “pre-legal” to “legal” reality particularly important. The transition is revealed through the creation of legal concepts, in which their pre-scientific formation (vorwissenschaftliche Begriffsbildungen) and the teleological principle, which is responsible for the selection of the pre-legal empirical substrate of right that can become legal, play a significant role. The Philosophy of Right and The Logic of Philosophy are seen as keys to understanding each other. Therefore the “two-storied building” metaphor used in The Logic of Philosophy to explain the two levels of cognition can be applied to the concept of right. I arrive at the conclusion that the philosophical-legal practice of norm formation, according to Lask, involves “two necessities”: the necessity of recognising the pre-scientific element in right and the necessity of converting it into a “scientific” one. Thus, normativity in the philosophy of right, according to Lask, is not introduced from “above-outside”, but is formed in a “semi-finished product” of the right itself.</jats:p>