For a complete list of course offerings in History and Philosophy of Law, including full descriptions and faculty who will be teaching the offerings in 2008-2009, refer to the online Curriculum Guide.
Common law systems based on precedent are by their very nature oriented toward history. Columbia Law School, the University and New York City abound in rich source material for research and courses in legal history. Classes address topics including the English common law, American law, international law and the law of Greece and Rome. The joint Law School-History Department Program in Law and History further supports interdisciplinary coursework and scholarship. Legal history courses are designed to provide students with an enriched understanding of the foundations and development of the law.
Courses and seminars in law and philosophy concentrate on philosophical perspectives as they relate to law. Among the central inter-related questions are the nature of law, how law relates to morality, how judges do and should decide cases, different forms of legal interpretation and how these forms compare with interpretation in other disciplines, the grounds that citizens and officials have to comply with legal requirements, and requisites of justice for legal systems. In these offerings the focus is less on resolution of particular legal issues or direct usefulness for the practice of law than on more general inquiries that will enrich one's understanding of law and one's participation in the legal profession.
