Philosophy beyond Historicism: Reflections on Hans Kelsen and the Jewish Experience

While Kelsen never denied his Jewish origins, Lieblich provides indisputable evidence that he rejected both anti-Semitic and Zionist attempts to label his thought “Jewish.” More importantly, Lieblich moves beyond biography to show that the monism of Kelsen’s Pure Theory is an attempt to assimilate the individual into the international community. Lieblich’s analysis illuminates a tension, if not a paradox, that is at the heart of Kelsen’s legal theory, and his conception of international law especially, which is the undeniable appeal to progress embedded within the purported ideological purity of the Pure Theory of Law.