From Logic to Experience: Formation and Foundation of Holmes’ Pragmatic Jurisprudence

Justice Holmes, as one epochal figure in legal history of America, had made many judicial opinions, legal ideas and related thinking, which was always one great influence on the making and developing of American legal thoughts. He, as one legend with brilliant experience of life, had formed and developed his own legal thoughts, which was the production of the progressive process being affected by all kinds of elements. Besides the final maturation of his late legal thoughts, the formation of his early legal thought, not being overlooked, by and large, may be divided into three periods: the learning and accumulating of legal knowledge, the preliminary conclusion of legal theory, and the gradual transformation of legal thought. In this process of forming and transforming of his legal though, there were both edification and influence of the common law tradition in intellectual facet, and insight and reflection on legal realities in America. The periods and elements described above were of crucial significance in transforming and final maturing of Justice Holmes’ legal thoughts.