Ralf Dreier: In Memoriam

• Published date: 01 December 2019
• Author: Robert Alexy
• Date: 01 December 2019
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/raju.12265

© 2019 The Author. Ratio Juris © 2019 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Ratio Juris. Vol. 32 No. 4 December 2019 (529–530)

Ralf Dreier: In Memoriam

ROBERT ALEXY*

Ralf Dreier passed away on January 7, 2018, in Göttingen. Born on October 10, 1931,

in Bad Oeynhausen, Westphalia, he belonged to the generation of those who grew

up before 1945, but whose independent thinking first evolved in the postwar years.

After studying law in Hamburg, Freiburg, and Münster from 1953 until 1957, he

served from 1963 until 1970 as assistant to the well-known professor of public law

and legal philosophy Hans Julius Wolff in Münster, who supervised his dissertation

on the concept of the nature of things (“Zum Begriff der Natur der Sache”), pub-

lished in 1965, as well as his postdoctoral thesis, a study of the canonical theory of the

ministry (“Das kirchliche Amt. Eine kirchenrechtstheoretische Studie”), published in

1972. He became a full professor of general theory of law in Göttingen in 1973, and

remained in Göttingen up to his retirement in 1996. Beginning in 1980, he was also a

member of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen. He declined offers from Salzburg

and Regensburg.

Ralf Dreier was one of the most important German-speaking legal philosophers

of the second half of the twentieth century. The multitude of topics covered by him

is recognizable in two collections of articles published by Suhrkamp, one on law,

morality, and ideology (Recht – Moral – Ideologie, 1981), the other on law, state, and

reason (Recht – Staat – Vernunft, 1991). Dreier’s article on the concept of law (“Der

Begriff des Rechts”), first published in 1986, argues for a nonpositivist position. It

is of crucial importance. In addition, papers on Kant, Hegel, Binder, Kelsen, and

Luhmann stand out as studies of special interest. In addition, comments on political

questions of the day are not missing, as his remarks on problems of political radicals

and on civil disobedience show.

If one wished to capture the main features of Ralf Dreier’s work, a look at two

of his writings can be recommended, one very early, the other very late in his

career. The early work is Dreier’s inaugural lecture in Göttingen, in 1974, on what

general legal theory is and what its purpose comes to (“Was ist und wozu Allgemeine

Rechtstheorie?”), first published in 1975. Here Dreier characterizes legal theory as a

discipline lying at the border (Grenzpostendisziplin). As such, legal theory stands in

referral chains (Verweisungsketten). Legal theory is said to be unable to yield a real

harvest without a theory of society, and a theory of society cannot function properly

*I should like to thank Stanley L. Paulson for suggestions and advice on matters of English style.