Legal Methodology and Complexity: A Comment on Allen

This article is a response to Ronald J. Allen's “Reflections on Complexity, Evidence, and Law.” I begin by analyzing three key concepts that Allen employs in his argument: reductionism, emergence, and complexity. On the basis of this analysis, I question Allen's criticism of the reductionist approach that, according to him, legal scholarship has traditionally taken to the study of law. There is a neutral sense of the word “reductionism” according to which most disciplines and sciences can be considered reductionist, and a pejorative sense according to which reductionism is epistemically objectionable. I try to distinguish these two senses, arguing that while legal scholarship is clearly reductionist in the first sense, it is not at all clear that it is also reductionist in the second sense. I conclude by putting some questions to Allen about the practical advantages that the study of law may gain by adopting methods and concepts drawn from complexity theory.