Teoría del Derecho: una introducción

This work aims, above all, to be a simple and comprehensible manual of Legal Theory, written with the intention of serving students who are beginning their law studies, and not a document drafted for erudite disputes with veteran professors or lawyers already seasoned in a thousand and one battles. In other words, it seeks to provide the most basic tools so that those entering the legal field have the fundamental keys, concepts, and essential knowledge to understand what we mean when we say 'Law' and under what conditions or with what assumptions one can work with this crucial tool of social engineering called 'Law.' To draw a comparison, it is what Economic Theory must do in relation to the study of Economics, or what Anatomy and Physiology provide as the foundation for the study of Medicine. If a medical student does not know the difference between a bone and a tendon, does not know what a lymphocyte is, or is unfamiliar with the names of the muscles in the arm or how they relate to movement, they may memorize the other subjects they take (Cardiology, Gynecology, Ophthalmology…), but they will be severely impaired in understanding and effectively applying their knowledge. The same applies to the law student who goes through their career without understanding the differences between a legal norm and a religious one, for instance, or why and how legal norms must be interpreted, or what the relationship between rights and obligations is, or why the law is coercive, how it is so and with what limits, or what it means for a state to be a state governed by the rule of law, etc., etc.