In this monograph a fundamental distinction is made between law and juridical thinking. Law is the content of legal rules and the systems of legal rules. Juridical thinking is the handling of the law by the lawyers. To this distinction corresponds a basic distinction between the language of law and the language of juridical thinking, and correlatively, between L-concepts (law concepts) and J-concepts (juridical or jurisprudential concepts). The monograph is devoted to the J-concepts, especially of technical (not ideological or evaluative) J-concepts.
Four kinds of J-concepts are investigated: morphological J-concepts, those that help us to structure the law in a logical and functional way; topological J-concepts, those that help us to indicate the phenomena to which the law is applicable, and to separate the areas of application for different legal systems; praxeological J-concepts, those that help us to explore the relations between law and action, and methodological J-concepts, those that help us to describe the methods of the professional-juridical handling of the law.
The work can be characterised as presenting a lawyer¿s philosophy of law.

Åke Frändberg is Emeritus Professor of Jurisprudence at Uppsala University and former President of the Swedish section of the IVR .He is the author of several books and articles in Swedish. He has also published in English, Chinese, German, and Spanish. His main research interests are the concept "legal order", application of law and statutory interpretation, and law-state thinking (Rechtsstaat and the Rule of Law). He is a member of the Royal Uppsala Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has been visiting professor at University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, and lecturer at the European Academy of Legal Theory, Brussels. In 2014 his book From Rechtsstaat to Universal Law-State was published by Springer.

Chapter 1. Introduction.- Chapter 2. The Legal Order. Morphological Levels.- Chapter 3. The Juridical Rule Thinking.- Chapter 4. The Addressee Problem.- Chapter 5. Normative Modalities.- Chapter 6. The Place of the Normative in the Ontological Universe.- Chapter 7. The Juridical Topology. Some Basic Concepts.- Chapter 8. Genetic-Topological Norm-Relations.- Chapter 9. On Analogical Use of Legal Rules.- Chapter 10. On Conflicts between Legal Rules.- Chapter 11. On Relations between Legal Systems.- Chapter 12. Retroactivity, Simulactivity and Infraactivity.- Chapter 13. Some Basic Praxeological Concepts. The Application of Law and the Validity of Law.- Chapter 14. Statutory Interpretation Against the Background of a General Typology of Interpretation.- Chapter 15. Operative Goals and Background Goals in Legislative Argumentation.- Chapter 16. Stability and Change. A Study in Juridical Ideology.- Chapter 17. Epilogue: Intellectualism as a Cardinal Virtue of the Lawyer.