Kawashima, Takeyoshi (1909–1992)

Takeyoshi Kawashima was a Japanese professor of civil law and sociology of law at Tokyo University Faculty of Law (TUFL) until his retirement at 60 years of age. He then continued working as a practicing lawyer. Kawashima began his scholarly work in search of an objective theory of law, suspecting that so-called theory in traditional interpretative jurisprudence was not genuine theory because value judgments colored it. He advanced his efforts by studying traditional customary practices among ordinary people in Japan and in China as well as theoretical suggestions in the writings of Rudolf Jhering (1818–1892), Karl Marx (1818–1883), Eugen Ehrlich (1862–1922), and other European writers.

The result was the landmark book Shoyūkenhōno riron (1949, The Theory of Ownership Law), in which Kawashima pointed to three basic ...