Joseph Raz employs a methodology according to which we can learn truths about the nature of law by examining our concept of law. This article is devoted to interpreting and critiquing this idea, which I call the ‘concept–nature nexus’. I propose three interpretations of the concept–nature nexus that attempt to make sense of it, and expose the flaws in each. The first employs immodest conceptual analysis and is problematic for that reason. The second I call the ‘spotlight view’, and I argue that it makes sense of the concept–nature nexus only by defining the thing in question in a stipulative way that undermines the enterprise. The third relies on the idea that our concepts make the law what it is; I argue that this could make our concepts relevant to understanding law’s nature, but would involve prioritising the views of the legal officials with the power to make law what it is, which conflicts with Raz’s approach. I conclude that, in the absence of some further account of the concept–nature nexus, we should abandon it. In closing, I briefly explore methodological possibilities that require only a concept–concept or a nature–nature nexus, but suggest that these face their own problems.

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Ronald Dworkin was an outspoken critic of pragmatism, and engaged in extensive and at times virulent disagreements with Richard Posner and Richard Rorty. However, I argue here that Dworkin himself had a number of deeply pragmatist commitments. I examine how we can square these two aspects of Dworkin’s thought. I suggest that part of the answer lies in seeing that there are different strands of pragmatism, and that Dworkin falls on the more objective, Peircean side of the divide, while Rorty and Posner belong more in the skeptical, Jamesian camp. But even with this distinction in mind, we should note the substantial overlap between the views of Dworkin and his pragmatist interlocutors—in particular, their anti-archimedeanism and their rejection of metaphysics. Attentiveness to this shared perspective is helpful in illuminating Dworkin’s disagreements with legal positivists. The more foundational divide, I argue, is between analytic legal philosophers who aim to provide an account of the metaphysics of law, and those, like Dworkin and the pragmatists, who reject such a project. I conclude by discussing the implications of Dworkin’s pragmatism for legal philosophy. I argue that it may lead to what some have recently called ‘eliminativism’, and engage with some new and prominent work on this current topic in legal philosophy.