Cover -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- 1. Two Directions for Legal Thought -- The Problem of Private Property in an Activist State -- The Limits of Legal Convention -- Four Definitions -- Some Ideal Types -- The Problem Revisited -- 2. Scientific Adjudication -- An Overview of the Scientific Argument -- Scientific Property Talk -- The General Structure of the Takings Problem -- Specification of Judicial Role -- Toward a Scientific Language? -- 3. Utilitarian Adjudication -- Choosing A Comprehensive View -- Of Judicial Role and Comprehensive View -- The Restrained Interpretation of the Clause -- The Activist Interpretation of the Clause -- The Further Reaches of the Activist Interpretation -- The Reformist Interpretation of the Clause -- Pragmatic Interpretations of the Clause -- A Utilitarian View of Existing Doctrine -- 4. Kantian Adjudication -- Judicial Restraint -- The Kantian Tendency toward Activism -- Reformism -- Pragmatism -- Conclusion -- 5. Ordinary Adjudication -- Introduction -- The Modern American Mind: Its Basic Legal Structure -- The Affirmative Mission of Ordinary Observing -- Ordinary Property Talk -- The General Structure of the Takings Problem -- Specification of Judicial Role -- First Principles of Role Theory -- The Structure of Ordinary Role Theory -- Mixing Policymaking and Observing Modes of Adjudication -- 6. Layman's Things -- The General Incoherence of Takings Doctrine -- Layman's Things -- Social Property and Legal Property -- Testing the Hypothesis -- Layman's Thing Has Been Taken -- Transfer of Rightful Possession -- The Destruction of a Thing -- Rendering a Thing Useless -- Layman's Thing Has Been Taken by the State -- Layman's Thing Has Been Taken by the State without Ordinary Justification -- Legal Property and Social Property -- 7. On the Nature and Object of Legal Language -- On Excommunication.

Philosophical Foundations -- The Future -- Notes -- Table of Cases -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- R -- S -- T -- U -- W.