99 It is often observed by H. L. A. Hart, and also by his friends and interpret- ers, that when he accepted Oxford’s Chair of Jurisprudence in 1952 his ield was in a bad way. Looking back in an interview, Hart remarks that at the time British jurisprudence “had no broad principles, no broad faith; it confronted no large questions. . . . It focused on technical, legal problems. There were no large-scale inquiries into the philosophical dimensions of law. . . . There was no legal philosophy. Jurisprudence had become a kind of closed subject, and very few people had ever thought of revising it.” 1 Indeed, shortly after he took the Chair, J. L. Austin sent a congratulatory note: “It is splendid to see the empire of philosophy annex another prov- ince in this way—not to mention the good you’re going to do them.” 2 I have no wish to dispute these assessments; I only want to point out a certain irony of them. If Hart brings “philosophy” to jurisprudence, he does so through a tradition based on criticism and reevaluation of what it means to do philosophy: ordinary language philosophy. Take its two main expositors, Austin and Wittgenstein. In Austin’s hands, ordinary lan- guage is fastidiously used to dismantle the leading traditions of his time, whether logical positivism in Sense and Sensibilia and How To Do Things With Words, skepticism and traditional epistemology in “Other Minds,” . H. L. A. Hart, “Hart Interviewed: H. L. A. Hart in Conversation with David Sugar- man,” Journal of Law and Society 2, no. 2 (2005): 275. 2. Cited in Nicola Lacey, A Life of H. L. A. Hart: The Nightmare and the Noble Dream (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2004), p. 149. . Hart names J. L. Austin and Wittgenstein (and perhaps surprisingly, not Bentham and not John Austin) as the two most important igures in his philosophical development. Hart, “Hart Interviewed,” p. 275. Alexandre Lefebvre Law and the Ordinary: Hart, Wittgenstein, Jurisprudence Telos 54 (Spring 20): 99–8. doi:0.87/054099 www.telospress.com