Vanderbilt Law Review Volume 54 Issue 6 Issue 6 - November 2001 Article 2 11-2001 Law as Craft Brett G. Scharffs Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.vanderbilt.edu/vlr Part of the Entertainment, Arts, and Sports Law Commons Recommended Citation Brett G. Scharffs, Law as Craft, 54 Vanderbilt Law Review 2243 (2001) Available at: https://scholarship.law.vanderbilt.edu/vlr/vol54/iss6/2 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Scholarship@Vanderbilt Law. It has been accepted for inclusion in Vanderbilt Law Review by an authorized editor of Scholarship@Vanderbilt Law. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Law as Craft Brett G. Scharffs 54 Vand. L. Rev. 2245 (2001) This Article explores the similarities between the law and other craft traditions, such as carpentry, pottery, and quilting. Its thesis is that law--and in particular adjudica- tion--combine elements of what Aristotle described as practical wisdom, or phronesis, and craft, or techne. Craft knowledge is learned practically through experi- ence and demonstrated through practice, and is contrasted with other concepts, including art, science, mass production, craftiness, and hobby. Crafts are characterized by four simul- taneous identities. First, crafts are made by hand-one at a time-and require not only talent and skill, but also experience and what Karl Llewellyn called "situation sense." Second, crafts are medium specific and are always identified with a material and the technologies invented to manipulate that ma- terial. Third, crafts are characterized by the use and useful- ness of craft objects.