Two fundamental questions for any discipline are: (1) What is the subject matter of the field? and (2) What is to be asked about the subject matter? The answer to the first question as it applies to jurisprudence can be given in a word—law. This designation may appear as a gross oversimplification, but that is not the problem at all. If there were consensus in jurisprudence as to a universal and empirically applicable definition of law, the term would be suited admirably for identifying the subject matter of the field. But such consensus is lacking. Debates over conceptions of law have an ancient history, and since the end of the eighteenth century they have become more intense. Given the fact that contemporary schools of thought in jurisprudence are distinguished first and foremost by the kind of definition of law advocated, it is difficult to understand Selznick's assertion that definitions of law “are not really so various as is sometimes suggested.” To the contrary, one would be hard pressed to identify a more controversial issue in either jurisprudence or the sociology of law.