Welcome to my homepage. Since August 2008, I am professor of Legal Philosophy and Jurisprudence (rechtsfilosofie en rechtstheorie) at Erasmus University Rotterdam.
News
- January 2026: excited to announce this three-day Spring Course on legal research methodologies in March which I will teach with a group of ESL colleagues. https://www.linkedin.com/in/wibren-van-der-burg-736389ab/
- December 2025: Just published: ‘The tragic character of a multidisciplinary researcher’, in C. Bouteligier, P. Phoa & S. Taekema, (eds.), Forever Composed of Nows: Celebrating Jeanne Gaakeer’s work on law, language and literature, The Hague: Boom Uitgevers, 247-256.
- For older new items, see under News*
Teaching and research
Since my master thesis, the central theme of my research and teaching has been the interaction between law, ethics and society. I studied law and ethics, with a strong interest in social sciences, and my research usually has an interdisciplinary character.
My current research focus is threefold. The first focus is that of methodologies of interdisciplinary legal research and of philosophy. With Sanne Taekema, I published a book on the methods of law-in-context research: Contextualising Legal Research. A Methodological Guide, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar 2024. We advocate the integration of doctrinal research, empirical research and the humanities, especially legal philosophy and ethics. On these topics I frequently give seminars for master students and Ph.D. students, in Rotterdam and elsewhere.
A second focus is pluralism. In our pluralist world there are other sources of law and power than states. International law and EU law constitute legal orders in their own right. Multinationals are very powerful. Migration, international trade, digitalisation and tourism make state borders less relevant. How should we order this pluralist world? The ideals of democracy, rule of law, human rights and justice provided inspiration for the institutional design of the Dutch state. These ideals are also important for the pluralist global order, but we should rethink their meaning. In 2025, I published a book on this theme: Rechtsfilosofie in een pluralistische wereld. Nadenken over de verantwoordelijkheid van juristen, Boom juridisch 2025. [‘Legal philosophy in a pluralist world. Reflecting on the responsibility of lawyers’]
The third focus is that of the dynamic relation between law and morality. In 2014, I published a book on this topic: The Dynamics of Law and Morality A Pluralist Account of Legal Interactionism (Ashgate/ Routledge 2014). Strongly inspired by the work of Philip Selznick and Lon Fuller, I developed an interactionist theory of law. The 2025 book builds partly on that theory.
A special focus has been on how law and politics should deal with the dynamics of cultural and religious pluralism. I have widely published on this theme, also in popular publications in Dutch.
Publications
Most of my articles may be found as pdfs on this website (I am still working on that…) or on SSRN. My most recent publications are
- The tragic character of a multidisciplinary researcher’, in C. Bouteligier, P. Phoa & S. Taekema, (eds.), Forever Composed of Nows: Celebrating Jeanne Gaakeer’s work on law, language and literature, The Hague: Boom Uitgevers, 247-256.
- ‘Saturation as a methodological principle in philosophy’, Metaphilosophy 56(2025)5, 508-522. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/meta.70016 (with Jing Hiah and Robert Poll).
- Rechtsfilosofie in een pluralistische wereld. Nadenken over de verantwoordelijkheid van juristen, Den Haag: Boom 2025. [‘Legal philosophy in a pluralist world. Reflecting on the responsibility of lawyers’]
- Contextualising Legal Research. A Methodological Guide, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar 2024 (with Sanne Taekema)
- ‘Pragmatist Reflective Equilibrium’, Synthese 203 (2024): 52. 1-26 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-023-04455-1
- ‘From Ethical Analysis to Legal Reform: Methodological Reflections on Ethical Transplants in Pluralist Contexts’, De Ethica 7(2022)1, 41–59 https://doi.org/10.3384/de-ethica.2001-8819.227141
- ‘Conceptual Theories of Law and the Challenges of Global Legal Pluralism: A Legal Interactionist Approach’ (in: Paul Schiff Berman (ed.) Oxford Handbook on Global Legal Pluralism, Oxford: Oxford University Press 2020, pp. 319-338
- ‘Social Change and the Accommodation of Religious Minorities in the Netherlands: New Diversity and Its Implications for Constitutional Rights and Principles’, Journal of Law, Religion and State, 8(2020)1, 1-33. DOI: 10.1163/22124810-201900 (with Wouter de Been)
Contact
Erasmus School of Law, Erasmus University Rotterdam, PO Box 1738, 3000 DR Rotterdam; e-mail: vanderburg (at) law.eur.nl
News and Announcements
In October 2021, I gave a number of lectures on research methods in Poland, in Krakow, Warsaw and Wroclaw. One of my lectures in Wroclaw, Creativity in Legal Scholarship, may be found on YouTube:
Wibren van der Burg 