The term Jurisprudence (when it does not refer to authoritative legal decision-making, as in "the jurisprudence of the Supreme Court") is almost synonymous with legal theory and legal philosophy (or philosophy of law). Jurisprudence as scholarship is principally concerned with what, in general, law is and ought to be. That includes questions of how persons and social relations are understood in legal terms, and of the values in and of law. Work that is counted as jurisprudence is mostly philosophical, but it includes work that also belongs to other disciplines, such as sociology, history, politics and economics.

Modern jurisprudence began in the 18th century and it was based on the first principles of natural law, civil law, and the law of nations. General jurisprudence can be divided into categories both by the type of question scholars seek to answer and by the theories of jurisprudence, or schools of thought, regarding how those questions are best answered. Contemporary philosophy of law, which deals with general jurisprudence, addresses problems internal to law and legal systems and problems of law as a social institution that relates to the larger political and social context in which it exists.

This article addresses three distinct branches of thought in general jurisprudence. Ancient natural law is the idea that there are rational objective limits to the power of legislative rulers. The foundations of law are accessible through reason, and it is from these laws of nature that human laws gain whatever force they have. Analytic jurisprudence (Clarificatory jurisprudence) rejects natural law's fusing of what law is and what it ought to be. It espouses the use of a neutral point of view and descriptive language when referring to aspects of legal systems. It encompasses such theories of jurisprudence as legal positivism, holds that there is no necessary connection between law and morality and that the force of law comes from basic social facts; and "legal realism", which argues that the real-world practice of law determines what law is, the law having the force that it does because of what legislators, lawyers, and judges do with it. Unlike experimental jurisprudence, which seeks to investigate the content of folk legal concepts using the methods of social science, the traditional method of both natural law and analytic jurisprudence is philosophical analysis. Normative jurisprudence is concerned with "evaluative" theories of law. It deals with what the goal or purpose of law is, or what moral or political theories provide a foundation for the law. It not only addresses the question "What is law?", but also tries to determine what the proper function of law should be, or what sorts of acts should be subject to legal sanctions, and what sorts of punishment should be permitted.