 Bentham presented his theory as a definition. In focusing their attention on the meaning of the main terms of legal discourse, Bentham and John Austin were ahead of their time. But it has come to be a commonplace view in legal theory (though still controversial) that they were misguided in attempting to define those terms. So, for example, Hart in the 1960s rejected definition as a useful technique in philosophy of law (Hart 2012, 14–17). Dworkin in the 1980s accused Hart of only repackaging the same approach as the ‘more candidly definitional’ method of John Austin (Dworkin 1986, 32–33). And Richard Posner in the 1990s accused both Hart and Dworkin of pointlessly “trying to define ‘law’” (Posner 1996, vii).