Isaak I. Dore, J.D.
Distinguished Professor of Law and Philosophy Emeritus
Education
Practice Areas
Isaak Dore is a philosopher engaged in research and writing about contemporary social issues. He is Distinguished Professor of Law and Philosophy Emeritus at St. Louis University School of Law. He is a graduate of Yale Law School and the University of Zambia School of Law. He also holds an honorary doctorate from the University of Orléans, France. His primary teaching areas are Jurisprudence/Legal Philosophy, International Law, Anthropology of Law and US Constitutional Law.
From 1972–73 he was a Public Prosecutor and Legal Aid Counsel in the Zambian Ministry of Legal Affairs, and a member of the Zambian bar. From 1970-75 he was Assistant Editor of Zambia Law Reports. In 1976 he was appointed Lecturer at the University of Zambia. Upon completion of his doctorate at Yale in 1978 he served as Human Rights Officer and then as Special Consultant in the United Nations Division of Human Rights in Geneva, Switzerland.
In 1979 Dore turned to full-time teaching in the United States at Southern Illinois University School of Law and then at St. Louis University School of Law, where he taught for 35 years, and where he established the Center for International and Comparative Law and served as co-director for ten years. He has over fifty years of teaching and research experience. In addition to the United States, Dore has lectured in Africa, Latin America, Europe and the Middle East. As annual visiting professor for fifteen years in France, he taught courses and seminars in International law, US constitutional law and in Legal Philosophy at the University of Paris-Dauphine, University of Toulouse, Université d’Orléans, and l’Université de Franche-Comté (Besançon) France. In 2000 he was Distinguished Visiting Professor at the National University of Tucuman, Argentina, and Visiting Professor at the Independent University of Moldova.
Research Interests
Western philosophy
Political theory
Law and ethics
Publications and Media Placements
The Epistemological Foundations of Law (2007)
Homo Juridicus: Culture as a Normative Order (2016)
A Materialist Theory of Justice : A Methodological, Philosophical and Moral Justification (2025)
While in Saint Louis, Dore established the St. Louis-Warsaw Transatlantic Law Journal in partnership with the University of Poland, and served as Editor-in-chief for 5 years. Dore has published scores of articles and given presentations in a variety of multi-disciplinary fields. Most of his articles have been published in American and French journals. He is the author of eight books in a number of related fields, including international law, international arbitration (including international commercial arbitration and multiparty arbitration), and the International Mandate System established by the League of Nations after World War I. His scholarship over the last decade has been largely interdisciplinary, focusing on law and epistemology, legal philosophy, legal anthropology and political theory. His book titled The Epistemological Foundations of Law (2007) reflects the first two of these themes, while his Homo Juridicus : Culture as a Normative Order (2016) reflects the third theme. His latest book, published in 2025 by Palgrave Macmillan, is titled A Materialist Theory of Justice : A Methodological, Philosophical and Moral Justification. This books unifies all four fields, presenting a comprehensive theory of justice based on an anthropologically grounded methodology, and synthesizing the political and philosophical thought of Aristotle, Thomas Hobbes, Thomas Aquinas, Immanuel Kant, Georg W. F. Hegel, John Finnis, John Dewey, George Mead, Jürgen Habermas, Michel Foucault, Jean-François Lyotard, Axel Honneth, Michael Sandel, Michael Walzer, Martha Nussbaum, John Maynard Keynes, Amartya Sen, Paul Samuelson and Karl Marx.
Honors and Awards
Honorary Doctorate (Docteur honoris causa), the University of Orléans, France, October 2002.
St. Louis University Thompson Coburn Award for Outstanding Faculty Scholarship for 1985, 1986, 2008.
Visiting Scholar, Yale Law School (Summer, 1981).
Fellow of the Institute for the Study of World Politics, New York (1977).
Sterling Fellow, Yale Law School (1975-1977).
Awarded LL.B. with Merit (1972).