FIFTY YEARS AFTER THE DEATH OF CONTRACT: THE SCHRÖDINGER’S DEADALIVE CONTRACT’S PARADOX

Abstract

This paper revisits Grant Gilmore’s The Death of Contract five decades
after publication. Rather than resolving the tensions he exposed, it embraces the
suspension in which Gilmore left Contract Law, a juridical Schrödinger's box where
doctrinal coherence and disintegration coexist. By resisting closure, this approach
invites readers to engage with Gilmore's paradoxes as if they remain ever-present.
The contradictions within the Restatement (Second) of Contracts were never resolved,
and the proliferation of sub-disciplines meant to coexist with the general contract
theory has only obscured the deeper reality: that Private Law is a terrain of
irreconcilable tensions. If Contract Law retains any centrality, it is precisely
because it exposes—rather than reconciles—these structural contradictions,
serving as the fault line along which the illusions of coherence in Private Law
untangle.