This Article confronts the conceptualist/non-conceptualist divide in property theory. Specifically, the Article addresses the primary normative objection to the conceptualist account of property. In the course of addressing this criticism, the Article bridges an important gap in the literature and provides a new way of understanding the legal concept of property as distinguished from other types of legal arrangements. The conceptualist/non-conceptualist divide centers on whether the legal concept of ‘property’ can be said to have criterial features – that is, features that make ‘property’ both unique and distinguishable from other legal concepts (such as contract) . Conceptualists understand the concept of ‘property’ to include one or more criterial features. Most commonly, conceptualists understand ‘property’ to necessarily include the principle of numerus clausus, a common law rule that imposes a restriction on the forms of ownership. On the other hand, some non-conceptualist scholars have criticized the conceptualist emphasis on numerus clausus as a misplaced and as unduly formalist. This Article demonstrates that the central normative concern raised by critics of the conceptualist account of property is unwarranted. Concerns that fall within the “realist critique” of formalism do not obtain in the context of the specific type of formalism that contemporary property conceptualists embrace. This is because the function of form restriction is not to arrive at a correct or even a substantively justifiable classification of interests in a given dispute, but rather to arrive at a classification. Numerus clausus is first and foremost a coordinating tool. Rather than reflecting or directing deep normative commitments about the distribution of assets, form restriction primarily serves to sort interests into a finite (and therefore manageable) set of categories.

中文翻译：

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财产的概念

本文直面财产理论中的概念主义/非概念主义分歧。具体而言，该条款解决了对财产概念主义解释的主要规范性反对意见。在处理这种批评的过程中，该条弥补了文献中的一个重要空白，并提供了一种新的方式来理解财产的法律概念，以区别于其他类型的法律安排。概念主义者/非概念主义者的分歧集中在“财产”的法律概念是否可以说具有标准特征——即，使“财产”既独特又区别于其他法律概念（例如合同）的特征。概念主义者将“财产”的概念理解为包括一个或多个标准特征。最常见的，概念主义者将“财产”理解为必然包括数理条款原则，这是一项对所有权形式施加限制的普通法规则。另一方面，一些非概念主义的学者批评概念主义对numerus clausus的强调是错误的和过度的形式主义。这篇文章表明，对财产概念主义解释的批评者提出的核心规范关注是没有根据的。属于对形式主义的“现实主义批判”的担忧在当代财产概念主义者所拥护的特定形式主义类型的背景下并不存在。这是因为形式限制的功能不是在给定的争议中对利益进行正确的甚至是实质上合理的分类，而是达到分类的目的。Numerus clausus 首先是一个协调工具。形式限制不是反映或指导关于资产分配的深层规范承诺，而是主要用于将利益分类为一组有限（因此可管理）的类别。