Ljubomir Tadić was born on May 14th 1925, near Plužine in today’s Montenegro. In 1941, when he was 16, he joined the National Liberation Army of Yugoslavia, where he earned the rank of Captain. After the war, he finished high school in Sarajevo, graduated from the Law Faculty in Belgrade in 1952, and defended his PhD at the University of Ljubljana in 1959. He was a member of the Commission on the Constitution of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1963.
Tadić started his academic career at the Law Faculty in Sarajevo. In 1962 he moved to Belgrade to work as a Principal Fellow at the Institute for Social Sciences. Between 1963 and 1975 he was also Full Professor at the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade. He was a member of the editorial board of Praxis, one of the founders of Praxis International, and one of the organizers of Korčula Summer School. Together with seven other Praxis members, he was seen as an instigator of the student protests in June 1968. In 1975 he was removed from his teaching position at the Faculty of Philosophy. In 1981 Tadić began working at the Center for Philosophy and Social Theory, which later became the Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory, and remained there until his retirement in 1995.
He was, and still remains, one of the most important Serbian and Yugoslav philosophers of law. He was elected member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts in 1985. He was one of the 13 founders of the Democratic Party in 1989. After 1991, he supported the unification of all Serbs from former Yugoslav territories. In 2005 he was elected President of the Movement for a Joined State of Serbia and Montenegro, advocating against Montenegrin independence.
He passed away in Belgrade in 2013.
Books: Filozofske osnove pravne teorije Hansa Kelsena: prilog kritici „Čiste teorije prava“, 1962; Revolucija i sloboda, 1965; Predmet pravnih nauka, 1966; Poredak i sloboda: prilozi kritici političke svesti, 1967; Tradicija i revolucija, 1972; Autoritet i porodica, 1980; Filozofija prava, 1983; Da li je nacionalizam naša sudbina? i druge rasprave i polemike o naciji, socijalizmu i federaciji, 1986; Ogled o javnosti, 1987; Nauka o politici, 1988; Autoritet i osporavanje, 1989; O „velikosrpskom hegemonizmu“, 1992; Retorika: uvod u veštinu besedništva, 1995; Politikološki leksikon: osnovni pojmovi nauke o politici, 1996; Filozofija u svom vremenu, 1998; U matici krize: intervjui 1968-1998, 1999; Polemike, 2000; Zagonetka smrti: smrt kao tema religije i filozofije, 2003; Izabrana dela, 2006−2008.