A Global History of Ideas in the Language of Law

Gunnar Folke Schuppert

Global Perspectives on Legal History 16
Frankfurt am Main: Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory 2021. XI, 314 p.
Online version: Open Access (PDF-Download, License: Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 International)
Print version: 22,79 € (Print on Demand at ePubli)

ISSN 2196-9752
ISBN 978-3-944773-30-8

eISBN 978-3-944773-31-5

Quotation link of the online version: http://dx.doi.org/10.12946/gplh16


The book is based on the observation that the study of the global history of ideas is currently dominated by historians, philosophers and political theorists. Scholars of law play almost no role in this context. This neglect of the perspectives of legal history and legal sociology conflicts with the easily established finding that many central concepts of the history of political ideas are at the same time legal concepts, such as natural law, human rights, constitution, and the rule of law. Moreover, many key figures in the history of ideas engaged deeply with the world of law and some – such as Kant, Hegel, and Weber – published their own philosophy or sociology of law.

From this point of departure, the book explores the global history of ideas by asking to what extent the history of political ideas can also be told in the language of law. The result, unsurprisingly, is that a global history of political ideas not only can but should be written in the language of law. This book wants to make a small contribution to that end.

.

Contents

Introduction
1 Why a Global History of Ideas in the Language of Law
Part One
33 Global History as a Global History of Ideas
33 Introduction
44 Chapter One: What Sort of Ideas?
54 Chapter Two: Global Intellectual Fields and Global Legal Spaces – What Constitutes an Intellectual Field and a Legal Space?
71 Chapter Three: The History of Ideas and Knowledge as Entangled History
Part Two
85 Three Key Functions of Law and its Language in a Global History of Ideas
86 Chapter One: First and Foremost: The Abstraction and Transformation Functions of Law and its Language
95 Chapter Two: The Institutionalization Functions of Law: The Language of Law as the Language of Order and Conflict Resolution
103 Chapter Three: Law as a Sphere of Resonance
Part Three
123 Legal Concepts and Legal Regimes in a Global History of Ideas
124 Chapter One: Worldwide Enlightenment and Universal Natural Law
145 Chapter Two: The Language of International Law as a Language of Politics
176 Chapter Three: The Language of Human Rights as a Language of Politics
200 Chapter Four: The Language of the Rule of Law as an Integral Part of the Language of the Political History of Ideas
Part Four
223 The Role of Key Legal Concepts in a Global History of Ideas
224 Chapter One: State authority
238 Chapter Two: Sovereignty
246 Chapter Three: Constitution
258 Chapter Four: Contract
 
269 Concluding Observations and Remarks
277 Bibliography
309 About the Author
Go to Editor View