14657

Paradigms jo borito 11/12/19 9:01 Page 1
The author introduces the reader to reasoning in law through the possibilities, boundaries
and traps of assuming personal responsibility and impersonal pattern adoption that have
arisen in the history of human thought and in the various legal cultures. He discloses actual
processes hidden by the veil of patterns followed in thinking, processes that we encounter
both in our conceptual-logical quests for certainties and in the undertaking of fertilising
The Paradigms of Legal Thinking

ambiguity. When trying to identify definitions lurking behind the human construct of facts,
notions, norms, logic, and thinking, or behind the practice of giving meanings, he discovers
tradition in our presuppositions, and our world-view and moral stance in our tacit
agreements. Recognising the importance of the role communication plays in shaping
society, he describes our existence and institutions as self-regulating processes. Since law
is a wholly social venture, we not only take part in its oeuvre with our entire personality, but
are also collectively responsible for its destiny.
In the final analysis, anything can be qualified as ‘legal’ or ‘non-legal’ in one or another
recognised sense in which law can originate, but, as a relative totality, it can only be
qualified as ‘more legal’ or ‘less legal’ in any combination of the above senses. Being
formed in an uninterrupted process, neither the totality nor particular pieces of law can be
taken as complete or unchangeably identical with itself. Therefore law can only be
identified through its motions and computable states of ‘transforming into’ or ‘withdrawing
from’ the distinctive domain of the law. Thereby both society at large and its legal
professionals actually contribute to—by shaping incessantly—what presents itself as
ready-to-take, according to the law’s official ideology. For our initiation, play, role-
undertaking and human responsibility lurk behind the law’s formal mask in the backstage.
Or, this equals to realise that all we have become subjects from mere objects, actors from
mere addressees. And despite the variety of civilisational overcoats, the entire culture of
law is still exclusively inherent in us who experience it day to day. We bear it and shape it.
Everything conventional in it is conventionalised by us. It has no further existence or effect
beyond this. And with its existence inherent in us, we cannot convey the responsibility to be
born for it on somebody else either. It is ours in its totality so much that it cannot be torn out
of our days or acts. It will thus turn into what we guard it to become. Therefore we must take
care of it at all times since we are, in many ways, taking care of our own.
CSABA VARGA
CSABA VARGA — <http://drcsabavarga.wordpress.com> — is Professor of the Pázmány Péter Catholic
University, Founding Director of its Institute for Legal Philosophy (H–1428 Budapest 8, POB 6 /
varga@jak.ppke.hu) and Scientific Adviser at the Institute for Legal Studies of the Hungarian Academy
of Sciences (H–1250 Budapest, POB 25 / varga@jog.mta.hu)
CSABA VARGA
The Paradigms
of Legal Thinking
Old001-008 11/12/19 12:56 Page 1
CSABA VARGA
THE PARADIGMS
OF LEGAL THINKING
Old001-008 11/12/19 12:56 Page 2
PHILOSOPHIAE IURIS
Edited by
Csaba Varga
Series Editor
Professor Csaba Varga
Director of the
Institute for Legal Philosophy,
Pázmány Péter Catholic University of Hungary
H–1088 Budapest, Szentkirályi u. 28 (visit)

H–1428 Budapest 8, P.O.B. 6 (mail)
+361-4297230; 4297226 (fax); 4297227 & 4297226 (secretary)
varga@jak.ppke.hu / jogbolcs@jak.ppke.hu (secretary)
http://drcsabavarga.wordpress.hu
Old001-008 11/12/19 12:56 Page 3
CSABA VARGA
THE PARADIGMS
OF LEGAL
THINKING
SZENT ISTVÁN TÁRSULAT

Budapest 2012
Old001-008 11/12/19 12:56 Page 4
The book is the translated version of the original Hungarian

A jogi gondolkodás paradigmái
(Budapest: Szent István Társulat 2004),
as the 2nd—enlarged—edition of
Lectures on the Paradigms of Legal Thinking
(Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó 1999)
© Cs. Varga 2012
ISBN 978 963 277 299 8

ISSN 1218-0610
Szent István Társulat

H–1053 Budapest, Veres Pálné utca 24.
www.szit.katolikus.hu
Responsible publisher: Dr. Huba Rózsa
Responsible manager: Olivér Farkas
Printed and bound by Prime Rate
Old001-008 11/12/19 12:56 Page 5
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Preliminary considerations 9
2. Methodological directions in thinking 20

2.1. The example of legal development 20
2.1.1. Classical Greek antiquity 20
2.1.2. Roman legal development 28
2.1.2.1. The dikaion-period 28
2.1.2.2. Praetorian law 37
2.1.2.3. JUSTINIAN’s codification 43
2.1.3. Enlightened absolutism 49
2.1.4. The codificational ideal of the Code civil 54
2.1.5. Turning point in the way of thinking 60
2.2. The example of geometry 61
2.2.1. EUCLIDean geometry 62
2.2.2. Challenge by BOLYAI and LOBACHEVSKY 65
2.2.3. EINSTEIN’s revolution 70
2.3. The example of thinking 71
2.3.1. Autonomy 73
2.3.1.1. New Testament argumentation 73
2.3.1.2. CICERO’s testimony 86
2.3.1.3. SAINT AUGUSTINE 87
2.3.1.4. The Talmudic lesson 90
2.3.1.5. Orthodox Christianity 97
2.3.1.6. Modern “irrationalism” 99
2.3.1.7. Beyond conceptual strait-jackets 104
2.3.1.8. Patterns of thought, patterns of law 112
2.3.2. Heteronomy 131
2.3.2.1. SAINT THOMAS AQUINAS 131
2.3.2.2. GROTIUS 136
2.3.2.3. LEIBNIZ 138
2.3.3. The dilemma of the evolution of thought 141
Old001-008 11/12/19 12:56 Page 6
6 TABLE OF CONTENTS
3. Science-theoretical questions raised by the philosophy of history 163
4. Paradigms of thinking 175

4.1. The paradigm of paradigms 175
4.1.1. Conventionality 175
4.1.2. Cultural dependence 178
4.1.3. The nature of paradigms 182
4.2. The basic notions of “fact”, “concept”, “logic”, and “thinking” 189
4.2.1. The need for a change of paradigms 189
4.2.2. The false alternative of objectivism and subjectivism 194
4.2.3. What are facts? 197
4.2.4. What are notions? 215
4.3. The nature of norms 229
5. Dilemmas of meaning 237

5.1. Theories of meaning 237
5.1.1. Lexicality 238
5.1.2. Contextuality 252
5.1.3. Hermeneutics 265
5.1.4. Open texture 282
5.1.5. Deconstructionism 285
5.2. Social construction of meaning 294
5.2.1. Speech-acts 295
5.2.2. Social institutionalisation 298
5.3. Autopoiesis and systemic response 301
6. Paradigms of legal thinking 310

6.1. The nature of law 310
6.1.1. Law as process 317
6.1.2. Multifactorality 318
6.1.3. Law as made up from acts 325
6.2. The nature of legal thinking 327
7. Concluding thoughts 333
Appendix I. Law and its approach as a system 335

1. Tendencies of formal rationalisation in legal development 335
2. Historical development of the approach to law as a system 339
Old001-008 11/12/19 12:56 Page 7
TABLE OF CONTENTS 7
Appendix II. Is law a system of enactments? 346

1. The working models of law 346
2. The senses of contextuality in law 348
3. Jurisprudential approach and socio-ontological approach 349
4. Conclusions 351
4. 4.1. Law as historical continuum 351
4. 4.2. Law as open system 352
4. 4.3. Law as complex phenomenon with alternative strategies 352
4. 4.4. Law as an irreversible process 352
4. 4.5. The genuinely societal character of law 352
Appendix III. Institutions as systems 353

1. A logic of systems 353
2. Ideal types and historically concrete manifestations 357
3. Ideal type as a normative ideology 359
4. Objectivity and contingency of systems 362
5. Limits and bonds, consequentiality and practicability of a system 365
Appendix IV. Legal technique 368

1. Legal technique 368
1. 1.1. [In a broader sense] 369
1. 1.2. [In legal practice] 371
1. 1.3. [In legal scholarship] 372
1. 1.4. [Law as a special technique] 373
2. On legal technique 374
1. 2.1. Definition and function 374
1. 2.2. Legal technique and legal cultures 376
1. 2.3. Postulates of legal technique in the cultures of modern formal law 380
Appendix V. The inherent ambivalence of a rational approach 384

(Is the human fullness of being to be destroyed as a price of progress?)
Subject index 391
Index of normative materials 403
Index of names 404

Old001-008 11/12/19 12:56 Page 8
Old009-019 11/12/19 9:20 Page 9
1. PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS
The purpose of the reasoning below is to lead the reader Philosophy of science
methodologically to the understanding of the paradigms and philosophy
that have shaped our concept of law from the beginning and of language
which form the basis of our thinking in law.This presupposes
a journey to the fields of philosophy of science and philos-
ophy of language. However alien it may seem to our subject,
a certain distance is still needed in order to be able to raise
particular issues at all. Such issues are, for example: What
does language actually mean? What does it mean that we can
enter communication with others relying upon something
common in language? How can we decipher a text and how
is it expedient to do so? How can we unravel and disclose
messages inherent in a text? How do we reason in everyday
life? And how do we reason when conducting a scientific
inquiry? And, anyway, what choices has human thinking
faced throughout our known history?
This range of problems might appear to be an area remote Legal thinking /
from law, yet it proves to be of direct interest from the everyday thinking
perspective of law. For everything that has ever surfaced in
the evolution of human civilisation has appeared also in law
as well, as its own particular product. At the same time, this
realisation presumes the fact (and concomitantly gives it
particular emphasis) that the path to law, just as to any other
cultural manifestation, leads through fact, language and
logic, and that is cognition. I must venture a further state-
ment here. Namely, however shallow a truth may seem at
first and however strongly it may suggest that we are just
repeating evidences unquestioned at the level of everyday
experience: concerning the arch between historical evolu-
tion and cultural variety we are bound to realise that
Old009-019 11/12/19 9:20 Page 10
10 1. PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS
pondering the above implies more than law and the paradig-
matic presuppositions of legal thinking. For the same tacit
considerations that have shaped our juristic world-view
throughout historical times have concomitantly altered our
general thinking within and on the world. Therefore, the
efforts at making them conscious not only contribute to their
historical explanation but also allow us to interpret our
present world as culturally colourful without abandoning
our commitment to values.1
Rationality of law This is why certain anthropological (more precisely: legal
anthropological) foundations are indispensable.We shall see
that another (apparent) detour of the kind will have direct
influence upon the notion and conceptual limits of law.
Since the fundamental question of how far and how much,
and especially in what respect is speaking of law possible
(worthwhile and necessary), can only be answered after its
anthropological presuppositions and potentialities have
been clarified. In more concrete terms: in the uninterrupted
process in which social self-organisation is accomplished,
exhibiting some orderliness at any given time, what features
are we expected to expose from the incredibly complex vari-
1
It is on the basis of such considerations that the demand for the
comparative study of legal cultures has emerged, including, as its distinct
field, the comparative analysis of the ways and forms of, as well as construc-
tions and reconstructions by, judicial thinking. Cf., Comparative Legal
Cultures ed. & introd. Csaba Varga (Aldershot, Hong Kong, Singapore,
Sydney: Dartmouth & NewYork:The NewYork University Press 1992) xxiv
+ 614 pp. [The International Library of Essays in Law & Legal Theory:
Legal Cultures 1]. Cf. also, by the author, ‘Comparative Legal Cultures:
Attempts at Conceptualization’ Acta Juridica Hungarica 38 (1997) 1–2, pp.
53–63 & in Changing Legal Cultures ed. Johannes Feest & Erhard Blanken-
burg (Oñati: International Institute for the Sociology of Law 1997), pp,
207–217 [Oñati Pre-publications–2].
As against culture as the root organising force which may erect tradi-
tion, cf. H. Patrick Glenn Legal Traditions of the World Sustainable Diversity
in Law (Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press 2000) xxiv + 371
pp. Cf. also, by the author, ‘Comparative Legal Cultures? Renewal by
Transforming into a Genuine Discipline’ Acta Juridica Hungarica 48
(2007) 2, pp. 95–113 & <http://akademiai.om.hu/content/gk485p7w8q56
52x3/fulltext.pdf>.
Old009-019 11/12/19 9:20 Page 11
1. PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS 11
eties of human pressure, restriction and coercion in order to

be able to report with certainty that law proper creates this
order?2
Let us summon some situations for the sake of example and easier (example: sanctioning
understanding. among Eskimos)
Is it law that exerts a coercive function up to the North on the eternal
snowlands, where those who commit the worst imaginable sin in the eye
of the locals (i.e., the theft of a canoe)—and especially when they are
cought to have thieved again (despite having been, from the first theft on,
called only by the nickname reminding them of their deed)—must leave
the community according to the traditional customary order of the
Eskimos, knowing full well that he who is expelled has very little chance
of surviving his solitude on his own? Does it truly mean execution of the
death penalty when the community unnoticeably performs the job at
night, leaving those who perhaps refuse to leave voluntarily and making
them suddenly realise that they have been left alone in the wilderness
without tools because their once protective community has abandoned
them during the night?3
Or, what might have been the suggestions of the investigation initi- (example:
ated, then hastily closed by the gendarmerie in the Tiszazug region and mass behaviour)
all over Eastern Hungary amidst the misery following the Great War,
when it turned out that once strong spouses who had been sent home
from the war as cripples and helpless old people, all supposed to be taken
care of by women left alone in a desperate struggle with the scanty family
farmstead and raise the children, had fallen victims to arsenic poisoning?
How did the series of cases, initially considered purely individual
murders (especially because some deceived husbands were also found
amongst those poisoned), turn into social pathology beyond legal
2
For a preliminary draft, see, by the author, ‘Anthropological Jurispru-
dence? Leopold Pospíπil and the Comparative Study of Legal Cultures’ in
Law in East and West On the Occasion of the 30th Anniversary of the Insti-
tute of Comparative Law, Waseda University, ed. Institute of Comparative
Law, Waseda University (Tokyo: Waseda University Press 1988), pp.
265–285, reprinted in his Law and Philosophy Selected Papers in Legal
Theory (Budapest: ELTE “Comparative Legal Cultures” Project 1994),
pp. 437–457 [Philosophiae Iuris].
3
Leopold Pospíšil Anthropology of Law A Comparative Theory [1971]
(New Haven: HRAF Press 1974) xiii + 385 pp. and particularly on p. 94.
Old009-019 11/12/19 9:20 Page 12
control, when light fell upon the mass occurrence of premeditated

arsenic poisoning, as well as upon tacit agreements that by open sign
language—like changing the sitting order in church, or designating a
special bench under the belfry—signalled the start of the process of
victimisation, both its motion by the community and voluntary accep-
tance on behalf of the ones doomed for death, for the whole community?4
(example: perceiving Or, what could the state-frontier or the alien-office mean for the
the unusual as Central and Eastern European Gypsy survivors of the last World War
natural) genocide who attempted to organise an independent statehood some-
where in the Southern Baranya region, launching the trade of people and
goods across the border half by smuggling and half by political means,
and perceiving any measure taken to control unauthorised border-
crossing and smuggling as a mere environmental risk to be eliminated?5
Operations by We ought also to learn about the philosophical and legal

facts / norms approaches to facts.What we have in mind here is the partic-
ular side of an operation called l a w - a p p l i c a t i o n in
continental Europe, when the judge—on his admission—
processes the “facts”.6 We usually conceive of the judicial
processing of facts in common understanding as a wholly
and exclusively cognitive act. Namely, in our perspective
—inspired in continental Europe even in modern times
by various bequeathed legal ideologies, as well as by
presuppositions defining the world-view of our culture—
law-application is hardly more than a two-step process, in
the course of which an official, called law-applier, reveals
some recently cognised facts, and, in the next step, ascribes
to such facts the consequences prescribed by law for the
facts constituting the case in law. Well, later on we shall see
that this is not in the least so simple, because the actual
4
See, e.g., Béla Bodó Tiszazug A Social History of a Murder Epidemic
(Boulder, Colorado: East European Monographs & New York: Columbia
University Press 2002) xxi + 320 pp. [East European Monographs 589].
5
Cf., in the light of short-stories by István Gáll, e.g., Vaskor [Iron age]
(Budapest: Szépirodalmi Könyvkiadó 1980) 317 pp.
6
For a monographic treatise, see, by the author, Theory of the Judicial
Process The Establishment of Facts (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó 1995) vii
+ 249 pp.
Old009-019 11/12/19 9:20 Page 13
process of administering justice implies complex operations

in complex situations. Looking at the other side of the judi-
cial process we ought to speak also of the operations the
judge performs with norms. The questions we must put are
the following: Does something like a logic of norms exist?
What is the true basis and genuine nature of any relationship
between norms? And what does the judge actually do when
he claims to operate with norms? What does he do when he
says he makes a decision? The knowledge hammered into us
suggests that he, so to say, “applies the law”. We will see,
however, that under the banner of “law-application” some-
thing different and more complex proceeds behind the
scenes. Apparently, it is exclusively the judgeable fact and
the norm that serves as the standard for judgement that
wedge into the judge’s practical intercourse with reality
(Figure 1). Both these seem to be independent of the actual
actors, no matter whom we place between them. Can we
therefore trust their objectivity? Will it be these and nothing
but these that start speaking in us, or the other way around,
will we also end up somewhat speaking in them?
(Figure 1)
Old009-019 11/12/19 9:20 Page 14
Finally, we are bound to put the question of what this

argumentation is for. Why must we philosophise on law?
Why is it necessary and worthwhile to do so at all? Will we
profit in any way, shape or form from reasoning on law from
such a perspective?
Benefits from One of the usual answers only hints rather routinishly that
the aspect of legal on the European continent, where our legal culture was
philosophy formed, philosophising on law has always played an impor-
tant role. Unlike the pragmatism characteristic of Anglo–
American tradition, European legal thinking with Roman–
German roots has often made efforts—in a rather imprac-
tical manner, sometimes led by abstractly alienated and dry
doctrines—to ground its answers by tracing them back to
ready-made thesis-recipes as necessary and direct conclu-
sions drawn from distant airy ideas. The fundamentals of
mental construction was formed in general by legal philo-
sophical considerations, thus playing a definitive role at all
times.
Clarification of Although the thoughts above may bear some elements of
presuppositions truth, we can still come a lot closer to a theoretically satis-
fying explanation by simply stating (which will, of course, be
valid for the Anglo–American tradition, too) that human
thought necessarily relies on antecedents and p r e s u p -
p o s i t i o n s that are generally not made conscious. On
the other hand, as unconscious and undisclosed as they may
be, they are bound to remain silent, hidden definitions of our
thinking, merely natural accessories to our intellectual envi-
ronment.
Being amidst Let us just think of everyday events: when commuting in
things that are given the real world we do not need to learn about the philosophy
of the pavement to safely foresee the practical consequences
of our actions. Eventually, if we kick into a stone our foot will
hurt. If we collide with a moving car we will probably hurt
ourselves, and so on. We do not need to become philoso-
phers to be aware of the fact that we incessantly encounter
things that are g i v e n (we should recall FRANÇOIS GÉNY’s
contrasted notions: le donné [ce qui est donné] and le construit
Old009-019 11/12/19 9:20 Page 15
[ce qui est construit],7 which also implies that what we have
erected will be given for others).Thus our lives evolve amidst
given things, and we already have preconceived judgements
about them, a formed—at an everyday level, to the extent
necessary for everyday life—knowledge confirmed by expe-
rience. It is simply excluded in practice to come across a
situation that requires philosophising about such issues.
Together with our everyday knowledge, an everyday prac-
tical routine is also established to avoid stones lying on the
pavement, and to guide our steps with the background
knowledge that we might meet rushing people or danger-
ously rule-breaking vehicles along our usual walking path.
In the same way are we aware that everything related to What makes ‘legal’
the normative organisation of our everyday life apparently legal? Where does
evolves without problems—inasmuch as we allow our lives the legal character
to advance with the automatism of everyday routine. On the of any phenomenon
other hand, legal philosophy takes a stand just opposite to come from?
pure spontaneity: it is destined for enabling us to provide
directions and achievable goals for legal processes by
steeling them with a consciousness characteristic to the legal
profession. For instance, by searching for preconditions we
might attempt to peek behind the scenes erected by law in
front of its own functioning and try to identify what actually
goes on when the law, so to say, ‘operates’, and the manner
in which this occurs. What does truly happen in the course
of functioning, and what do the law and its agents allow us
to see from it? What is added by the profession and legal
tradition that distinguishes the operations performed in the
name of the law from practical reasoning in everyday life? We
can immediately admit, of course, that once such a theoret-
ical reconstruction is started, something inconvenient will
follow.Well, the ostensibly p r o b l e m - f r e e and reliable
pavement, to which we do not need to pay much attention in
7
By François Gény, Méthode d’interprétation et sources en droit privé positif
I–II (Paris: Librairie Générale de Droit et de Jurisprudence 1899) xxv +
446 pp. and particularly on p. 422, as well as Science et Technique en droit privé
positif I–IV (Paris: Sirey 1914–1921).
Old009-019 11/12/19 9:20 Page 16
everyday life when absent-mindedly walking on the street or

stepping up and down the sidewalk (that is, the common
objects of our trivial knowledge that guarantee us to act
adequately and securely in law just like in everyday life) will
all of the sudden become p r o b l e m a t i c .
Nothing is We may know from the philosophy of science, destined to
self-evident but inquire into the undisputed fundament of our knowledge,
based on conventions that as soon as we have to explain in LUDWIG WITTGEN-
STEIN’s manner what the operation of “2+2” means, the
manner in which we actually arrive at the thought (provable
merely on grounds of human convention) that “2+2=4”,8 it
comes immediately to the surface that none of the premises
of such an explanation—i.e., of all explanations—is
self-evident. Like everywhere else, here too it is routine,
presuppositions and preconceived judgements (i.e., ex-
planatory principles) that play a determinant role which our
civilisational ancestors have acknowledged through the
continuity of social existence by means of mere convention
(that is, as the conventionally accepted rules of the game,
i.e., excluding any proof),9 transmitting them to us and to all
generations to come.
Rebuilding the With regard to its distinct timeliness, not yet disappeared in
prestige of the law the mist of the past, it is worth mentioning to what degree
and of its proper the prestige of the legal profession and tradition have been
tradition eroded in Hungary in the past 50 years called “the existing
systems of Socialism”. In this half-century-long practice of
mercilessly consistent experimentation and overall social
8
Cf., based on Saul A. Kripke’s Wittgenstein on Rules and Private
Language An Elementary Exposition (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univer-
sity Press 1982) x + 150 pp., Charles M.Yablon ‘Law and Metaphysics’ The
Yale Law Journal 96 (1987) 3, pp. 613–636 and especially at pp. 624–628.
9
For a general philosophical stand, see David K. Lewis Convention A
Philosophical Study (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press 1969)
xii + 213 pp.
Old009-019 11/12/19 9:20 Page 17
violence with the subjected human beings—treating them as

hostages and subjects of someone else’s history—under the
banner of an ideology referring to the so-called Scientific
Socialism (used as if standing for forced modernisation and
thereby as an excuse for the paroxysm of inhumanity), the
law has lost its prestige, and the destruction of moral balance
and of the dignity of any ordering and autonomy of law have
discredited the knowledge in the Humanities so fatally that
we had better start reconstruction almost from scratch,
laying the foundations anew, facing the fact of having been
again distracted onto a forced course by a historical delay.
Awareness of the fact that members belonging to the legal after their erosion
profession formed one of the most cultured circles of
society—as long as its traditions were not substituted with
Soviet-Russian staunch-supporter patterns, turning every-
thing traditional inside-out, and corrupting jurists into
social outcasts craving survival even in their personal exis-
tence10—may strengthen our confidence in the future. Being
conscious of such a past may make it seem utterly bizarre
when we recall tragicomically primitive situations when—
due to JÁNOS KÁDÁR’s personal devotion—practically
illiterate comrades from the nomenklatura, struggling with
even the basics of the alphabet, could become ministers of
justice, when half-barbarians, having horror-inducing fear of
reading and not being all that good at writing, and, for this
reason, giving political weight for their rude antipathy
towards their eventual bibliophile colleagues (especially if
these latter happened to speak languages), could become
chief prosecutors. According to survey data, even decades
after the communist take-over, blocking even the sheer
10
See, e.g., Tibor Szamuely The Russian Tradition ed. Robert Conquest
(London: Secker & Warburg 1974) v + 443 pp., especially part I: »The
Russian State Tradition«, as well as André Siniavski La civilisation soviétique
(Paris: Albin Michel 1988) 345 pp., particularly chapters III–IV: »L’État des
savants: Lénine« and »L’État-église: Staline«. For a contemporary docu-
mentation of a genuine STALINist arrangement, cf. Merle Fainsod Smolensk
under Soviet Rule [1958] (New York: Vintage Russian Library 1963) xv +
484 pp.
Old009-019 11/12/19 9:20 Page 18
possibility of an institutional consolidation11, those rank-

and-filers (wearing tracksuits or dressed in leather jackets
and chow-coloured shoes, defined as the so called “civilian”
attire of the Ministry of Interior, reminiscent of the one
of one-time LENIN-boys, administering terror in the
Hungarian Soviet Republic of 1919), appointed as judges,
could decide civil cases based on no references or ones
unknown in the formal hierarchy of the sources of law of our
“people’s democracy”. No need to emphasise that this rank-
and-file justice hardly differed from Bolshevik revolutionary
justice, which itself relied purely on the alleged proletarian
consciousness.
Legal culture Legal culture in Hungary was incredibly strong up to
1948 and this professional culture obviously presumed a
high level of the general culture.
(with a connection Politicians, historians, and we citizens, may equally
between law and encounter and reveal problematic features of this past.
philosophy) However, the legal profession has shown something
relieving, something we descendants can confidently rely
on. Since memory undoubtedly suggests that it could
equally be meritable to work in the civil service and legal
profession, and still lead a creative, intellectually demanding
life, imbued with European ideals, keeping a clear
conscience, even when having some outstanding perfor-
mance on the public scene. Even philosophising, which
today may often seem so frivolously cynical, futile or even
life-alien, was not merely a means of escaping from reality to
virtuality or some useless spending of time. On the contrary,
the ethos of both philosophy and law joined together in
historical times, from which the jurist could learn how
common efforts might help preserve values and actively
contribute to the nation’s cause. And this proves to be
11
Cf., by the author, ‘A bírósági joggyakorlat jogforrási alapjai: Eset-
tanulmány (Összefoglaló értékelés a pécsi járásbírósághoz 1962-ben
érkezett polgári ügyek jogforrástani problematikájú felmérésérôl)’ [Sources
of law of judicial practice: A case-study (Survey on referring to legal sources
in decisions of civil cases at the Pécs District Court in 1962)] Állam- és
Jogtudomány 34 (1992) 1–4, pp. 245–264.
Old009-019 11/12/19 9:20 Page 19
relieving, independent of whether or not we agree with the

world-views, perspectives, situational judgements or conclu-
sions of any of the past actors.The prestige and dignity of law
was able to develop precisely in such an environment. The
philosophical background of the legal profession served
exactly the foundation, preservation and control of this
prestige and dignity. All of this was to contribute to the fact
that the path leading to the Rule of Law was taken early in
the history of the nation, alongside initiatives that were
pioneering in comparison to contemporary European
patterns.12 Reliance on potentialities, drawing on traditions
and past experiences, the re-establishment of European and
national values under the new conditions, these are all
preconditions to and tokens of being able again to success-
fully reconstruct legal culture step by step.
12
For a contrast between past and present, cf., by the author, Transition
to Rule of Law On the Democratic Transformation in Hungary (Budapest:
ELTE “Comparative Legal Cultures” Project 1995) 190 pp. [Philosophiae
Iuris], in particular »Past and Present«, pp. 23–27 and ‘Law as Social Issue’
in his Law and Philosophy…, pp. 459–475.
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 20
20
2. METHODOLOGICAL DIRECTIONS IN THINKING
Measure gaining In the first place, we must discuss—at least through some
independence in examples—the major methodological directions that
setting standards characterised human thought throughout recorded history.
We will attempt to flash some expressive instances from the
immense treasury of possibilities and paths followed,
focusing on the evolution of legal, geometrical, and finally,
philosophical thought.
2.1. THE EXAMPLE OF LEGAL DEVELOPMENT
Diffuse practice In the following, we will lay particular stress on the develop-
as law ment of thinking relating to the ideal of law, throughout
which the measure gains full independence in its use as a
legal instrument. Therefore, we will not touch upon tech-
nical issues of the development of legal instrumentalities,
although in almost all cultures compromise-seeking and
even counter-running trends demanding their place also
prevailed, somewhat paralysing and compromising the there
and then main directions.
2.1.1. Classical Greek antiquity

Let us first consider legal development in classical Greece.
Thanks to archaeological legacy and written sources, we
know almost everything about classical Greek culture,
except for law,1 poorly represented in these traditions. One
1
On Greek law in general, see Louis Gernet Droit et société dans la Grèce
ancienne [1955] (Paris: Sirey 1964) 245 pp. [Publications de l’Institut de
Droit romain de l’Université de Paris XIII]; John Walter Jones The Law and
Legal Theory of the Greeks An Introduction (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1956)
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 21
2.1. THE EXAMPLE OF LEGAL DEVELOPMENT 21
of the reasons for this may be that although ways and laws
[νοµοσ, nomos] were developed to a considerable extent,
there was no law proper with the Greeks in early classical
times, at least in the conceptualised sense of modernity.2
Instead, what we could find with them was some sort of a
diffuse practice, a dissipated and fragmented everyday use,
hardly measurable by the standards of discipline and defi-
niteness, distinction and internal closedness of modern
law—apart from the fact that at times it manifested itself in
the following of previous collective decisions.3 Greek anti-
quity might not have been able to develop the media refined
enough to contribute to the survival of the Greek culture of
x + 327 pp. and especially on pp. 1–36; Louis Gernet Droit et institutions en
Grèce antique [Paris: Maspero 1968] (Paris: Flammarion 1982) 330 pp.
[Champ historique 106] as well as Richard Garner Law and Society in Clas-
sical Athens (London & Sydney: Croom Helm 1987) viii + 161 pp.,
especially chs. I on »Justice, Traditional Values and Law« and IV on »Law
and Drama«.
2
It is a later outcome—of DRAKON’s and SOLON’s era—that the rules of [change in the
authority are named thesmos, with no regard of the fact as to whether public meaning of nomos]
agreement backed them or not; and nomos [nomoi] stands for every rule
accepted by the community independently of its origin. Change in the use
of words comes forth in the 5th and 4th centuries BC—as revealed by Martin
Ostwald in his Nomos and the Beginnings of the Athenian Democracy (Oxford:
Clarendon Press 1969) xiv + 228 pp., deriving its origin from the beginn-
ing of KLEISTHENES’ rule (507 BC)—when the thesmos implying a
dictatorial rule of law becomes outworn, and the expression nomos spreads
widely concomitant to the use of psēphisma initially having meant ‘voting’.
The laws of DRAKON and SOLON continue to prevail, however, they can
exclusively be called nomos, since there was actually no voting on them.
Thus, nomos is gradually regarded as more general, more fundamental and
more constant [nomos = law; nomothe tai = legislator, law-giver] as a norma-
tive pattern, as opposed to the rather individually shaped, concrete and
temporary decree [psephisma, psephismata]. Cf. Douglas M. MacDowell The
Law in Classical Athens (London: Thames and Hudson 1978) 280 pp.
[Aspects of Greek and Roman Life], pp. 44–45 and S. C.Todd The Shape of
Athenian Law (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1993) 433 pp. in particular at p.
18, who place this change of use in words to sometime after 403–402 BC.
3
As can be read in DEMOSTHENES’ speech against TIMOCRATES
[20.118, 23.96, 39.40, 57.63; Ais. 3.6]: “I will judge according to the laws
and decrees of Athens, and matters about which there are no laws I will
decide by the justest opinion.”
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 22
22 2. METHODOLOGICAL DIRECTIONS IN THINKING
and sensibility in law in European civilisation, the same way

that the refinement of thoughts and material culture could
survive, as revealed by HOMER’s works.
in want of any This may be one of the reasons why there was no legal
separate legal profession at the time yet, not even as a separate layer,
profession analysing legal issues and operating/cultivating the law itself
as a specific store of instruments destined for influencing
and patterning public life. Moreover, public figures did not
yet identify themselves as such and did not specify the avail-
abilities pertaining to their respective fields, separating (for
instance) law from other mechanisms of public policy. Or, as
one of the most classic experts of the issue wrote (perhaps
not unintentionally ambiguously): “The Greeks did not
allow their law to lapse into abstract technicality and to
become a tool of professional jurists.”4
Lead measuring In the following, I wish to contemplate the pattern repre-
rule through curving sented by the early Greek thought related to law. What and
the straight how ARISTOTLE wrote about equity and the lead measuring
rule of the master builders of Lesbos might have been a drop
in the bucket. Accordingly,
“The puzzle arises because what is decent is just, but is not what is
legally just, but a rectification of it.The reason is that all law is universal,
but in some areas no universal rule can be correct; and so where a
universal rule has to be made, but cannot be correct, the law chooses the
[universal rule] that is usually [correct], well aware of the error being
made. And the law is no less correct on this account; for the source of the
error is not the law or the legislator, but the nature of the object itself,
since that is what the subject-matter of actions is bound to be like.
Hence whenever the law makes a universal rule, but in this particular
case what happens violates [the intended scope of] the universal rule,
here the legislator falls short, and has made an error by making an
uncodificational rule. Then it is correct to rectify the deficiency; this is
what the legislator would have said himself if he had been present there,
and what he would have prescribed, had he known, in the legislation.
4
Paul Vinogradoff Outlines of Historical Jurisprudence II: The Juris-
prudence of the Greek City (London: Oxford University Press 1922), p. 11.
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 23
Hence what is decent is just, and better than a certain way of being
just—not better than what is unconditionally just, but better than the
error resulting from the omission of any condition [in the rule]. And this
is the reason why not everything is guided by law. For on some matters
legislation is impossible, and so a decree is needed. For the standard
applied to what is indefinite is itself indefinite, as the lead standard is in
Lesbian building, where it is not fixed, but adapts itself to the shape of
the stone; likewise, a decree is adapted to fit its objects.”5
Despite the simplistic nature of this device, it signalled an

available alternative, even if just symbolically, yet decisively
for posteriority by the offered technique. In every known
earlier civilisation (ancient Mesopotamia and the Jewish
communities prior to their Diaspora), the measuring instru-
ment was something solid—firmly built, with a fixed shape,
not changing its size. It was something concrete that not only
symbolised length, but incorporated its self by its physically
identifiable form. Such an instrument presupposed the
measure to be capable of defining both the framework for
and the parameters of measuring. In traditional under-
standing, length is a feature measured along a straight line.
Accordingly, the measuring instrument for length was
constructed along a straight line, capable of being directly
used on a flat surface without further adaptation or media-
tion, and the length could be determined by simply reading
off the result. Well, the characteristic of the lead measuring
rule was that it could be bent, and thereby easily adapting to
curved surfaces. Even the outside surface length of a wave,
with the inner curve of its crest could be measured with it. It
could, hence, take the shape of any spatial object when used
for measuring whatever one pleased to measure.
We may claim that such a measuring instrument was with measure
rather a handy tool than any stiff stick. Considering the fact adjusted to what was
that it meant the only way to measure the length of curved, to be measured
bent or angular surfaces, it certainly must not have been
invented and used by chance. However, once the idea was
5
Aristotle Nikomachean Ethics trans.Terence Irwin [1985] (Indianapo-
lis & Cambridge: Hackett Publishing n.y.), 1137b, pp. 144–145.
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 24
applied to law, it immediately became obvious that it also

stood for something more or else. As ARISTOTLE observed:
by bending the straight, the underlying principle of the
measuring measure was lost, for the measurement itself was
adjusted to what it was meant to measure. What was to be
applied as a measure was eventually broken into the casual
and random characteristics of the object to be measured.
Thereby, the m e a s u r e itself became a function of the
object to be m e a s u r e d . In other words, even length
itself, as a characteristic believed to be decisive until then of
a straight line drawn on a flat surface, was relativised and the
measure became a function of the measured object.
from Reconstructions provided by the history of science
anthropomorphous, suggest that most of our civilisational abstractions (differen-
ancient tiation, counting, measuring, figurative representation, and
unmediatedness so on) are rooted in our ancestors’ ritual approaches to their
ancient gods, whom they also contracted with later on. In the
centre stood the humble being performing the rite, and our
modern idea of regarding everything as absolute developed
in its primitive forms through the subsequent generalisation
of the most personal equivalents, set once by these humans
to pattern and represent themselves in human sacrifice (a
cultural achievement that was ultimately transplanted into
lay practice)—that is, it developed from a routinised practice
having become standardised.6 In sum, unmediated direct-
6
Cf., e.g., from the works of A. Seidenberg, ‘The Separation of Sky and
[symbolic value of
Earth at Creation’ Folklore 70 (1959), pp. 474–482 and 80 (1960), pp.
equivalence of the 188–196; ‘The Ritual Origin of Geometry’ Archive for History of Exact
one performing Sciences 1 (1960–61), pp. 188–257; ‘The Ritual Origin of Counting’ Archive
the sacrifice] for History of Exact Sciences 2 (1962–66), pp. 1–40; ‘On the Area of a Semi-
Circle’ Archive for History of Exact Sciences 9 (1972), pp. 171–211; and ‘The
Ritual Origin of the Circle and Square’ Archive for History of Exact Sciences
25 (1981), pp. 269–327. According to one of his recent works—A. Seiden-
berg & J. Casey ‘The Ritual Origin of the Balance’ Archive for History of
Exact Sciences 23 (1980), pp. 179–220—, the origin of measurement is
rooted in ancient sacrifice: whoever performs the sacrifice provides (by his
weight or height) the measure itself, and the act of measuring is aimed at
defining a s y m b o l i c v a l u e of equivalence, when substituting the
personal sacrifice with the variables of whom performs the sacrifice (i.e.,
with the representative in appearance of the very existence and life of the
one performing the sacrifice, then, with the value substituting it: first with
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 25
ness is the ancient condition, the protoform and once

existing unity, from which various independent ideas, forms
and applications have later branched off.7
As soon as we presume the presence of such a measuring Graspability of the
instrument, we must also recognise that law as usually law: repetition and
accepted within European culture is excluded. For our tables of laws
thinking tradition has always presumed law (1) to precondi-
tion some sort of a measure, and (2) for this measure to be
available in human environment. For, apparently, presump-
tions of human thinking assume as a psychological condition
the certainty of having the measure with us, of being able to
take hold of it; and also the certainty that it will be tomorrow
what it was yesterday, whether resorted to by others or by us;
and to point at the particular material feature, formed
unchangeably in itself, that incorporates it. As if it were a sine
qua non to have it within the reach of our or anyone else’s
hands at any time. Moreover, we request it to be capable of
telling us at any time and under any conditions what the law
is.This is why the archetype of any idea of law is a table or a
book of laws, as rooted in the fundamental psychological
needs of mankind. This also explains why the human race
was so stubborn in incessantly fighting for recording the law
throughout past millennia. It also provides the explication to
the culture of customary rites from which the very first in-
dependent legal profession originates, that is, the practice
beasts, then with fruits and the like). The relative measurement gains in-
dependence and claims absoluteness only during the slow process of
secularisation of the rite (ibid., p. 211).
7
Norm-setting, obligatoriness, authority: their origination from a [from magic to
magic world-concept is ascertained by the historians, on the one hand, intellectual planning]
and since Axel Hägerström’s research—Der römische Obligationsbegriff im
Lichte der allgemeinen römischen Rechtsanschauung, I (Uppsala:
Almqvist & Wiksell and Leipzig: Harrasowitz 1927) [Skrifter utgivna av K.
Humanistiska vetenskapssamfundet i Uppsala 23]—they are also held as
symbols of the greatest achievement of man venturing to form a society, i.e.,
rendering reality plannable by intellectually forecasting reality, on the other.
“It is an admirable world—Gernet writes in his Droit et institutions…, p.
117—, in which an intellectual creation may appear as objective reality, in
which the law, known by the name jus or dikaion, may assert, by this irre-
ducible element of the exigency of realisation, the idea of a force differing
from the very force.”
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 26
devoted to the r e p e t i t i o n o f t h e l a w , by which

the accepted measurement was publicly announced every
year.8
English ideal of law; The above holds for the higher and more abstract levels of
measure independent generality too. English law presumes an underlying
of man acting customary order, thought to have always existed. Even its
naming reflects the prevailing ideology: this is the “im-
memorial custom of the Realm”,9 notwithstanding the fact
that the whole construct is sheer historical fiction: some-
thing that is merely (pre)supposed and whose proof or
provability is not even raised. It is an axiomatic foundation
on the acknowledgement of which the whole idea of order
and also all procedures within the given order are built.10
18
[law-reciting] Cf., by the author, Codification as a Socio-historical Phenomenon
(Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó 1991) viii + 391 pp. especially Part One, as
well as Sigur∂ur Líndal ‘Law and Legislaton in the Icelandic Common-
wealth’ Scandinavian Studies in Law 37 (Stockholm: Jurisförlaget 1993), pp.
55–92. The ‘law-chanter’ [nomodos] must presumably have been the fore-
runner of all this from the age of CHARONDAS, the most ancient Greek
legislator [Athenaios Deipnosophistai 619b], in such a widespread manner
that CICERO learnt as a child the Twelwe Tables as a compulsory song [De
Legibus 2.23, 59], and Martianus Capella in the 5th century recorded that
“many of the Greek cities used to recite laws and public decrees to the lyre”
[9.926]. Cf. L. Piccirilli ‘Nomoi cantati e nomoi scritti’ Civiltà classica e cris-
tiana 2 (1981), pp. 7–14 and Rosalind Thomas ‘Written in Stone? Liberty,
Equality, Orality, and the Codification of Law’ in Greek Law in its Political
Setting Justifications not Justice, ed. L. Foxhall & A. D. E. Lewis (Oxford:
Clarendon Press & New York: Oxford University Press 1996) 172 pp., in
particular on pp. 14–15. Several times a year being ordered to have read
publicly, Magna Carta also spread in a way that everyone should have heard
it. C. R. Cheney ‘The Eve of Magna Carta’ Bulletin of the John Rylands
Library XXXVIII (1955–56), p. 340, quoted by M. T. Clanchy From
Memory to Written Record England 1066–1307 (London: Edward Arnold
1979) xiii + 330 pp. at p. 213.
19
William Blackstone Commentaries on the Laws of England I (London
1765), p. 73. Cf. Károly Szladits, Jr., Az angol jog kútfôi [The sources of
English law] (Budapest: Grill 1937) 145 pp. [A Budapesti Kir. Magyar
Pázmány Péter Tudományegyetem Magánjogi Szemináriumának kiad-
ványai 10], §§ 3–4, pp. 8–10.
10
“Blackstone’s »general customs« or »customs of the realm« are those
[Common Law] fundamental principles in legal relationships which for the most part are not
to be found in any express formulation, but are assumed to be inherent in
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 27
However, judicial experience needs probably to add that

independently of what the juristic world-concept suggests,
deciding what the customary order “says” will ultimately be
declared by the judge in the given case.11 That is to say,
whatever the accepted ideology may be, we still presume the
existence of some measure as an ideal, a magical basis of
reference, if and in so far as required by practice and also
handed down as tradition. Both the deontology inspired by
the prevailing juristic world-concept and the theoretical
reconstruction revealing what lies under the ideological veil
assure us that t h e r e i s s o m e m e a s u r e i n l a w
and it d o e s n o t d e p e n d o n e i t h e r o f u s ,
and certainly not on either of the actual actors. It remains
independent of us even if it can only be actualised by the
judge deciding in the case.What the judge rules in the given
case is his responsibility.The role of the judge is to decide the
dispute with an authority independent from either of the
parties. The ideology of Common Law adds one more
consideration: the judge makes the decision he makes
because he has no other choice. If he can make this only one
as conclusive from the prevailing law and order, then it must
have been given and must have always existed independently
of him.
our social arrangements. They are, in short, the Common Law itself.” Sir
Carleton Kemp Allen Law in the Making [1927] 6th ed. (Oxford: Clarendon
Press 1958) 643 pp. at p. 70. Cf. also René David Les grands systèmes de droit
contemporains Droit comparé (Paris: Dalloz 1964) 630 pp. [Précis Dalloz],
especially at para. 350.
11
The classic English power of text-interpretation is symbolised by the [who says what
manner in which Bishop BENJAMIN HOADLY expressed—Sermon Preached the law is is truly
before the King (1717)—and JOHN CHIPMAN GRAY commented—The Nature
the law-giver]
and Sources of the Law (1909) 2nd ed. (New York: Macmillan 1948) xviii +
348 pp. on p. 102—on it: “Bishop Hoadly has said: »Whoever hath an
a b s o l u t e a u t h o r i t y to i n t e r p r e t any written or spoken laws,
it is he who is truly the Law-giver to all intents and purposes, and not the
person who first wrote or spoke them«; a fortiori, whoever hath an absolute
authority not only to interpret the Law, but to say what the Law is, is truly
the Law-giver.” Cf. Hans Kelsen General Theory of Law and State trans.
Anders Wedberg (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press 1946) xxxiii
+ 516 pp. [20th Century Legal Philosophy Series I], p. 154.
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 28
Continental ideal Concerning the basis of this tradition of thought—

of law; law as given presuming that law can only be what was already given and
previously existed in some shape or form—, the Civil Law
conception is not much different from that of the Common
Law. According to the Civil Law ideology prevailing on the
European continent, law at any given time is embodied in a
set of statutes, that is, books of enacted laws, and these are
always ready-to-take: t h e l a w i s g i v e n . Therefore,
the only thing a judge is expected to do is to apply the law to
individual situations. It is exclusively the law that asserts
itself through the judge making a decision.The human, who
happens to be a judge and must apply the law, takes part in
the process only by chance and without any personal contri-
bution to the outcome. For judges are the mere artificial
media and mundane symbols of a process (moving and
actualising this process) that will take place “objectively” in
any case, that is, independently of them.
Σ: Measurement and To sum up, the legal world-view of the classical Greek
measuring relativise antiquity bears the presence of the idea of an external
each other measure quite loosely. There is no actual principle with the
Greeks. What could serve for a principle is already broken
into the casual, particular and arbitrary features of the event
to be measured. Thus, the measurement itself becomes a
function of the measured.
in an Thereby measuring remains direct, anthropomorphous
anthropomorphous and practical indeed, that is, unmediated, accepting media-
directness tion only with compromises to casual incidentality.
However, the generalisation of measuring is marching on
inevitably, so that the measure may become the exclusive
factor controlling the act of measuring, independently even
of the individuality of incidental cases.
2.1.2. Roman legal development

Need for an 2.1.2.1. The δικαιον-period Research aimed at reconstructing
unambiguously clear the Roman concept of law reveals the already established use
measure of strict conceptual distinctions. For, according to Roman
mentality, we can only imagine and name things that are
unambiguously clear and built upon notions with marked
outlines.
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 29
The Roman jurisprudents were practical-minded profes- Law as a means

sionals: it did not even occur to them to fall into sheer to complement the
abstractions or raise theoretical questions about the defi- ethical world order:
nition of law. Their disciples, the Romanists, were mainly
interested in unravelling—by systematising—the Roman
heritage from a doctrinal point of view. Nowadays it might
seem a commonplace, but from within a socialisation in a
legal culture built upon abstract conceptualisations, I have
been shaken by a realisation I had to face nearly four decades
ago. A legal scholar from Paris, MICHEL VILLEY, who was like
a patron-father to me in my early scholarly years, presumed
for himself rather eccentric views for the time. Being a legal
philosopher well-learned in Greek, Roman, and mediaeval
Latin sources, and also a committed Catholic who studied
ARISTOTLE and Saint THOMAS AQUINAS convinced to find
the panacea for our age’s problems in their wisdom, he may
have felt an inner vocation to consider the ages after classical
Roman antiquity and the early reception the dead-end of
errings within v o l u n t a r i s m .12 Tireless in argumenta-
tion, he proved repeatedly and very consistently that the
ideal of law prior to modern times had still been a medium
for a naturalistic self-discipline, supporting the moral world
order in its self-assertion. It was not pure invention, or the
toy for absolutisms, and was not used to enforce momentary
ideas. It embodied the very foundations of co-existence and
not the incidentalities of politics changing according to
momentary interests and power relations. Law was not only
originated from sacral roots but still lived on for a long time
afterwards in its ethos as the prime agent ensuring the conti-
nuity and the implementation of sacrality. It was not one
of the normative orders rivalling among others in chaos
but the superior one, because it carried the promise of
fulfilment of the ideal of the idea of collectivity, organising
society to a genuine community. VILLEY’s such and similar
12
Michel Villey ‘Essor et décadence du volontarisme juridique’ Archives
de Philosophie du Droit III: Le rôle de la volonté dans le droit (Paris: Sirey
1957), pp. 87–136.
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 30
challenging arguments13 have yet to be disproved by spe-

cialists of Roman law (the want for rejection is, of course, far
from being a positive proof, since it may also happen that
students specialised in Roman law are not interested in
features of the common heritage in the same way he was).
justness that can be According to VILLEY, Roman law followed the Greek
reached by relentless pattern for a long period of time.14 It was the δικαιον that
search served for law.15 As to its origins, δικαιον [dikaion] means
what is just; or, taking a step further back in origins, the
δικαιον is what is considered just, what is achieved, helping
13
Cf. Michel Villey ‘Questions de logique dans l’histoire de la philoso-
phie du droit’ Logique et Analyse (1967), No. 37, pp. 3–22, reprinted in
Etudes de logique juridique IV, dir. Ch. Perelman (Bruxelles: Bruylant 1967),
pp. 3–22 [Travaux du Centre National de Recherches de Logique]; as well
as Michel Villey ‘La notion romaine classique de jus et le dikaion d’Aristote’
in La filosofia greca e il diritto romano I (Rome: Accademia Nazionale dei
Lincei 1976), pp. 71–80 [Problemi attuali di scienza e di cultura 221].
14
[the role of laws?] Todd describes particularly impressively (esp. on pp. 58–61) the
dilemmas of exploring a culture when posterity is left to nothing else than
disconnected fragments, belletristic texts and philosophical contemplations
to reconstruct the one-time meaning and function of words. Although it was
told in an address made before a court that “in cases where no nomoi exist,
you have sworn to judge according to what in your opinion is most just”
[gnomēi tēi dikaiotatēi] [Demosthenes 39.40]; yet it turns out from more
detailed investigation that it is only the parties who referred to the law at the
most and only if they felt it would support their cause. Because the dikastai
gave no reasons for their decisions which actually bound exclusively the
parties then and there; they knew no appeal (let’s consider: to whom could
have appeal been made against the polis?); and the judgements were not
collected (reported) officially and not referred to before the courts, either.
Law therefore did not make the impression of a rule to be simply applied,
nor did it request liable obedience. However, parties regarded reference to
it as their privilege, because for them it was a conclusive position informing
them about the desirable frameworks and units of the debate’s probable and
just resolution.
15
[or public morality?] “[T]he Greeks regarded law primarily as the embodiment of justice—
it is t’ dikaion as interpreted by the city.” “Greek law in its application was
meant to be a frame for public opinion. […] [J]ustice should be adminis-
tered to the members of a community in accordance with the standards of
morality and common sense prevailing in this community.” Vinogradoff,
pp. 19 and 11, similarly Ugo Enrico Paoli Studi sul processo attico (Padova:
Cedam 1933) xxvii + 219 pp. [Studi di diritto processuale 2], particularly
on p. 72, and Todd, para 6.b.iv, pp. 90–91.
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 31
the ones whose task it is to achieve it.16 More precisely,

δικαιον is the individual justness of the individual case,
what the parties involved have to finally reach, provided
they search for it relentlessly. Or, δικαιον is not simply
law, moreover, it expressly differs from the ideal of law of
modern cultures.17 The only conclusion that can be drawn
from this realisation is that law as experienced today did not
exist in early classical antiquity. No trace of it can be found
either with the Greeks or the Romans prior to the republican
era.
All through its evolution, law has been a casual and inci- possible outcome of a
dental product, emerging from within a more or less process / that can be
spontaneous social process. It did by no means represent found, even if through
anything given, present or disposable. It was not something several ways around
16
In its etymological contexture (e.g., based on Homer’s Iliad XVI,
541–542), the construction is confirmed by Sebastião Cruz in his Ius
Derectum (Directum) Dereito (Derecho, Diritto, Droit, Direito, Recht,
Right, etc.) 7th ed. [1971] (Coimbra [Gráfica de Coimbra] 1986) 74 pp.
and especially at pp. 34–35 as well as M[aria] Paola Mittica Il divenire
dell’ordine L’interazione normative nella società omerica (Milano: Giuffrè
1996) vii + 292 pp. [Seminario Giuridico della Università di Bologna
CLXV], in particular ch. VII, pp. 189ff. On the full complexity of its set of
concepts, cf. Henry George Liddell & Robert Scott A Greek-English Lexicon
[1843] rev. Sir Henry Stuart Jones (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1973), p. 429.
Garner (passim, especially ch. I, para. 2 on »Dike and Justice«) is extremely
critical of such an interpretation; his reconstruction of the concept (p. 4)
and Martin Ostwald ‘Ancient Greek Ideas of Law’ in Dictionary of the
History of Ideas Studies in Selected Pivotal Ideas, ed. Philip Paul Wiener
(New York: Scribner 1973), p. 678, are at the same time mostly reminding
of the world-view of the Chinese Tao. For the background, also see C. W.
Westrup ‘Sur la notion du droit et sur le mode primitif de formation du
droit positif, c’est-à-dire du droit coutumier’ Tijdschrift voor Rechtsgeschiede-
nis XI (1932), pp. 1–18.
17
F. M. Cornford—From Religion to Philosophy A Study in the Origins of [dika = natural order]
Western Speculation (New York & Evanston: Harper & Row 1957) xi + 275
pp. [Harper Torchbook], para. 97, pp. 172–177—deduces the word dika
from the concept of the c u s t o m and o r d e r of nature (cf. Homer
Odyssey XI, 218 and Plato Laws 904E), immediately relating it to the
Buddhist dharma, the Vedic Rta (cf. Hermann Oldenberg Die Religion des
Veda [Berlin 1894], p. 196), and to the concept of the Persian asha (cf. P. D.
Chantepie de la Paussaye Manuel d’histoire des réligions trans. I. Levy [Paris
1904], p. 467).
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 32
freely avoidable, or—this being the advantage of constituted

things—it could be rejected only with a reason, by repelling
an otherwise natural continuation. Law, in its evolution, is
not something exposable as a real object, like a MOSaic
stone. Neither it is an end product, like a book of laws. For
law is the outcome of p r o c e s s e s everywhere and at any
time, but especially during this period. In its classical Greek
understanding, law is a result anyone can/could arrive at.
Only provided, of course, that one is prepared to take part in
the common shaping of the law as a good judge, sensitive to
communitarian values, and experienced in finding paths to
them. Naturally, finding the path presumes a journey, yet
journeys done with a given purpose may have several ways
around. It may happen that we arrive somewhere other than
we initially meant to. Well, with the regime of δικαιον there
is no assurance that we will find the path or reach the desired
result.The only thing we can be sure of is that the path c a n
b e found; yet there are no guarantees that it will finally be
reached in fact. Proper media and proper personalities are
required: a judge who is able to find the path within the given
medium. To sum up, law is not given and not present; it is
not a certainty and is not graspable either. Neither is it a
tangible product, ready to be applied. Rather it is the result
of a long process that can only be reached through a persis-
tent search for a path with harmony and reason. It has
several chances but can be found after all. And, at last, it is
open while suited to the community’s values.
With no formal As VILLEY put it: rule in the pre-classical ages only served
reference, any pattern for a s p r i n g b o a r d to arriving at law proper, that is,
can serve as a δικαιον.18 Any legal proposition the judge would make refer-
spring-board
18
Michel Villey La formation de la pensée juridique moderne (Paris:
Montchretien 1975) 715 pp. introduces on p. 67 the tension vibrating
between “the search for rules manifesting justice while ensuring the cohe-
rence of the solutions on the one hand, and the disdainful mistrust towards
rules never actually achieving the justness and thus utterly unsuitable to
embody t h e l a w as such”, on the other. As he continues (ibid.), the late
MAX KASER from among the Romanists kept stressing the “relentless, hesi-
tating search for what is just”, while Riccardo Orestano [‘Diritto romano’
in Novissimo Digesto Italiano (Torino: Giappichelli 1960)] accuses the
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 33
ence to could serve as a starting point at the most, in finding

the concrete justness of the concrete case. For justness was
thought to be individual, which the parties in the trial had to
achieve. To put it another way, law was not yet conceptuali-
sed. It made its appearance in speech, in the sequence of
words, but it was not yet forced into clear-cut conceptual
schemes as elements of a logified system.What was actually
regarded as law was used to launch the debate, and provide
its framework. Still, it was not meant to predetermine the
outcome thereof. Individual solutions or recipes ready-to-
take and acceptable as law were only available through the
judge acting on behalf of the community. Thus, it did not
serve as a recipe to be applied under any conditions.
Anyway, PAULUS declares clearly that “non ex regula ius sumatur, sed ex For rule was
iure quod est regula fiat”, what means—in FRANCIS BACON’s transcript— imagined
that “It is a sound precept not to take the law from the rules, but to make in thought at most
the rule from the existing law. […] The rule, like a magnetic needle, but not in law
points at the law but does not settle it.”19 As far as we know, the conflict
of LABEO and SABINUS begins here, because one of them would apply the
regula generalisingly as a strictly legal proposition to whatever case, while
the other regarded it only as a mirror of law with no normative strength
by its self. And even if we may be pleased to learn that QUINTUS MUCIUS
started to classify law according to genera, we have to learn also that
before the logical elaboration of the norm concept, these definitiones were
nothing else than sheer descriptions lacking any conceptual ideas behind
them. Therefore, regulae were not more than a summarising opinion
about the law at their time, and their misconceived overestimation—in a
way completely alien to the exclusively utilitarian empiricism of the
Romans—was only done by glossators at quite a distant age as “a mani-
festation of a general tendency to abstract and generalise the decisions
found in the Roman legal texts and to explore and make explicit their
present posterity of “hunting for interpolations, in order that by shadowing

its being used in an open-ended search, the law of the Romans can be re-
presented in some well-established systemic uniformity.”
19
D. 50.17.1., as well as Francis Bacon Aph. 85, quoted by H. F. Jolo-
wicz ‘Roman regulae and English Maxims’ in L’Europea e il diritto romano
Studi in memoria di Paolo Koschaker, I (Milano: Giuffrè 1954), p. 220.
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 34
relation with each other.”20 Thus it was to refer back to the leaden instru-
ment of measure rule of ARISTOTLE, as a practicable “signpost in the
labyrinths of the law”.21
On the other hand, anything that could be regarded

as substantially contributing to finding the case’s just
and legally acceptable solution could become the law’s
component. In contrast therefore with the path of concep-
tualisation that may offer answers to life’s complexity only in
its own one-dimensioned way—at the level of argumenta-
tion, deduction and justification—, the δικαιον provided
answers based exclusively on a morally demanding ethos to
solving the individual cases bearing their infinite complexity
in mind (Figure 2).
(Figure 2)
20
Peter Stein Regulae iuris From Juristic Rules to Legal Maxims (Edin-
burgh: University Press 1966) x + 206 pp. on pp. 73., [Pomponius,
D.1.2.2.41] 48, 131 and 102. However, at times it is distinctly expounded
that “Regula est generalis et brevis definitio ac sententia, quando videl. plures
casus similes brevi traditione concluduntur, non per specialem casuum expres-
sionem sed ejusdem rationis assignationem.” [A regula is a general and brief
definition and statement, whereby, in a brief communicaton, many similar
cases are summarised, not to give expression to a special case, but to convey
the ratio of those cases.] Everardus Bronchorst Commentarius (1624), 4 as
quoted by Stein, pp. 294–295.
21
D. van der Merwe ‘Regulae iuris and the Axiomatisation of the Law in
the Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Centuries’ Tydskrif vir die Suid-
Afrikaanse Reg (1987) 3, pp. 286–302 on p. 301.
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 35
According to the underlying thought pattern, law built Open reasoning vs.
upon the ideal of δικαιον can be considered o p e n argu- closed reasoning
mentation. A reasoning is open if it allows any set of
solutions without previous determination. It is open if it may
refer to or rely on anything the parties involved recognise as
helpful in finding the individually just solution. A reasoning
is open when it sets the only goal to arrive at a decision
acceptable for the community.Well, to better understand the
issue, let us contrast open argumentation to what it negates,
c l o s e d reasoning. Let us imagine a hierarchical relation-
ship with rigid subordination schemes, for example, the one
established in the army. The service regulation in the army
provides a one-way commanding chain including the exclu-
sivity of closed argumentation.That is to say, whatever event
is to be faced, the subordinate can communicate only by
choosing and applying one from among the previously codi-
fied set of patterns, and the other way around, the superior
may respond by choosing any one from the patterns applic-
able in the responding channel. Be it the case that the enemy
breaks the lines and is shooting the target, or that the subor-
dinate wishes to use the restroom, the communication will
follow a homogenised pattern. This is perfect closedness
itself. In any possible situation that may occur, the party
entitled to determine the path of communication will choose
one of the previously established patterns and this pre-selec-
tion may decide the issue for good (Figure 3).22 This response
[delegation of cases
22
Referring a case to another forum—of experts, or to an investigating and subsidiarity of
commission or a preparatory committee for decision-making—is always a
decision]
double-edged instrument. In justified cases and especially ones requiring
additional knowledge, it is the only way of careful substantiation. However,
it is often used as a pretext for delaying and deadlocking resolution—seem-
ingly not refusing to face the case in merit but suggesting responsible
thoughtfulness. It is no mere chance that cases at fora of collective decision
making (parliaments, companies) often get lost exactly when being further
delegated to committees. The principle of s u b s i d i a r i t y (from the
term ‘subsidium’ = ‘assistance’) in the Catholic social teaching addresses
exactly this, i.e., the need and indispensability of responsible decisions to be
taken at proper levels, requiring acts and decisions made directly at the
levels most suited to their character, to prevent power concentration due to
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 36
will be definitive and of merit. The subordinate cannot

contest this response. At the most the superior of his supe-
rior can do it in a subsequent procedure (e.g., for assessing
the said superior’s personal achievement), qualifying the
case, maybe, as missing the point, but only posteriorly. In
sum, nobody can influence the direct operative force of the
answer. On the other hand, in the case of open reasoning,
one can take any direction and make reference to anything,
since the only goal of the procedure is that the discussion
(not limited in its sources of inspiration, means, or re-
ferences) should lead to a result accepted by the community,
through which the chosen procedure will ultimately get
justification as well.
(Figure 3)
delegation to a higher hierarchical level and thereby the dissolution of direct

local responsibility. Cf., e.g., A[lbert] Beckel ‘Subsidiaritätsprinzip’ in
Katholisches Soziallexikon hrsg. Alfred Klose (Innsbruck, Wien, München:
Tyrolia-Verlag 1964), pp. 1202–1208.
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 37
2.1.2.2. Praetorian law After a certain period of time the law Searching
as described above also had to be restricted and limited. for a closure
While according to the idea of δικαιον any reference could
be included in the reasoning—with the only restriction that
the arguments originate from law, or at least be retraceable
to legal tradition—because the exclusive target was the indi-
vidual justness of the individual case, in the republican era a
search started for closing the argumentation.
As is well known, there are two ways of setting limits to Procedural:
reasoning. On the one hand, we can determine p r o c e - no writ, no right
d u r a l l y who can participate in the given reasoning, in In merit: patterning
what way and sequence, and within what time frames. We substantive
can also define the form of procedure, for instance, the way arguments
an argument one of the parties intends to introduce to the
process ought to be presented.
Let us recall that a similar procedural formalisation eventually

became the fundamental organising means of English law as well.23 For
about a thousand years, the question of whether law exists and what it
may be for a given subject was determined by the availability of a specific
judicial procedure, namely a formula instituting an action which could
ensure the judicial enforcement. For this reason the adage “no writ, no
right” could become the foundational principle of Common Law
thinking. For generations of jurists this adage provided the basis for the
particular understanding that it is not necessary for the law to be
recorded in books as letter-formulas, neither to assign primary impor-
tance to abstractly defining what a person’s rights are in an imaginary
situation, since if proper judicial procedure is institutionalised and made
available, and, as the case may be, the parties recourse to it, the process
must ultimately lead to the proper declaration of what the law is.That is
to say, law is built upon trust, upon the continuity of tradition arching
over generations: in as much as the due process of law is ensured, this
itself is a guarantee that the proper solution will follow in due way and
time.
23
On the history, practice and theory of writs, i.e., the Anglo-Saxon
formulas in comparison with the Roman actio, see, e.g., Hans Peter Actio
und Writ Eine vergleichende Darstellung römischer und englischer Rechts-
behelfe (Tübingen: Mohr 1957) x + 122 pp.
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 38
On the other hand, one can select and delimit the sources
from which arguments can be taken. In such a case, inde-
pendent of the intention (be it that the actor in our previous
example asks for permission to open fire or to go to the
restroom), the arguments will be strictly codified both in
their merits and in the way they can be presented: they can
only be from the set of previously established patterns.This
is comparable to making pigeonholes for notions, defining
the number, sequence and order of the holes. Whatever
consideration we may hold, one can only choose from the
given arguments. One can choose either of them almost at
full discretion, feeling perhaps somewhat restricted in choice
by the rules of use attached to the set of arguments,
whichever best suits our interests at the given moment or our
strategies to serve given purposes. Either in the case that the
answer is delivered under the enormous burden of personal
responsibility or with a sheer routine concealing the lack of
genuine interest, from this point on one can proceed only by
fitting the opinion into the clothes of previously established
p a t t e r n s , the entire argumentation taking the shape of
some sort of repetition of the chosen patterns in the needed
versions, configurations, sequence (etc.).
At the praetor: In praetorian jurisdiction the unbound freedom of
delimiting the reasoning was surpassed by delimiting the procedures that
procedure + sources could be followed and then attaching the referable sources of
arguments to well-defined authorities.
Relevancy: One of the key instruments to implementing the above
changes was the institutionalisation of r e l e v a n c e and
raising awareness of it. Relevancy24 introduced a new prin-
ciple of selection, as, in opposition to open reasoning, it was
built on formal criteria. (For the sake of conceptual clarifi-
24
Or ‘pertinence’, that is, “something that is in a reasonable connection
with the issue in question”. André Lalande Vocabulaire technique et critique de
la philosophie [1926] (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France: 1991), [‘réle-
vance / pertinence’], p. 915. Regarding its philosophical foundation—on
the basis of LEIBNIZ’ saying: “Dic cur hic; respice finem” [Say, why are you
here; look to the end]—see F[erdinand] C[anning] S[cott] Schiller ‘Rele-
vance’ Mind (April 1912), No. 82 , pp. 153–166.
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 39
cation, we must make it clear that no relevancy with substan-

tive claims would be relevancy any longer. With substantive
arguments, we may also reason by referring to something
that can forward the judgement.) Once restrictions are
made—be they of procedural nature or delimiting the
sources or the character of the arguments—we unavoidably
advance and thereby pre-select certain procedural channels
or paths. By the force of qualifying them as relevant we make
them exclusively available, and by introducing these argu-
ments to the procedure we allow the case to be brought up,
or allow us to join it. All in all, the procedure has been trans-
formed into pattern-following: by having attached any step
in the procedure to a criterion, we have reduced judicial
invention to a function of previously established patterns.
Once relevancy is institutionalised, it will exclusively dependent on criteria
depend on the applied criteria that when interpretation is
required—e.g., in case of a rule saying “Dogs are not allowed
into the park!”—, using the word ‘dog’ will depend on the
selected terms of whether we mean an animal with brown
colour and weighing a few pounds, or rather one which
usually has an unpleasant odour, dirties the place very
quickly, suddenly starts biting, barking or running in all
directions, and whose rushing into the park may disturb
those who wish to have a rest, and so on.
No matter what is to be defined (dog, house, fence, car or in selection of values
human being), each definition will necessarily display an
inexhaustibly rich mine of possible traits and aspects from
among the ones we can count with. Each of them can turn
out to be (possibly or exclusively) relevant. All the above
depends on what criteria we set. Thus, we place relevancy
into a position to individually pre-select the values to be
protected and, in addition, we define them as well.
Thereby the enclosure of the law into one single—though Reduction of
rather sizeable—“pigeonry” is consummated. Because the law-application to
legal situations—that can be raised and formulated as rele- establishing the facts
vant—are placed onto single pigeonholes of a finite number. of a case
As facts constituting a case in law (or as legally qualifiable
specific configurations of elementary factual situations) only
such facts/situations can be selected that were separately
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 40
specified here as such (or that can be formed as configura-

tions of these). Law application will become from this time
on the art of classifying the various factual situations into
such pigeonholes and of meting out the legal consequences
defined for those individual pigeonholes.
”rabulistics” At the dawn of the Modern Age, especially by the social criticism the
Reformation and the entire Baroque period exerted, the law’s formalisa-
tion as confined to this pigeon-holing and especially the “nit-pick-
ing”—“Talmudistic” or “rabulistic”—abuses as sources of manipulation
uncontrollable by those uninitiated were represented in ironic or critical
tones (also as an early anticipation of the future’s dehumanisation and
alienation).
For instance, the encyclopedist and European educator, JOHANNES
AMOS COMENIUS, who also lectured at the Hungarian North-Eastern
town Sárospatak, summarised his contemplations about law as follows:
“Finis juris In the last place, they led me into still another very
spacious lecture room where I saw a greater number of distinguished
men than anywhere else.The walls around were painted with stone walls,
barriers, picket-fences, plank-fences, bars, rails, and gate staves, inter-
spersed at various intervals by gaps and holes, doors and gates, bolts and
locks, and along with it larger and smaller keys and hooks. All this they
pointed out to each other, measuring where and how one might or might
not pass through. »What are these people doing?« I inquired. I was told
that they were searching for means how every man in the world might
hold his own or might also peacefully obtain something from another’s
property without disturbing order and concord. »That is a fine thing!« I
remarked. But observing it a while, it grew disgusting to me.”
“Perplexitas juris Besides, I observed that all this science was founded
upon the mere whim of a few men to whom one or another thing seemed
worthy of being enjoined as a statute and which the others now observed.
Moreover (as I noticed here), some erected or demolished the bars or
gaps as the notion entered their heads. Consequently, there was much
outright contradiction in it all, the rectification of which caused a group
of them a great deal of curious and ingenious labor; I was amazed that
they sweated and toiled so much upon most insignificant minutiae,
amounting to very little, and occurring scarcely once in a millenium; and
all with not a little pride. For the more a man broke through some bar or
made an opening that he was able to wall up again, the better he thought
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 41
of himself and the more was he envied by others. But some (in order to
show the keenness of their wit) rose up and opposed him, contending
that the bars should be set up or the gaps broken thus so. Hence arose
contentions and quarrels, until finally separating, they painted each his
case in his own way, at the same time attracting spectators to them-
selves.”25
We will see in another context that relevancy’s role is not Relevancy also in our
restricted to closed reasoning. Everyday thinking and elementary acts
common language use are both built upon relevancies.26 We
rely on relevance whenever we approach facts in either
everyday life or scientific reconstruction.To put this in a life-
like form of expression: we can perceive something only if it
is “reminding” of something previously perceived. More-
over, in the basic act of perception (that is, when using
organs of sense or engaging into some sort of perception) the
stimulus will be interpreted by the neural processes of the
organism only in relations to and through some expressly or
tacitly acknowledged relevances.27
25
Johannes Amos Comenius Labyrinth of the World [Jan Amos Ko-
menský: Labyrint sveta a ráj srdce (Amsterdam 1663)], ch. XV:The Pilgrim
Observes the Legal Profession, in <http://www.oldlandmarks.com/lab15.
htm>. For the issue of pigeon-holing as a taxonomy aiming at classifying the
objects, see also para. 2.3.1.4.
26
Cf. George H. Kendal Facts (Toronto: Butterworth 1980) x +106 pp.
and, in a wider context, see, by the author, Theory of the Judicial Process The
Establishment of Facts (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó 1995) vii + 249 pp.,
especially in ch. 3.
27
The so-called G e s t a l t p s y c h o l o g y had a revolutionary real- [Gestalt psychology]
isation, namely that in the process of perception, the conscious does not
build the whole from the parts; on the contrary, following the recognition of
the interpretable whole as reminiscent of something previously interpreted,
the individual components and their variations are identified afterwards.
On the classics, see Kurt Koffka Principles of Gestalt Psychology (London &
New York: Kegan Paul & Harcourt, Brace 1935) xi + 720 pp. [International
Library of Psychology, Philosophy and Scientific Method] and Max
Wertheimer Productive Thinking [1945] (London: Associated Book
Publishers & Tavistock 1966) xvii + 302 pp. [Social Science Paperbacks];
and, in a current elaboration, D. W. Hamlyn The Psychology of Perception A
Philosophical Examination of Gestalt Theory and Derivative Theories of
Perception (London: Routledge 1957) 120 pp. [Studies in Philosophical
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 42
Reduction to As far as law is concerned, as societal development

typical situations advanced also human situations became more and more
in legal cases complex, so their immense variety could only be expressed
if reduced to so-called t y p i c a l situations. Therefore,
since various situations may occur, these have to be
projected on some previously established (codified) typical
situations so that they can be processed through law and be
transformed into a case within the law, making them avail-
able to regulation or normative patterning. The human
process of normative standardisation and adjudication is
limited due to its very nature, therefore an artificial filter
must be applied. As a comparison, let us consider a situation
in which we face an immense body of water, and our only
disposable means to drain it would only be, according to our
example, a set of pipes of given shape and permeability.Yet,
we also need to realise that as soon as we start thinking in
terms of pipes and procedures, we cannot (and actually do
not) consider water “in general” any more.
Once some specific linking element surfaces, it is no longer
the water “in general” that will interest us, but exclusively
its rather practical (technological) aspects, namely, the
intriguing question of how we can start and efficiently end
the work with our pipes and procedures. So to speak, from
now on the relevance as such and relevance only will become
directly more and more relevant.28; 29
Psychology] and David Katz Gestalt Psychology Its Nature and Significance,
trans. Robert Tyson (London: Methuen 1951) x + 157 pp. [Methuen’s
Manuals of Modern Psychology 2]; for further analysis, see Hubert Paul
Grice Studies in the Way of Words (Cambridge, Mass. & London: Harvard
University Press 1989) viii + 394 pp. and Frank Jackson Perception A Re-
presentative Theory [1922] (Aldershot: Gregg Revivals 1993) 180 pp.
[Modern Revivals in Philosophy]; for a philosophical summary, Charles
Landesman The Eye and the Mind Reflections on Perception and the
Problem of Knowledge (Dordrecht & London: Kluwer 1993) x + 157 pp.
[Philosophical Studies 58].
[relevancy as the 28
The role of the legal advisor lies in revealing the relevant factual
pitfall in legislation circumstances. Legislation differs from other curing mechanisms in that its
and in virtue and possibility to fail is primarily not in the merit of its answers but
in finding adequate relevancies.We may have some good advice for how to
law-application]
ease tensions, but purposeful within law can only be the institutionalisation
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 43
2.1.2.3. JUSTINIAN’s codification In the mature Roman imperial Codification

era—culminating in JUSTINIAN’s time—the formal features as the only referable
of law became systematic and exclusive, permeating law as a corpus of sources:
whole. Our historical knowledge ascribes the change and the
formation of numerous instruments of modern legal
arrangements (conceptual system and regulatory tools) to
JUSTINIAN. Yet, closer analysis revealed that nothing really
new emerged under his reign. Actually, it is the conclusion of
legal development that was done in his time. May we ask:
what and how was concluded? The usual answer holds:
through c o d i f i c a t i o n . Albeit in reality the jurispru-
dents assigned by JUSTINIAN—about whom we may find
classical reference in TITUS LIVIUS30 and others—did not do
anything but search for and choose from various sources of
of a procedure that successfully combines the selection of relevancies suit-

able for launching a procedure (that is, factual circumstances provable
within a trial procedure) with a legally operable sanctioning mechanism. By
the example of the successive series of English statutes on race relations
promulgated due to various good intentions and idealistic pressures, see, by
the author, ‘The Law and Its Limits’ [1985] Acta Juridica Academiae Scien-
tiarum Hungaricae 34 (1992) 1–2, pp. 49–56 & reprinted in Indian
Socio-Legal Journal An International Journal of Legal Philosophy, Law and
Society [Jaipur: Indian Institute of Comparative Law] 25 (1999) 1–2, pp.
129–134, reviewing Antony Allott The Limits of Law (London: Butterworth
1980) xxii + 322 pp., especially pp. 212–236.
29
T y p e - c o n s t r a i n t ascribed to a codified set is characteristic [alienating effects of
of formalised conceptual systems and procedural orders, which may
type-constraint]
have alienating effects when transferred onto fields alien to own merits
and inherent nature. GEORGE STEINER—in his Language and Silence
(Harmondsworth: Penguin 1967), especially at pp. 136–137—called the
attention upon the merciless destructive effects that are to realise when
private intimacies (especially sexual habits and intimate communication)
are publicised by the media: it is not of a liberating but emptying effect for
future generations, since breaking privacies into types degrades the audi-
ence into external pattern-followers, depriving living individualities of the
magic of incomparable uniqueness. Only generations in deprivation may
come after us, as personal intimacies (exclusive to our respective You and
Me) would no longer exist but repetitions and configurations composed out
of standardised patterns.
30
Livy [Titus Livius Rerum Romanorum ab urbe condita] English trans-
lation II, trans. B. O. Foster (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press &
London: Heinemann 1967), III, 9–57, especially at pp. 113–195.
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 44
law and, finally, select the ones they considered suitable.

That is to say: they incorporated the selected sources into a
compilation which the Emperor declared as the only one
referable at his courts. The outcome was one single body of
laws and it was made exclusively referable. So JUSTINIAN was
the first to combine legal codification with the prohibition of
interpretation.31
ius will be reduced to After the sources of law had been consolidated, anyone
lex, i.e., to what is could tell what the law of the empire at any given time
formally posited was. The only requirement was to verify what was
f o r m a l i s e d as law, as having formally been incorpo-
rated in the compilation. For a contrast, let us recall that not
long ago the law was the δικαιον: some sort of a formless
medium, which hardly qualified as worthy of being called
ius. Well, the mass of such ius constituted the material from
which the Emperor had to choose. What the jurisprudents
compiled into the Digesta and JUSTINIAN’s Codex became the
prevailing body of the law to be enforced by the imperial
power, by having promulgated it as an imperial edict, that is,
by the act of their enactment as the law. The imperial lex
thereby reduced the idea of ius proper to what was legally
p o s i t e d . In consequence, s t a t u t e became the exclu-
sive carrier of the law, making it irrelevant (and even
forbidden) to refer to anything else as law. (As nowadays, the
law can be criticised from an external point of view at the
most, projecting a judgement from outside onto the values
31
[prohibition of We know that the law is in the hand of the party who is entitled to give
interpretation] it the last interpretation as an authority. Thus, the prohibition of interpre-
tation used to serve the inviolability and unassailability of the will having
posited the law both in monarchic codifications (JUSTINIAN, FREDERICK
THE GREAT), and, for instance, in the protection of the French revolutionary
legislation against judicial sabotage. The inevitable failure, present in all
known periods of history, is described by, e.g., Hans-Jürgen Becker
‘Kommentier- und Auslegungsverbot’ in Handwörterbuch zur Deutschen
Rechtsgeschichte II (1978), pp. 963ff. For a related case study, see, by the
author, ‘A törvényhozó közbensô döntése és a hézagproblematika
megoldása a francia jogfejlôdés tükrében’ [The legislator’s intermediate
decision and the solution of issues of gap in the mirror of French legal devel-
opment] Jogtudományi Közlöny XXV (1971) 1, pp. 42–45.
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 45
formulated within the law or expressing sheer opinions

about the regulation.)
As seen above, JUSTINIAN invented the instrumentality for Law is what has been
ensuring the enforcement of his code, which later became a enacted, and
well-known tool of FREDERICK THE GREAT. For he created interpretation
an imperial committee next to him to clarify interpretational prohibited
problems that could occur in the process of application.32 We
ought to realise that the notion itself became thereby suspi-
cious, because a negative value judgement stained the
original meaning of ‘ i n t e r p r e t a t i o n ’ . Perhaps this
is the first instance where the word ‘interpretation’ disguised
‘lawyering’ as ‘pettifogging’ or ‘nit-picking’. It is the first
time that a false contradiction (refuted by us as sheerly ideo-
logical) appears between the allegedly clear meaning of legal
provisions and the unambiguity of whether or not they have
been actually followed, on the one hand, and the intentional
ambiguity of the procedural definition of meanings and their
burdening with possibilities of evasion, on the other.33 For,
thereby, the very act of demanding and performing ‘inter-
pretation’ has been made suspicious in and of itself, from the
very beginning. The entire late-Roman thinking in terms of
codification is built upon the assumption according to which
if the emperor wishes to say what the law is, he will do so and,
by doing so, the issue itself is solved: all subjects of the
empire will promptly know what the law is, so that they can
conform themselves to it and avoid sanction.
Or, one could say that the law has—even if only primi- Law is objectified:
tively, in pure formality—been o b j e c t i f i e d through its applicable to any
situation
32
Cf., by the author, Codification..., in particular at p. 37, and notes 31
and 34 at pp. 44–45.
33
This becomes public conviction accompanying European legal devel- [“Lawyers make
opment all along from the Middle Ages on, culminating in the paradox of bad Christians”]
“Juristen, böse Christen”. For “the more learned such people are in the law,
the readier they are in practice to compromise it” [quoted by A. Migne
Patrologia Latina 211.667D in Alexander Murray Reason and Society in the
Middle Ages (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1978) xiv + 507 pp. on p. 223]. As a
modern presentation, we may find its most classic expression with MARTIN
LUTHER, especially in his Tischgespräche [or his Table Talk (London: Reli-
gious Tract. Soc. n.y.) 127 pp.].
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 46
conceptualisation. From now on the law is embodied by

conceptually generalisable norms which can be safely
applied to any concrete individual situation in a way that the
relevant norms offer a decision for the cases in question.
through However, this took place through a kind of naive direct-
pigeon-holing, ness, without the completion of the conceptualisation of the
not through law’s terms. For the systemic doctrine-building, carried out
a logical way yet subsequently by the Pandectists’ works of reception that
generated the doctrinal study of law through centuries’
concept-refining effort—along analytical conceptual split-
tings, differentiations, classifications, definitions and
generalisations—had still been in a rather initial stage.What
was done was indeed a juxtaposition of “thought cycles
rather than logical progression”.34 They made classes or
qualification instead of deducing.35 “It is difficult to exag-
gerate just how unsystematic, and generally disorganized,
Roman law was in the way it was set down.”36
Society planned as Indeed, the idea of a code was thereby born. In other
posited by the law words, this is the projection of the prevailing pattern onto
law, represented in European history in its most pure form
34
Alan Watson The Spirit of Roman Law (Athens & London:The Univer-
sity of Georgia Press 1995) xix + 241 pp., ch. 7: »Juristic Law: Reasoning
and Conceptualization«, pp. 82–97.
35
E.g., Michel Villey ‘Logique d’Aristote et droit romain’ Revue
Historique du Droit français 29 (1951), pp. 309ff; Alan Watson ‘Illogicality in
Roman Law’ Israel Law Review 7 (1972) 1, pp. 14–24; Franz Horak ‘Die
römischen Juristen und der »Glanz der Logik«’ in Festschrift für Max Kaser
zum 70. Geburtstag, hrsg. Dieter Medicus & Hanas Hermann Seiler
(München: Beck 1976), pp. 29–55.
36
[graduality of logical Alan Watson ‘The Importance of »Nutshells«’ The American Journal of
Comparative Law 42 (1994) 1, pp. 1–24 on p. 3. There was “one, and only
development]
one, exception” from this, the Institutiones attributed to GAIUS in an inter-
polation by JUSTINIAN (otherwise unknown from other sources). It is
JUSTINIAN’s Institutiones that first appears in print (Mainz: Peter Schoeffer
1468) as a work exclusive for centuries which might at all suggest Europe
the idea of both concept and structure, until HUGO GROTIUS Inleidinge tot
de hollandsche Rechtsgeleerdheid (1631), Lord STAIR Institutions of the Law of
Scotland (1681) and—finally—Sir GEORGE MACKENZIE Institutions of the
Law of Scotland (1684) attempted at attaining some systematisation of local
laws.
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 47
by FREDERICK THE GREAT. As is known, he dreamt about

becoming the progenitor of his empiredom, the exclusive
centre of creation radiating to and demanding prevalence
everywhere.37 This assumes the idea that whoever posits the
imperial will, will posit society by his act as well.38
Once law is created on the basis of such an understanding, Law:
it also becomes clear that the normative production will that what derives
necessarily result in positivation in a marshalling sense that from positivation
further positivations will only be derived from it. It is essen- logically
tial to comprehend that within a culture of regulation like and linguistically
this, that what derives from the leading positivation (or its
derivatives) will derive l o g i c a l l y and l i n g u i s t i -
c a l l y (within the boundaries, given and elaborated at
the time, of the culture of logic and language use)—that
is, unambiguously, out of an intellectual necessity also
conceived of as by the force of logic, allowing no varieties
and exceptions.
Enlightened European absolutisms were laid on this Duality of creation /
fundamental idea. The monarchs assumed that in the polit- execution
ical hierarchy of a well-arranged empire, it is the creator, the
sole Ego that assumes the Divine role and responsibility of
making order, that truly counts. Therefore, every office and
office-holding beyond this will be sheer application, that is,
i m p l e m e n t a t i o n , in the strict sense of execution. Or,
this means the execution of something that has already been
decided in all its details, the commission to practice of an
ideal that sprung forth from a head destined for such a noble
job.The prevailing opinion of the time expressed a mechan-
37
In a most telling form of expression, see Thomas Babington Macaulay
‘Frederick the Great’ [1842] in Lord Macaulay’s Essays and Lays of Ancient
Rome [popular ed.] (London: Longmans 1895), pp. 795–834 and in partic-
ular on pp. 808 and 815, as well as Thomas Mann ‘Frederick the Great and
the Grand Coalition: An Abstract for the Day and the Hour’ [Friedrich und
die große Koalition: Ein Abriß für den Tag und die Stunde, 1914] trans. H.
T. Lowe-Porter, in his Three Essays (London: Secker 1932), pp. 156–157.
38
GEORGE LUKÁCS—‘Solzhenitsyn’s Novels’ in his Solzhenitsyn trans.
W. D. Graf (London: Merlin 1969), pp. 52–55—criticises STALIN for the
same reason, namely that by this he deprives society of its driving forces and
subjects it to degeneration, into a sheer tool of an external will.
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 48
ical world-view dividing this world to Creator and creature

(as opposed to the discretional monarchical arbitrariness of
feudal absolutisms), according to which the judge deciding
and resolving social conflicts—reminiscent of CHARLES DE
MONTESQUIEU’s expression—is hardly more than a living
mouth that can only pronounce the provisions of and
nothing but the law.39
The responsibility Yet, the conviction reducing the judge’s role to the living
of the judge mouth in service of the law will necessarily assume the
is to be borne humble realisation that the weight of the personal contribu-
by the legislator tion to, and the responsibility to be borne for, the decisions
is next to nothing. Obviously, this is not because someone
has broken the order of society and anarchy is ruling, but
because this is what derives from the very idea of order.
Precisely because there is an overall order, the order is an
o v e r a l l one—implying that no one has (or can have) any
further role in addition to the one of the law. If the magiste-
rial decision can only be done within the limits of statutory
definitions, the responsibility for it and every consequence
will also have to be borne by the legislator, the sole master of
statutory definitions. There is no other player on the stage
and no further role missing either.
Quod dixit dixit: either Finally, we should recall the structure of the Digesta and
a decision concludes the lasting effect of the solution it offered.The Digesta—just
or there is no law as with all subsequent codes undertaking the embodiment
there of laws in one single corpus (instead of re-enacting them as
logically inter-related parts constituting a system)40—
compiled the chaotic series of provisions into one given
body, and nothing more. A historical collection was thereby
39
“[T]he national judges are no more than the mouth that pronounces
the words of the law [la bouche qui prononce les paroles de la loi], mere passive
beings, incapable of moderating either its force or rigour.” Montesquieu De
l’esprit des lois [1748], book XI, ch. VI, in his Oeuvres complètes I (Paris:
Lefèvre 1839), p. 196; The Spirit of Laws trans Thomas Nugent (London:
G. Bell & Sons, Ltd. 1914) in <www.constitution.org/cm/sol_11/htm#
006> & <http://www.constitution.org/cm/sol.txt>.
40
On the separation of the types of codification as targeting either the
q u a n t i t a t i v e accumulation or the q u a l i t a t i v e reformulation of
the law, see, by the author, Codification..., ch. XI, para. 2.
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 49
accomplished, accumulating (without any arrangement,

correction, adaptation, hierarchisation, systematisation or
reformulation) largely divergent legal opinions and con-
siderations. Still, it marked a crucial milestone in legal
development, considerably simplifying the chaotic mass of
situations as subjects to decision. From then on the logic for
procedure became feasible, as follows: the law embodied in
a text either includes a passage for the case or not. If it does,
then the debate—in accordance with the ancient principle of
quod dixit dixit: by the bare existence of the locutio—is
resolved and the decision made, since the only job is to apply
the provision for the situation, and this will already lead to
the decision. In the reverse case, when there is no relevant
passage, the only conclusion that can be drawn is that the
case does not have a legal solution, since there are no provi-
sions for its solution.
2.1.3. Enlightened absolutism

Enlightened absolutism usually means the era prior to the Systematic and
bourgeois transformation mainly in Western Europe, and comprehensive
especially in France, Germany and other countries of similar legislation:
historical evolution. Enlightened absolutism also means the
particular era of legal development when the monarch, by
the force of his centralised power, becomes capable of
asserting his own interests as state interests, and initiates a
s y s t e m a t i c and c o m p r e h e n s i v e l e g i s l a -
t i o n to set an organisational framework for their practical
implementation.
The monarch’s goal is irrelevant in the above perspective. by operating the
It is enough to learn that there are not just ideas, games and economy, setting up
bettering intentions that may guide him, but also the state finances and
constraint of choosing between the prospects of imperial state army
survival and destruction. The country and the sovereign’s
cause cannot survive unless feudal division is overcome. To
gain predominance, the monarch must establish the state
finances as separate from his own. An impersonal, rational
and comprehensible order in financing imperial unity has to
be established so that—as the second precondition—a state
army can be set up by replacing the rivalry between various
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 50
feudal lords’ private armies with a centralised army under

royal command. In order to be able to dispose of state
finances, needed to equip and maintain the state army, the
sovereign must interfere—as the third precondition—in the
economy, thereby making separate sources of income avail-
able for state purposes.
through This is the point where modern development in Europe
bureaucratically starts, when the monarch dares to intervene with trade, agri-
routinised cultural and industrial affairs, and when—only thinking of
administration FRANÇOIS MARIE AROUET DE VOLTAIRE’s black jour-
nalism41—even the question of uniform measures arises as
an issue of state unity. It also implies the realisation—and
this is the moment for us to see law and legal organisation as
a sine qua non—that a complex and b u r e a u c r a t i -
c a l l y r o u t i n i s e d a d m i n i s t r a t i o n is needed
to handle the financial and military affairs. For the monarch
who excels only in superimposing his own will (by force,
strategy or art) in the given moment can no longer set the
course for the future. Exclusively a monarch who creates and
organises the financial support of war and peace—by
funding and bureaucratically operating institutionalised
state machinery—can have hope of success in prevailing over
the new hegemonies.
through legislation In order to implement these, the ruler must provide for
and the consolidation complex and comprehensive legislation. An enormous mass
of laws of provisions is needed for accomplishing a suitable regula-
tion in a way to unify the existing sources of law and make
them free of contradictions. State offices have to be set up
and an army of state officials appointed (as organised into
brand a new profession) for that an impersonal application
of the aggregate of new regulations at a mass size to be
possible by guaranteeing the proper operation with practical
implementation of the law. Codification performing the
sheer quantitative summation of the law into one body of
laws (practically exhausted in recording and, occasionally,
41
Voltaire Dictionnaire philosophique in his Oeuvres complètes VII (Paris:
Firmin-Didot 1876). See also, by the author, Codification..., especially at
pp. 95–97, and notes 16–18 at pp. 127–128.
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 51
reforming the customary law) did not prove enough for the
new job of processing, systematising, and also compiling
such an enormous quantity of norms.
Monarchs and jurisprudents went back to an instance as by reviving JUSTINIAN’s
old as the one of classical Roman empire, almost forgotten pattern
in Europe: JUSTINIAN’s legislation. (Later on we may realise
how different a perception of the Roman-Byzantine arche-
type they had, depending on what formed the basis of their
experience: the dismembered variety of customary laws on
the European Continent, or the uniform royal administra-
tion of justice on the British Isles. For divergent experience
could see different traditions in the same historical roots,
thus giving birth to differing traditions.42)
The solution was to design legiferation in the spirit of the Axiomatism: drafted
a x i o m a t i c ideal of s y s t e m so that the aggregate of and applied as a
all individual norm-enactments could be organised into, and system
applied as relevant parts of, a system. The idea of such a
system proved to be rather specific from a systemic point of
view as well, since it could qualify as a system at all only for
the reason that its individual provisions were promulgated
together as parts of one consolidated act. The above codifi-
catory idea suggests that what in legislation was enacted as a
total sum of rules was simply considered a system. Or, both
the process and its outcome proved to bear an ideological
character, staying independent of actual contents. In the
ultimate analysis, such a product is a system because it
claims to be, and it operates as a system because the legal
profession recognises it by operating it as such. All in all, it
qualifies as a system since the legal profession actually
42
Referring to the compilation undertaken by JUSTINIAN as the
synonym for objectifying the law by committing it into writing, see, e.g.,
Bede [the Venerable] in Historica Ecclesiastica gentis Angolorum II, 5 [Bede A
History of the English Church and People trans. L. Sherley-Price (Harmonds-
worth: Penguin 1968) 364 pp. on p. 108], who mentions exempla
Romanorum when speaking of the barbarian Laws of Aethelberht (around
731 AD)—while it is known that he did not see (and might not have seen)
anything like that: he heard about it at the most, distantly in space and time
as about a one-time experience, through several intermediaries, practically
as about a legend.
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 52
enforces it through its living practice as if it were, in every

respect, conceived indeed according to the requirements of
systemicity: presented in a sequence of general and parti-
cular rules, logically related to each other and ready for
further breakdown.That is to say, the contingency built into
the construction and structure of such a system is counter-
balanced by judicial practice, which, secondarily positing
—while applying—the law, actually forms a genuine system
out of it. Paradoxically enough, any aggregate will transform
into a real system if it is a p p l i e d a s a s y s t e m
consistently and recurrently.
The result needs to What does the idea of system consist of here? Systemic
be derivable by the character is embodied, first of all, in that it is applied as if it
force of logical expressed an internal l o g i c a l consistency and necessity.
necessity, in an So, it is applied in a way that it can result in nothing but one
exclusively justifiable single decision, exclusively conclusive and fulfilling all
way requirements for justification. And also the operations
within the system suggest a formalised and logified medium,
as if the given result derived therefrom by the force of formal
logical necessity, that is, in an e x c l u s i v e l y j u s t i f i -
a b l e way.
In a contingent What is added to the notion of codification by the Enlight-
regulation, gaps are ened absolutism is the idea of system as such. The pattern
necessarily also offered by JUSTINIAN in his Codex Justinianus was, however,
contingent contingent. For if there is a set within logic that is known to
be contingent, the elements thereof will also be fully contin-
gent. Consequently, the sub-set of elements missing from
the set will also be contingent.That is to say, in an arbitrary
aggregate in which the occurrence of the actual components
is entirely a r b i t r a r y , even the set of missing compo-
nents will be arbitrary. In other words, if the components in
the set are called “law”, and the missing ones “gaps in law”,
both the gaps and their fillings whatever way they were born
must be arbitrary as well.
The Landrecht’s In Enlightened absolutism, the idea of system tran-
systemic ideal scended the pattern set by JUSTINIAN only in that it replaced
degenerated into the mere collection of norms within an incidental chaos by
casuism conscious and foreplanned norm-positing. No doubt that
a system was thereby created in the sense of a provident,
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 53
thoroughly planned and coherent building, yet the imple-

mentation of its axiomatic ideal was only crowned with
partial success. The doctrinal rigidity of the Prussian
Landrecht gave birth to a non-viable gnome, and FREDERICK
THE GREAT’s attempts at a minutely accurate regulation
degenerated into genuine casuism.43 It actually fulfilled the
requirements of an axiomatically built system through
elevating practically each individual norm-proposition to
the rank of axiom, instead of deducing the system from
axiomatic premises, breaking it down gradually and consis-
tently.
In consequence, independently of how much we strive In a contingent set,
after filling the casual g a p s , we cannot alter the contin- filling the gaps
gency of the system itself. As soon as one gap is filled other will also remain
gaps may emerge, because no comprehensive principle and contingent:
in-built ground for further arrangement will be provided
through filling any series, even on a massive scale, of indi-
vidual gaps. To better understand this issue, we will use an
43
From the tremendous mass of some twenty-two-thousand sections of [minuteness involves
regulation, quite a number apply only for picket- and board-fences respec- the chance of rapid
tively, and the instructions for cases of child-murder require more than a
obsolescence]
hundred paragraphs.
“The editors of the Landrecht, not taking into consideration the fact
that the demands of life cannot be forced into a predefined framework but
must draw their nourishment from the enlivening principle of freedom,
strove for pushing life conditions into thousands and thousands of minute
paragraphs, so if one is eventually bound to look into the Prussian
Landrecht will in any case »miss the wood for the tree«, as BLUNTSCHLI
makes the appropriate remark. And as these thousands and thousands of
minute rules compromised the demands of life rather than sanctioned
them, […] we may easily see the reason […] why this Code became out-
dated within barely 20 years.” “The ones who prepared the Code had to
therefore attempt to create rules for every possible case; because it is most
impossible to force those judges to be exhausted in mechanical activity
who while being faced with the thousands and thousands of manifesta-
tions of life, are destined to untie the most variably complicated knots: the
untenability of this major principle in the Code is obvious to an extent not
to require any further proof.” Sándor Daempf A magánjog és tárgya
különös tekintettel a magyar általános magánjog codificatiojára [Private
law and its subject, with special emphasis on the codification of Hungarian
general private law] (Pécs: printed by Endre Madarász Jr. 1877) viii + 327
pp. on pp. 175–176 and 177–178.
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 54
expressive comparison. Let us suppose that we would like to

hit certain circles on a target. We may agree to each shoot
three times a round and afterwards see how many hits each
of us had.Yet, in a less fair manner, we may also agree to use
machine guns, leading even to the possible physical de-
struction of the entire target (just like late communist top
nomenklatura rank and files in Hungary considered it
hunting to chase the game in jeeps and shoot at it with
machine guns). It might be a justified hope that shooting
vehemently enough will increase the chance of hitting the
target despite major dispersion. Returning to the pattern by
JUSTINIAN: no system can actually be revealed from his
Code. Nevertheless, what it displays is merely a total set of
incidentalities. In such cases we may attempt to completely
fill the gaps by destroying the target.There are no other alter-
natives.There is no genuine solution in law in particular, for
law does not even have the clear physical outlines of a target.
In conclusion, there are no available means of achieving a
complete and gapless regulation in law without a genuine
systemic idea and some minimum capacity of its breaking
down in the background and/or without a systematic
doctrine prevailing in the law’s practical application.
only a In sum, the idea of system of Enlightened absolutisms
principled regulation makes an advance similar to blowing up the target, instead
can offer a solution of shooting at it with individual bullets and counting the
individual hits. Also the feasibility of gaps in law is thereby
excluded, for the emergence of the question itself is
excluded: did we have a hit at all? Obviously, this is a radical
solution, requiring radical intervention. Instead of a fairly
easy (yet unknown for the time) search for a solution in prin-
ciple, the chance of any response is rather excluded by
over-securing what is attempted as over-execution.
Reconstruction of the 2.1.4. The codificational ideal of the Code civil

law from the general After exuberant attempts (concluded by FREDERICK THE
and breaking it down GREAT’s Preussisches Landrecht),44 for the first time in legal
to a series of development a genuine systemic completeness was achieved
particulars:
44
See, by the author, Codification…, pp. 71–90.
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 55
by reconstructing the law in a logically coherent structure,

gradually building up the law’s system in a consistent way,
starting from the general and breaking it down to a series of
particulars—that is, as the hierarchically constructed and
co-ordinated summation of fundamental principles, rules,
exceptions to the rules and, finally, exceptions to the excep-
tions (Figure 4).
(Figure 4)
The axiomatic construction could only result in regula- Regulatory

tory completeness, as the ideal of regulation proper strove completeness in
for completeness. principle
No wonder that in practice the enacted rules are not Principled regulation
complete in and of themselves. It often happens. The deci- makes the filling
sive change is that there is a solution in principle and actual of gaps also
gaps are no longer in a position to refute the claim for principled
completeness as a reasonable objection. From then on, no
matter how true, it is useless to mention that, for instance,
mining law, labour law, social law and other modern fields
are missing from the system of the Code civil. Notwith-
standing that entire fields of regulation are missing from its
regulatory system, it still includes tacitly accepted or
expressly recorded p r i n c i p l e s which define, through
either setting the framework or direct wording, what the
legislator actually intended to regulate. At the same time the
same principles guarantee in practice that everything the
legislator meant to regulate (that is, what is included “in
principle” in the regulation) will unambiguously be enforced
through the judicial process.
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 56
The regulation at any According to its official understanding, in this new culture
time is a function of of thought the legislator did everything he meant to do.The
the legislatory work is perfectly done on his part.Therefore, from this point
intention: the rest is on, it is exclusively the judge’s job to draw all the conclusions
the job of the judge that can be drawn at all from the legislatory enactment and
to apply them to the case to be decided. (In the reverse sense,
the judge may also reconstruct the situation as follows:
although the legislator did whatever he wished to do, the
work is still deficient, full of gaps. It is the judge’s job to
complete it by continuing the legislator’s work.The question
of deciding what path to choose for intellectual reconstruc-
tion concerns the judge alone. Thus, he may substantiate
ideologically added claims at please alongside the above
path of reconstruction, yet this will not affect the complete-
ness in principle accomplished by legislation.)
With this, even a Historically, it is a striking observation that in every legal
regulation by some culture, where the demand for and the ideology of a
instances can also be complete regulation were formulated, there was also a
regarded as complete second consideration asserted, namely that the law—not
against its generality but as a consequence of it—not only
“ c a n be applied”, but “ m u s t be applied” to individual
situations. So, the initial presumption characteristic of the
underlying legal culture manifests itself again: on the level of
the entire law and order, the completeness in principle of the
positive regulation is ideologically presumed, accompanied
by the further assumption that new laws (entering and also
shaping the regulation) are issued as additional components
to the aggregate of norms organised into a system.
Gaplessness of law: From this concept of system an entirely new choice is
denial of justice is derived as well, creating some sort of basis for further ideo-
prohibited logical options in application. It concerns the practical
consequences of the declaration that there are no gaps in
law. For the law in its given wording has already provided a
f u l l response and this is what to rely on when making a
decision, perhaps building on the exception to the rule, or,
as the case may be, on the rule itself. Whenever there is no
rule directly applicable, one may argue starting from
assessing previously established general principles. Based on
that assumption, we shall also accept it as a response by the
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 57
system that the system does not provide any answer to the
issue to be decided now in law. It complements the formal
prohibition of “denial of justice” as sanctioned by the
French Code civil. As known, the Code did not prescribe at
all that decisions of merit shall be made and legal actions
admitted in every case, but it provided that the judge who
rejects to administer justice by the allegation of the law’s
silence, obscurity or insufficiency is to be found guilty in the
offence of “denial of justice”.45
This is the age of e x e g e s i s , a true mirror (refusing Firstly, an age of
any compromise) of the proper spirit of continental law, with exegesis
overwhelming mistrust towards any social spontaneity,
which only believes in what is fixed and in its rigid, mechan-
ical operation, in what is logified but knows no excuse, no
difference, no consideration of additional circumstances,
i.e., in formal necessity and predetermination only.46 For
that what matters is the letter of the code, the implementa-
tion into practice of what has been posited as a behavioural
pattern, and the jurist is only aware of his task in so far as he
45
“Le juge qui refusera de juger, sous prétexte du silence, de l’obscurité [with filling of gaps
et de l’insuffisance de la loi, pourra être poursuivi comme coupable de déni unrestricted]
de justice.” Code civil § 4. The conclusion is evident: “this empowers the
judge to fill the gaps in law, so to say permitting the usurpation of legislative
power”—Chaïm Perelman writes in his Droit, morale et philosophie (Paris:
Librairie Générale de Droit et de Jurisprudence 1968) vii + 147 pp. on p.
125 [Bibliothèque de Philosophie du Droit]—, while, in compensation, this
new scheme obliges him to justify his decisions. In its posited contexts, see
Louis Favoreu Du déni de justice en droit public français (Paris: Librairie
Générale de Droit et de Jurisprudence 1964) 582 pp. [Bibliothèque du
Droit Public 61]), and cf. also Máté Paksy ‘Quelques réflexions sur la
jurisprudence relative à l’article 4 du Code civil français’ in La notion de
justice aujourd’hui [Séminaire international] coord. Petre Mares & Jean-
Pierre Clero (Târgovişte:Valahia University Press 2005), pp. 75–85.
46
A contemporary author describes expressively that “The text offers
safe principles; however, as soon as we move away from it, everything be-
comes necessarily uncertain”. Laurent, p. 109, quoted by Paul Dubouchet
La pensée juridique avant et après le Code Civil 4e éd. (Paris: L’Hermes 1998)
492 pp. on p. 176.
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 58
handles actual situations of life merely as a subject of appli-

cation, with empathy exclusively towards the law.47
Secondly, Parallel to the promulgation of great modern codes, at the
free law finding: end of 19th century debates revolving around the complete-
law as an aggregate ness of regulation and the feasibility of filling its gaps arose
of gaps also in Hungary. As opposed to the mainstream view
excluding gaps from the law, the reverse statement was also
formulated, saying that the system itself is nothing in fact but
an infinite sequence of gaps. (This latter realisation formed
the ideological basis for the so-called “free law” movement,
fashionable in Europe at the end of the 19th century and at
the beginning of the 20th century.) Close to the end of his life,
GEORGE LUKÁCS argued in his Ontology of the Social Being
that as soon as societal development reaches a given level,
denying it and returning to any previous stage is possible
only on ground of this particular level.That is, for example,
we cannot return to a Robinsonian way of life without
assumed cognisance and actual negation of the societal
development level we have reached up to that point. We
simply cannot step backwards in a way as if the memories of
our past existence were erased. Well, the ideology lies in the
achievement of modern codes providing regulation, which
build upon principles. Therefore, stating that law is nothing
47
“Law is nothing but the written statute. Therefore the task of the
[more geometrico] faculties of law is to teach how to interpret the law. Its method is necessarily
deductive.The articles of the Code are theorems each, and the connections
between them need to be revealed and the conclusions thereof need to be
drawn. Thus the lawyer is just a geometer, nothing else”. Louis Liard
L’enseignement supérieur en France 1789–1889, II (Paris: Colin 1894), p. 397.
– This is nothing else than “a geometric exposition of clearly abstract
formulas”—as RAYMOND SALEILLES is cited by Léon Husson ‘Analyse
critique de la méthode de l’exégèse’ in Archives de Philosophie du Droit 17
(Paris: Dalloz 1972), p. 126—, which is at the same time the expression
of “French nationalist rationalism and anti-historic taxonomicity”.
Dubouchet La pensée juridique…, p. 172. – As Antonio Gambaro ‘Codes and
Constitutions in Civil Law’ in Italian Studies in Law 2, ed. Alessandro
Pizzorusso (Dordrecht, Boston, London: Nijhoff 1994) remarks on p. 99,
note 61, “the continental lawyer remains, at the bottom of his heart,
profoundly tied to the exegetic method, despite his formal adhesion to other
methodologies”. Cf. also P. Rémy ‘Éloge de l’exégèse’ Droits 1 (1985), pp.
115–123.
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 59
but an aggregate of gaps is far from being a denial of systemic

completeness, but is an alternative answer derived from the
same idea of system. One can state that gaps may eventually
emerge. On the other hand, one can also state that the total
system of regulation is basically a sequence of gaps
comprised by the system only in principle to qualify them as
its parts. Although, at the moment we admit that the given
system of law comprises in principle what the law intends to
regulate, the recognition of the underlying thesis is already
accomplished.
HANS KELSEN’s S t u f e n b a u t h e o r i e is built on this KELSEN’s
particular realisation. According to him, law-making and Stufenbautheorie:
law-application cannot be separated from one another into unity of law-making /
two independent entities, notwithstanding that the old para- law-application,
digm built upon the duality and sequence of “construction” as well as of
and “operation” suggested so. Within the system of law— construction /
from the fundamental constitutional norm [Grundnorm] operation
conferring validity on the entire legal arrangement, via the
laws, decrees and judicial decisions, up to the enforcement
act of individual decisions by the ultimate authority—every
intermediate step is double-faceted, qualifying both as
law-making (to fill the vacuum by its own particular
regulation in full discretion, consecutive to the basic
settlement through superior principles and norms) and law-
application (to implement the limitations prescribed by
superior norms in the reverse direction). Thus, with the
exception of the two extreme poles, every intermediate step
qualifies f i r s t l y as law-application and s e c o n d l y as
law-making (Figure 5).
= law-application
= law-making
(Figure 5)
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 60
Regulation: filling with We were not mistaken much in microphysics when we

some instances a stated that air is essentially a vacuum somewhat disturbed by
vacuum which is material pollution. As a vacuum it is void of material
otherwise free of law substances, although nitrogen and oxygen, as well as the
various granules of genuine polluting substances constantly
mix with it. In the same way we might state that the area
covered by codificational regulation (e.g., the hundreds of
rules in the Code civil) is a sort of pollution successfully
challenging the vacuum, the area free of regulations.
Law does not respond Accordingly, the new achievement of development is the
through its rule but idea of s y s t e m itself. Hence the law offers a response to
through its system: relevant questions not only through its individual rules (or,
this is in what in case of gaps, remains silent not only through the lack of an
it is gapless individual rule) but also through its system proper. In law
conceived as a system there can be no gaps whatsoever, at
least in principle. What may happen is that the parties
addressed a question to the law which is not its case.
2.1.5. Turning point in the way of thinking

With measure grown Analysing thought patterns we have arrived at a definite
into an independent turning point. As we could see, there was no actual indepen-
factor, the person to dent measure in case of the lead measuring rule of Lesbos.
be measured himself We could realise that, to some extent, the measure was
can become quite created in result of the act of measuring. Gradual develop-
incidental ment in the West has arrived to claim ideologically the
e x c l u s i v i t y f o r m e a s u r e s . Everything initially
created for man’s service was thereby successfully liberated
from him—and from the concrete situation at any given time
even to his detriment.The excessive objectification can turn
the measure into an independent factor so much that even
the person performing the act of measuring can become
entirely irrelevant. By routinishly using ready-to-take
measures, the act of their application can lose any creative
contribution whatsoever. The measure of measuring has
become externalised and externally identifiable, moreover,
tangible in the strict sense of the word. Hence it is freely
available to anyone, but can easily degenerate into one domi-
nating everyone. At any rate, thrust to the other extreme, the
measuring has become a sheer function of the measure.
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 61
2.2. THE EXAMPLE OF GEOMETRY 61
2.2. THE EXAMPLE OF GEOMETRY
Without getting involved too much with the issues falling

out of the reach of law, let us attempt to follow the same
methodological considerations and lines of development
through the example of geometry. Anticipating the result, we
will witness the relativisation of both measure and measure-
ment along the evolution of geometry on a global scale.
First of all, let us mention that geometry, together with Geometry as
astronomy, was the science-pattern for the Greeks—just as master science:
it was in Mesopotamia, and in a number of Near Asian
cultures based on agriculture, or in Antiquity in general.
Namely, awareness of the meteorological prospects re-
presented a crucial issue in those times for the proper
cultivation of land, this being indispensable for them to duly
plan when to sow and harvest. Geometry was also used for
mapping out and assigning the lands, mainly to be able to
plan irrigation and construe the irrigation networks and
devices. All measurements concerning both the sky and the
earth were a function of their geometrical knowledge.
Therefore, it was not ordained by chance that the first ideal system
ideal system ever invented by man serving as a pattern for
science all through the millennia, was geometry.48
48
For the whole range of issues, see David R. Lachterman The Ethics of
Geometry A Genealogy of Modernity (New York, etc.: Routledge 1989) xiv
+ 255 pp.; for a full overview, Jeremy Gray Ideas of Space Euclidean, Non-
Euclidean, and Relativistic, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1989) xi +
242 pp. [Oxford Science], on EUCLID ch. 2, on BOLYAI and LOBACHEVSKY
ch. 10, for the EINSTEINian turn, part 3; for an overview of non-EUCLIDean
developments, Roberto Bonola Non-Euclidean Geometry A Critical and
Historical Study of Its Developments, trans. H. S. Carlslaw (New York:
Dover 1955) xii + 268 pp.; for the professional treatment of all these issues,
Evert W. Beth The Foundations of Mathematics A Study in the Philosophy of
Science, 2nd rev. ed. (Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Company
1968) xxvi + 741 pp. [Studies in Logic and the Foundations of Mathe-
matics], particularly at pp. 150–154; and for the background, Hermann
Schuling Die Geschichte der axiomatischen Methode im 16. und beginnenden
17.JahrhundertWandlung der Wissenschaftsauffassung (Hildesheim & New
York: Olms 1969) 199 pp. [Studien und Materialen zur Philosophie]. In a
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 62
2.2.1. EUCLIDean geometry

EUCLIDean geometry is the first (and already perfect)
formulation of axiomatic systems.
Axioms / theorems An axiomatic set of propositions or enactments consists of
two kinds of components: a x i o m s and t h e o r e m s .
Axioms are the logically formulated general theses which
constitute the system. As basic propositions they are of a
foundational character, inasmuch as they define the system.
According to the system’s presuppositions, all further
proposition can be nothing but that which has been logically
derived from the axioms.This definition already defines the
theorems as well. Theorems are propositions that derive
from the axioms out of logical necessity.49; 50
classical presentation, cf. also Blaise Pascal ‘De l’esprit géométrique’ in his
Oeuvres complètes III par Jean Mernard (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer 1991),
pp. 360–437 [Bibliothèque Européenne].
49
[axiom + theorem] According to its classical definition, on the one hand: axiwna =
“Telles sont des choses qu’on appelle axiomes, que tout le monde considère
comme indémontrables pour autant que tous regardent comme se compor-
tant de cette manière, et à l’égard desquels nul n’élève des doutes; car on
appelle souvent simplement axiomes aussi des propositions quelconques
ayant une autorité immédiate ou besoin de quelque rappel.” [Proclus (F)
193, 15–17] „Dies sind die von allen als unbeweisbar erklärten Axiome,
insofern ihre Richtigkeit von allen anerkannt und von niemand in Zweifel
gezogen wird.”. Proklus Diadochus [410–485 AD] Kommentar zum Ersten
Buch von Euklids »Elementen« übertragen P. Leander Schönberger, hrsg.
Max Steck (Halle: Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher 1945), pp. 219
and 171 [302], and Proclus de Lycie Les commentaires sur le premier livre des
Éléments d’Euclide trad. Paul Ver Eecke (Bruges: Desclée de Brouwer 1948),
pp. 171 and 68, respectively; on the other hand: = ‘das Geforderte, die
Forderung’ [Proclus (F) 76, 17–19]: „Wo es sich also um ein allgemeines
Akzidens handelt, das der gesamten Materie eigen ist, da ist von Theoremen
zu sprechen.” Ibid., p. 221. Cf. Árpád Szabó ‘Anfänge des euklidischen
Axiomensystems’ Archive for History of Exact Sciences I (1960–1962), pp.
37–106, especially at pp. 65 and 67. Its first English occurrence defines as
follows “The Theoremes, (whiche maye be called approued truthes)
seruing for the due knowledge and sure proofe of all conclusions […] in
Geometrye.” Robert Recorde The Pathwaie to Knowledge (1551), quoted in
<http://mail.mcjh.kl.edu.tw/~chenkwn/mathword/t>.
50
[axiomatic definition “An axiomatic system is defined when we select some of the sentences
of a system] of a formal language as a x i o m s , and then take the set of all those
remaining sentences which follow from the axioms by some concept of
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 63
With the EUCLIDean system of geometry, a new and previ- By proposing axioms,
ously unknown way of thinking appears, in which the basis the system is
of our knowledge on what human methodical cognition may accomplished as
rely later on, that is, the principle accepted as a starting point perfect and complete
unprovenly, is separated from the theses derived from it.51 In
its terms, one proposes a f i n i t e number of theses and
thereby creates a c l o s e d system of thought, concomi-
tantly declaring all the ultimate and incontestable truths
valid within the system. Nothing further is needed, nor is
anything left in need of explanation. It is entirely enough to
state the axioms. Once this statement is made everything
else will derive from the axioms—out of the aforementioned
logical necessity, that is, without further active human inter-
vention.This also means that stating the axioms is enough to
be able to control the entire system. Within deductive logic
the proposition of axioms defines the whole system. The
axiomatic system is p e r f e c t and c o m p l e t e in and
of itself.
The set of axioms and theorems adds up to a construction unchangeable,
of thought that is not only unchanged, but u n c h a n g e - because the axiom is
a b l e . Since if we state that the theorems derive from the the ultimate
axioms, we thereby also state that the axioms are ultimate truth-proposition
propositions not themselves derived from anything, but
allowing derivation. An axiom cannot be reduced to any
proposition whatsoever, at least within the system. In other
words, axioms are the ultimate truth-propositions of a
system. The system is unchangeable because regardless of
whether we enumerate all the theorems or not, they are still
logically inherent in the axioms.We have seen, however, that
the axioms are irreplaceably given in the system, insofar as if
either of them could be deducible from another, this would
logical validity as the t h e o r e m s of the axiomatic system.” Robert John

Ackermann Modern Deductive Logic An Introduction to its Techniques and
Significance (London: Macmillan 1970) viii + 261 pp. [Modern Introduc-
tions to Philosophy], p. 182.
51
According to Árpád Szabó A görög matematika kibontakozása The rise
of Greek mathematics (Budapest: Magvetô 1978) 250 pp. [Gyorsuló idô],
p. 119, science is born with the separation of theses underlying deductivity
from ones drawn as the former’s conclusion.
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 64
immediately cause its degradation into a theorem. If one of

the theorems proved not to be deducible from an axiom or
logically related to another theorem in a manner such that
both are derived from an axiom, then the system as such
would necessarily collapse.
which needs We shall see examples below for this dilemma and option,
application shedding some light upon this way of thinking proper. In
exclusively the development of human thought, its inspiration re-
presents a new recognition, namely that the only thing to do
with a system is to apply it. It can only be acknowledged and
used, but not contested. As soon as it is perfected as a
system, it is already complete in every respect and for all
purposes; and it is definite, moreover, perfect. If anything
were taken out of the system, it would necessarily cause it to
collapse as a whole. With anything added to it, an entirely
new system would grow out of nothing. Adding to or taking
out of the system we unavoidably re-posit or de-posit it as
well. The system is by definition an unchangeable and irre-
placeable entity as long as it prevails as a system. Just like a
PETRARCA-sonnet: perfect and definite both in structure and
formation. Any alteration whatsoever would drive the whole
construct to collapse. It can be solely built in this particular
way and no other. All of its elements (phonetic, metric or
rhymic) are forged into one strict unity.That is, it is not only
factually completed and perfect as it is, but unchangeable
with respect to the future as well.
System: Thus, the system is complete and perfect. Not only is it
sufficient in itself definite, but it is also s u f f i c i e n t in and of itself because
because it incorporates gapless l o g i c a l n e c e s s i t y in all of
logically necessary its aspects and directions.52
52
ERNÔ SARLÓSKA speaks of the confessionality of scientific metho-
dology—“In infinite time nature itself is infinite, and so is the book of life:
mathesis is the candle, and we cannot read without it being lit.”—in his
‘Bolyai Farkas eszmevilága’ [Farkas Bolyai and his world of ideas] Tiszatáj
29 (1975) 2, pp. 42–44.
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 65
2.2.2. Challenge by BOLYAI and LOBACHEVSKY

What is the exemplary aspect to BOLYAI’s and LOBACHEV-
SKY’s achievement? What did one of them accomplish in
Temesvár (Transylvania) and the other in Russia?
Our answer might seem too laconic: both of them plainly Finding a new variant
analysed the potentialities inherent in geometry. Among within the system
other things, they again raised the issue of what answers are creates itself
provided by the EUCLIDean system to relevant inquiries, and a new system
what were the answers to these formulated by geometers
through the past millennia. Both BOLYAI and LOBACHEVSKY
considered a number of long-routinised questions and
answers, such as the ones concerning the shortest path
between any two points, or the relationship between any two
parallel lines. They happened to arrive at realisations that
marked a new epoch simply by relating to the above issues.
Within the EUCLIDean system they were able to identify a
theorem that proved not to have been derived from the
axioms.53 May we emphasise again that dealing with the
whole problem is merely a game, properly speaking a mental
experiment. Whatever the answer, we might say, it is all the
same. Obviously, neither the questions nor the answers
would provoke any sensation in everyday life. Had they
stated something entirely new, it would still not have made
much of a difference. Had they been arisen in daily conver-
sation, they would by no means have brought the
conversation to a halt. However, the situation is different
when questions of principle are involved, these being the
53
“He attempted to prove the axiom indirectly, i.e., to assume that the [BOLYAI’s recognition
statement of the axiom is not true, and to derive some contradiction from in geometry]
this. […] JÁNOS BOLYAI […] came to the conviction already in 1823 that
these strange geometrical theses add up to a geometrical theory free of
contradiction, to a novel geometry. […] According to this the axiom of
parallelism is independent from the other EUCLIDean axioms: by accepting
it, the EUCLIDEan geometry will emerge in negation of the novel non-
EUCLIDEan geometry; by ignoring it, the absolute geometry will emerge
involving the common elements of the two geometries.” Ákos Császár
‘Magyar származású matematikusok hozzájárulása a matematika fejlô-
déséhez’ [Contribution of mathematicians of Hungarian origin to the
development of mathematics] Természet Világa (1998), special issue III, pp.
3–10.
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 66
core issues for an axiomatic system, the only genuine ques-

tions that matter.54
creating a new world BOLYAI, when he completed his analysis, surprised by his
out of nothing, relying own realisation, shouted with joy: “I have created another
purely on thoughts new world out of nothing.”55 Asking back: what is the
“nothing” here? And what does the “new” stand for? Well, as
to what concerns his start from “nothing”, relying purely on
his thoughts, he had created something that did not exist
before. And as to the “another new world”: he had mentally
constructed something previously unknown, as it had not
been posited. Needless to say, it could not have been formu-
lated at all, since the EUCLIDean geometry embodied a
completely perfect and closed system. Now, however, their
achievement dramatically challenged the system: BOLYAI
and LOBACHEVSKY, parallel in time albeit independently,
offered an alternative equal in value through their systemic
answers to systemic questions. Within axiomatism this
meant the creation of something new, and not simply its
copying or continuation.56
54
[its novelty] “What was damaged is not the truth or validity of a geometrical
axiom; not even a claim of such an axiom for evidence, eternity, or absolute
certainty. It is something much more sacred that collapsed: the
non-EUCLIDean revolution invalidated the law of the freedom from contra-
diction.” Imre Tóth Bécstôl Temesvárig Bolyai János útja a nemeuklideszi
forradalom felé [From Vienna to Temesvár:The way of János Bolyai towards
the non-Euclidean revolution] (Budapest: Typotext Elektronikus Kiadó
2002) 123 pp.
55
From JÁNOS BOLYAI’s letter to his father, FARKAS BOLYAI: “now I must
not tell anything but that I have created a new, different world out of
nothing; all that I had sent [to you] until now is like a house of cards
compared to a tower. I am convinced that it will be not less to my credit than
if I had invented something”. Tibor Toró ‘Habent sua fata: Bolyai János
1823. november 3-i temesvári levelének sorstörténete’ [History of János
Bolyai’s letter from Temesvár on November 3, 1823] TermészetVilága (2003),
special issue I [devoted to Bolyai] in <www.chemonet.hu/TermVil>.
56
[description of reality “Until JÁNOS BOLYAI, geometry used to describe the surrounding
leading to reality, inseparably from it. It was points, straight lines, planes what our
an abstract theory] views inflict on us powerfully. We should not forget that it was only for
reasons of order that EUCLID’s axioms were born; in order that we can
orientate ourselves in the chaos of concepts and statements by clarifying
what is obvious and what needs to be proven. […] It was BOLYAI to transfer
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 67
In the realm of axiomatism, thinking is conceivable in one Any appendum or

way only. Accordingly, if an answer qualifies as an appendum correctivum gives rise
(as previously not included in the system) or a correctivum to a new system
(as changing the basic propositions of the system) in its rela-
tion to the system, this will utterly transform the system itself
into an entirely new one. Historically speaking, the conse-
quences for geometry could be easily foreseen. At the same
time, it also anticipated the prospects of epoch-making new
answers for general human thinking.
Once the fact that partial answers to partial questions may
generate a new system is accepted, we are bound to accept
some further consequences as well.
(1) First and foremost we ought to realise that the world can The world’s
be d e s c r i b e d , at least in principle, i n m o r e t h a n description is neither
o n e w a y . Thus an “objective” or “in-and-of-itself suffi- objective and final nor
ciently true” description is by definition excluded. For the there are several
same reason this description is neither a definite entity that competing ways for it:
would put brains to rest and end science. On the contrary,
there are many competing ways to describe the world.
Descriptions (and alternatives to them) that do not allow us
to judge other ones are also imaginable. In such cases it is up
to the history of science to respond a posteriori sometime in
the future to the reasons why scholars and scholarship have
preferred certain descriptions to the others. Why was
COPERNICUS’ helio-centric world-view not accepted earlier,
surpassing the geo-centric one? And when the change-over
came about, what were its underlying reasons?57
geometry into the realm of abstract theories. He has shown that logically
more than one geometry is possible.” András Prékopa ‘Bolyai János
forradalma’ [The revolution by János Bolyai] TermészetVilága (July, August,
September 2002).
57
In case studies, see, e.g., Arthur Koestler The Sleepwalkers A History
of Man’s Changing Vision of the Universe (London: Hutchinson 1959)
624 pp.
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 68
less contradictions Scholarship usually favours theories

+ greater (a) with l e s s c o n t r a d i c t i o n s ,
explanatory force (b) of g r e a t e r (stronger or deeper) e x p l a n a -
+ more contexts t o r y f o r c e , and
+ less entities (c) offering explanation for m o r e f e a t u r e s a n d
aspects of the world,
(d) w i t h o u t presupposing (as principles of existence,
construction, or functioning) m o r e t h a n t h e
indispensable minimum of inde-
pendent entities.
OCCAM’S razor: only Let us resort to an example that has majored the history
as many substances of philosophical thought over centuries. As is known,
as are indispensable systems of thought are erected for the purpose of being able
for the explanation to explain the world by means of interrelated propositions so
as to gain a result free from contradictions, that is, coher-
ently and consistently. This holds for all kinds of cognition,
including the eventual contemplation of the existence of
God. If in a scientific issue the existence of God is acknow-
ledged, then no substance can be more than a derivative
from and manifestation of some pre-existent godly essence.
Henceforth the question of “should we posit the existence of
God, and how should we do it?” will no longer be isolated
but will depend on our chosen natural scientific Weltan-
schauung of understanding the world.We may ask in another
manner: why should we avoid positing the existence of God,
if we cannot arrive at an adequate answer without it? Or, the
reverse: why posit the existence of God, if an adequate
answer can be found without it? A methodological consider-
ation of this kind was already formulated in the Medieval
era. WILLIAM OF OCCAM was the first to raise it—hence the
term Occam’s razor—, suggesting that we should not theorise
with more substances than absolutely indispensable, more-
over, it is not worth doing so for the sake of keeping
theoretical purity by separating the levels of analysis.
(duality of the KANTian KANTian conceptualisation can also be mentioned here, as being a
Is / Ought, tradition that explaining social complexity in terms of a scientific world-
facts / norms) view is built upon the duality of ‘Is’ and ‘Ought’, or ‘facts’ and ‘norms’,
respectively. Up to the post-modern period, this represented the funda-
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 69
mental paradigm of social philosophising on the European continent.

Obviously, no argumentation can be relevant in itself for or against such
a world-view. Only the proposition of a world-view that provides more
complete, more consistent and contradiction-free answers, devoid of the
world’s conceptual dichotomisation, is capable of transcending this
paradigm.
In sum, “another new world” can be mentally construed

indeed.We may conclude as a lesson of methodology that, in
principle, the world can be described and interpreted in
more than one way.
(2) A further conclusion can also be drawn: can we be sure World-description as

that it is the world indeed that we are describing by inter- self-description
pretation? Or, in other words, yet still speaking about the
same subject, is it conceivable to describe the world from the
same perspective in more than one way, all of them to be true
at the same time? Or, should we rather conclude that when
describing the world we inevitably describe something else
as well? Is it possible that when describing the world we
necessarily commit ourselves also to s e l f - d e s c r i p -
t i o n , describing how we can at all imagine the description
of the world, and, as part of it, also the theory-builder’s
approach to and understanding of the world? Accordingly,
no description is capable of describing the ‘world’ in exclu-
sivity, since it unavoidably d e s c r i b e s i t s e l f as well.
Then, as reflected onto itself and applied to the world, the
description projects itself back onto the ‘world’, presenting
it as the actual description of the world.
An essentially new approach derives from these consider- A system of axioms
ations, differing in some of its substantial parts from the is perfect only
EUCLIDean pattern. No matter how axiomatic a system is from inside,
—furthermore, exactly due to being axiomatic—it is only being incidental
perfect when viewed from inside, and logically necessary from the outside
when starting from its own axioms.The axiom itself is n o t
of any logical necessity (neither the selection of its under-
lying proposition nor its positing). From an external point of
view, it is just one of the possible worlds and nothing more.
Thus the creation of “another new world” is manifest in
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 70
the choice between equally eligible incidentalities and the

presentation of the selected variant as perfect and logically
necessary.
Theory is an This realisation involves another hidden one as well,
imaginary which again insinuates a change in paradigms.This concerns
world-creation, conceptualisation, namely the fact that conceptual systems,
a mental experiment be they as perfect as possible from an internal point of view
or had they the most convincing explanatory force when
describing the external world, can merely be regarded as
mental experiments.They are nothing but games, which we
make use of faute de mieux. In absence of anything better,
conceptual tools can be used to represent and record our
impressions and knowledge (or, in short: experience) of the
world. Their ontological status, however, cannot be much
different from what is due to imaginary world-creations.
Nevertheless, when they have a strong convincing effect and
can be successfully applied in human practice, even these
imaginary world-creations may grow into actual influential
factors, that is, into ontological components of social prac-
tice, and thereby parts of the artificially made second nature
as irrevocable elements of the human environment.
2.2.3. EINSTEIN’s revolution

The truth of already ALBERT EINSTEIN expanded space. He made the truth of
known evidences is a already known evidences the function of unidentified, and
function of unknown furthermore, unknown and unformulated realisations. He
factors proved that, in the same way the position of travellers on a
train or our place on the Earth is a function of both our
motion in relation to one another and the velocity of the
train as well as of the distance covered by the celestial body
carrying it, there might also be extra dimensions in space
that would not only make apparent evidences dependent on
the position taken but make them the functions and aspects
thereof and of their places occupied in the total world. For
instance, curved space alters our previous evidence deriving
from classical theories of space (thus transforming them into
sheer illusions or hypostatisation) in the same way as new
realisations concerning time-space introduce new dimen-
sions into our calculations relying upon the traditional
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 71
2.3. THE EXAMPLE OF THINKING 71
understanding of time. This is to say that our entire knowl-

edge on the universe—the logical harmony of which58 he
firmly believed and the reflection of which he sought in
theory—had all of the sudden become relative.
EINSTEIN’s recognition, once its consequences were and aspect of our
generalised, suggests a truly revolutionary turn. Since in existence and
terms of this recognition, nothing said, realised or posited, positions in the world
not even as a mental experiment, can be valid in and of itself.
If this be true, then neither will our previously acquired
knowledge be more than an a s p e c t (function and deriv-
ative) of individual existence. In the final analysis, whatever
we regard as a “universal” truth is the mere function of our
respective p o s i t i o n s in the world, of how we perceive
and judge our place in the world.59
2.3. THE EXAMPLE OF THINKING
The major methods and trends in thinking and world-

construction place us again at a crossroads. Even if,
according to their subject, they do not deal with law or moral
philosophy, they might bear sufficient legal and moral
aspects.
With the relationship between mankind and man-made
rules in mind, we have two alternatives to choose from, and
we will later name these autonomy and heteronomy.
58
As he wrote to his pupil, ERNST STRAUSS, he was interested in the [internal necessity of
issue of whether God could have created a different world, as well as in the world?]
responding to whether the requirement of logical simplicity could allow any
sort of variety in the world. Albert Einstein ‘Autobiographical Notes’ in
Albert Einstein Philosopher-Scientist, ed. Paul A. Schilp (New York: Tudor
1951), p. 63.
59
All of this grants environmental and, moreover, personal emphasis to
human manifestations due to the position taken. EINSTEIN therefore warns
us, by referring to rationalism, providing the common background, that we
cannot draw any conclusions whatsoever without falling from the grace of
rationality. Albert Einstein Lettres à Maurice Solovine (Paris: Gauthier-
Villars 1956) xiii + 139 pp. and in particular at p. 129.
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 72
Autonomy: In moral philosophy we call a behaviour a u t o -

internal determination n o m o u s if our actions are (in the last analysis) the
without external exclusive function of our own moral determination and
constraint responsibility. Or, in case of rules observed, the function of
our understanding of rules and thereby of our realisation of
values to be implemented by rules. In such case, no
constraint conceived of as external will play a significant role
in determining actions.
Heteronomy: we are Opposed to that, a behaviour is called h e t e r o -
points of reference for n o m o u s if our apparently moral decision turns out to be
external facts based on an independent factor, to which we are simply
at the most morally subjected. In such a case, we serve at most as points
of reference; and this is mostly only because the decision
concerns us. Our decision cannot be anything but
heteronomous in the case of orders carved into stone of the
Old Testament, for instance. For if MOSES and the order
communicated through him are strong enough, we may and
can act in no way other than in accordance with what is
written in the Ten Commandments—unless we want to take
the risk of losing membership in the community, our expul-
sion from which would completely destroy our social and
moral characteristics. Facing the commandments emanat-
ing from God, we have simply no other choice.The stone in
front of our eyes reminds us that the only thing we need to
do is to comply with its orders.This way, our actions will be
heteronomous—as opposed to the case in which we have a
genuine choice when making decisions freely (within certain
bounds) and conscientiously after the moral arguments for
and against any alternative courses of action have been
considered.60
60
The KANTian concept distinguishes exclusively between control by
own law and the law of others [auto/hetero-nomo] (e.g., John Hittinger
Modern Philosophy XI.B.1.3.: »Kennington on Kant’s The Foundations of the
Metaphysics of Morals« <www.icu.catholicity.com/c02111.htm>), while the
distinction suggested above applies this as restricted to the ways in which a
given text may be intended to confer us normative meaning.
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 73
2.3.1. Autonomy
2.3.1.1. New Testament argumentation The first historical New Testament:
example of this for us to treat here is the New Testament,61 discourse with the
which narrates the life and teachings of JESUS CHRIST. As we necessary
know, he was only thirty-three when he died, after having conclusions drawn
taught in a rabbinical environment with rabbinical socialisa-
tion. To put it in lay terms, what we find in the New
Testament is that JESUS CHRIST gets involved in different
debates in various situations, and at the end draws some
conclusions for Himself and his audience, which usually
point out the absurdity, or even the untenability, of the given
conditions.
From the perspective that interests us, the New Testament as a collection of
is an illustration of selected situations, and the moral choices parables
and decisions shaping the world-view underlying them.
Doing something in given situations is generally followed by
drawing (mostly normative) conclusions of a moral char-
acter. Sometimes JESUS CHRIST talks about hypothetical
situations that might have occurred or actually did occur
with others, which also serve as a basis for moral lessons. He
speaks about these as if he were a rhetor, a teacher of his age,
a rabbi among his fellows, that is, with the means of impres-
sivity.62 Put simply, from this perspective the New Testament
can be best taken as a collection of p a r a b l e s .
61
For a first summary of the trends in linguistic and sociological criti-
cism of the New Testament, see Text and Interpretation New Approaches in
the Criticism of the New Testament, ed. P. J. Hartin & H. Petzer (Leiden,
etc.: Brill 1991) viii + 326 p. [New Testament Tools and Studies XV]. For a
general philological background, Benjamin Kedar Biblische Semantik Eine
Einführung (Stuttgart, etc.: Kohlhammer 1981) 214 pp. writes on p. 189
that “Here we have a book with a lot of words, yet, if we think further, »there
is a whole book behind every single word« (RÜCKERT).” [“Von uns liegt ein
Buch mit vielen Wörtern, aber auch »in jedem Wort, wenn wir’s erwägen,
liegt ein ganzes Buch« (Rückert).”]
62
According to, e.g., István Kosztolányi ‘Jézus saját szavainak kérdése’
[The question of Jesus’ own words] Vigilia XL (1975) 8 on p. 513, “JESUS’
method of teaching might have been similar to that of the rabbies. JESUS
formulated what he told first of all to be easily remembered, therefore he
used rhythm, opposition, play of words and witty formulation.”
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 74
The example derives The examples given in them underline an important

from some doctrine aspect, namely that the example differs from the t h e s e s
but it is not themselves proposing or negating in a way generalisable in
axiomatised conceptual schemes and thereby allowing the establishment
from which of their cases through logical subordination, and also from
the d o c t r i n e as well, comprising the set of such theses
logically organised, in that the example is a narration calling
to nothing but meditation. Naturally, it derives from some
sort of a set of theses taken as a doctrine, but it is neither
obvious nor axiomatically defined from which one. The
parables in the New Testament elucidate a situation or an
event in which JESUS CHRIST expressed His state related to
it, offering lessons that we can draw therefrom as messages
for ourselves in our respective situations.63
Its textual The specifically methodological conclusion we draw from
representation can this is that the texts in the New Testament as a collection of
neither be built into a parables conceived metaphorically can n e i t h e r be built
doctrine, nor treated directly into a doctrine, n o r treated doctrinally as a formu-
doctrinally as a lation of dogmas. For a text, to be elaborated as a subject of
formulation doctrinal study, must display a minimum axiomatic rigour
of dogmas: with defined notions and a set of clearly delimited and also
logically mutually related concepts. Only if this minimum
requirement is satisfied can the propositions in the text be
formulated clearly enough to allow further propositions to
be drawn from them as logically necessary conclusions (with
the operations of systematisation, classification, conceptual
and casual subordination, delimitation, inclusion and exclu-
sion).
it offers lessons to be From the parables of JESUS CHRIST64—more precisely,
drawn by us, instead from everything that happened to Him or was simply
of logical conclusions
to be simply derived 63
For more details, see, e.g., Nahum Levison The Parables Their Back-
ground and Local Setting (Edinburgh 1926) xxv + 253 pp.; Dan Otto Via
The Parables Their Literary and Existential Dimension (Philadelphia:
Fortress Press 1967) xii + 217 p.; and Morgens Stiller Kjavgaard Metaphor
and Parable A Systematic Analysis of the Specific Structure and Cognitive
Function of the Synoptic Similes and Parables qua Metaphors (Leiden:
Brill 1986) 262 p. [Acta Theologica Danica 20].
64
E.g., in an early approach of pastoral context, Alexander Balmain
Bruce The Parabolic Teaching of Christ A Systematic and Critical Study of the
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 75
mentioned by Him,65 and from the conclusions He drew for

Himself and for us—the only question that can intelligibly
be raised (and is therefore also scholarly defensible and justi-
fiable) is “what l e s s o n can be learned from this?”,66 and
not “what c o n c l u s i o n can be drawn from this?”. For
taking ‘conclusion’ in the strict (methodological) sense
of the word, that is, in a logical sense, the t e a c h i n g s of
JESUS CHRIST we have got to know and familiarised by now
Parables of Our Lord, 2nd ed. (London: Hodder and Stoughton 1887) xii +
515 p.,William Oscar Emil Osterley The Gospel Parables in the Light of their
Jewish Background (London: SPCK 1936) viii + 245 pp. and Joachim Jere-
mias Parables of Jesus [Gleichnisse Jesu] rev. ed. & trans. S. H. Hooke
(London: SPCK 1963), 248 pp. as well as Kálmán Tóth A parabolázó Jézus
nyomdokain Jézus példabeszédeinek gyakorlati magyarázata homiliákban
[On the footsteps of Jesus speaking in parables:The practical explanation of
the parables of Jesus in homilies] (Esztergom: Laiszky János Könyvnyomda
1927) 298 pp.; as well as, in a hermeneutical context, N. Perrin ‘The Para-
bles of Jesus as Parables, as Metaphors and as Aesthetic Objects: A Review
Article’ The Journal of Religion 47 (1967), pp. 340–347, Heikki Raisanen Die
Parabeltheorie im Markusevangelium (Helsinki 1973) 137 p. [Schriften der
Finnischen Exegetischen Gesellschaft 26],Warren S. Kissinger The Parables
of Jesus A History of Interpretation and Bibliography (London: Metuchen
1979) xxiv + 439 pp. [American Theological Association Monograph Series
4], Robert Walter Funk Parables and Presence Forms of the New Testament
Tradition (Philadelphia: Forress Press 1982) xi + 206 pp., Herman
Hendrickx Parables of Jesus Then and Now [Manila: Society of St. Paul
1983] (London: Chapman 1986) 304 pp. [Studies in the Synoptic
Gospels], Les parables évangéliques dir. Jean Delorme (Paris: Cerf 1989) 452
pp. [Lectio divina 135], BradYonry Jesus and his Jewish Parables Rediscovery
of the Roots of Jesus’Teachings (NewYork: Paulist Press 1989) xv + 365 pp.
[Theological Inquiries], and Claus Westermann The Parables of Jesus in the
Light of the Old Testament trans. Friedemann W. Golka & Arastair H. B.
Logan (Edinburgh:T&T Clark 1990) 211 pp.
65
Their enumeration is given in Paul Ricoeur ‘Biblical Hermeneutics’
Semeia 4 (1975), pp. 27–145.
66
PAUL RICOEUR writes in his paper above that meaning cannot be [interpretation as
exhausted by any explanation, not even by »historical« interpretation. Our projection onto given
interpretation can only relate to our own life-situation, as the original inter-
situations of life]
pretation too relates to the initial situation.Therefore the original meaning
with the historical interpretation has a controlling function over re-inter-
pretation in this a n a l o g o u s form. Cf. also R. W. Funk Language,
Hermeneutic, and Word of God (New York: Harper & Row 1966) xvi + 317
pp., especially at pp. 150–151.
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 76
do not derive from actual events, their parable-like narra-

tions in the New Testament, but are rooted in His doctrine.
Therefore, what CHRISTians call the legacy of CHRISTianity
can only be derived from the teachings of JESUS CHRIST in a
sense other than that of an axiomatic conclusion. Or, exem-
plification remains exemplification for the New Testament
as well and its message revealed for us can only be derived
from the text in a sense other than that of deductive logic.
Thus, the relevant question in the New Testament is “what
lesson can be l e a r n e d from this?”, that is, “what lesson
can w e learn from this?”. Let us remember some more
abstract instances of the New Testament parables. We may
read that the speakers and listeners—priests, as well as the
Pharisees—are outraged, and that JESUS CHRIST responds
by letting us know who has to apply or not apply the message
of the parables t o h i m s e l f . He thereby calls our atten-
tion to the fact that the message of the parables is always
specific, almost personal and context-bound, thus their
‘application’ can neither be taken as abstractly nor as unlim-
itedly general. Otherwise speaking, the text itself is not
intended for logifying generalisation but for encouraging us
to interiorise and assume the very ethos mediated by the
parables of JESUS CHRIST by re-considering them in our situ-
ations at any time.
“Who should take it Actually, providing messages or setting norms through a
personally?” parable does not start from the point where JESUS CHRIST or
Message through others begin to talk about His story. It starts from the point
model situations: where certain moral considerations formulated by JESUS
CHRIST in exemplary situations are raised, and if their
textual development is more comprehensive, it ends in
dilemmas of the people of the New Testament, as, for
instance: “What lesson can be learned from this?”, or: “What
is the message in this?”, or: “What is the message to me from
all of this?”, or: “Who should take it personally?” For in the
context of the Four Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, as well
as some further texts (acknowledged or attributed), some
will have to relate the message to themselves, others not.
Furthermore, some are in a position to relate it to themselves
to a greater extent than others are. For the message
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 77
embodied in the texts attempts to transmit patterns of value

and standards through projecting a variety of values and
evaluations from m o d e l s i t u a t i o n s to model situa-
tions.
In stating that the message in the New Testament does not instead of mechanical
lie in anything that would conclude “logically” from the text, application, its lesson
we have anticipated a further consequence, namely that not drawn by and to the
even the lessons we can learn from it transmit a pattern of acting person needs
value or standard in a directly “applicable” way. For the to be formulated
‘a p p l i c a t i o n ’ of something to something else is only
conceivable in the strictly logical sense of necessity. For
example, displaying an ‘applicable’ proposition by project-
ing it onto any situation it relates to (as onto the general
defined logically by the proposition and entailing whatever
situation subordinated to it as its case) gives an immediate
result. This is the sense in which JESUS CHRIST’s teachings,
taken as a praemissa maior of a strictly deductive syllogism,
defy logical ‘application’. For parables are flexible in every
one of their components, suited exactly to the environment
given at any time.They do not tell anything as they are about
something—relatable to other situations or events only more
or less, in one sense or another and under a given circum-
stance or another.Yet, the patterns of value and the inherent
moral culture in the parables might encourage our intro-
spection and inner debates to follow a given path, by
mutually reflecting and weighing the actually or mentally
experienced situations and the ones mediated by the para-
bles, to finally arrive at the formulation of o n e ’ s
p e r s o n a l l e s s o n . In turn, this lesson will tell us
whether the parables in question refer to our situations
under our own conditions or not, and if they do, how much,
in what way, and with what personal message.67
67
We do not intend here or later to participate in any anarchistic [not unlimitedness,
nihilism disguised under the veil of deconstructionism, which currently but personal
permeates (under the label of ‘being methodical’) most English–American
self-determination]
academic circles, including a considerable number of non-denominational
theological faculties. See, regarding a few alarming excesses from the circle
of only the latter, John Dominic Crossan’s Cliffs of Fall Paradox and Poly-
valence in the Parables of Jesus (New York: Seabury Press 1980) viii + 120
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 78
human manifestation So, JESUS CHRIST spoke—to His disciples, to us, to all of
→ textual corpus us. He spoke in a living human language, accompanied by
→ doctrine secondary sign-systems as well as gestures of indirect human
→ scholarship speech. His immediate disciples may have handed this on in
the same way. As the sequence of directness was replaced,
after generations, by a textual form, the revelation laid down
in the corpus of the New Testament as the message of JESUS
CHRIST was from now on carried by written language. The
searching mind found parables in this as the quintessence of
the narration of various events.68 In order to grasp and inte-
riorise the message of JESUS CHRIST for himself and to be
able to transmit it to future generations as well, he attempted
to uncover the doctrine supposed behind its exemplarity.
The disciples of disciples all took care of this. And when all
this took a systematic shape as a conceptualised set of pro-
positions logically arranged and mutually related, it
transformed into theology as a human scholarly reconstruc-
tion of the transcendent teaching of JESUS CHRIST. And this
is a sacred field as it does not aim at formulating variable
human experiences but conceptualising the Divine revela-
tion. Yet, as an academic conceptualisation it may scarcely
strive for more than a kind of expression attainable through
human cognition. And since then it is performing its task as
a specific field of scholarship it mediates, influences,
guides—by elevating us above our direct perception and
contemplations.
(example: the English As to the methodological characteristics of learning, legal
law of precedents equivalents to such context-bound situational lessons as the
taken as a store of
cultural patterns) pp. and In ParablesThe Challenge of the Historical Jesus (New York: Harper
& Row 1973), xvi + 141 pp. and, for a background,Tibor Fabiny Szóra bírni
az írást Irodalomkritikai irányok lehetôségei a Biblia értelmezésében
[Getting the text to speak: Potential trends in literary criticism of Biblical
interpretation] (Budapest: Hermeneutikai Kutatóközpont 1994) 102 pp.
[Hermeneutikai füzetek 3], especially point 6, at pp. 53–62.
68
“Parable: from the Greek word ‘parabole’ which translates the
Hebrew ‘mashal’ which means »to be similar, to be comparable«. A parable
is an extended metaphor, or simile, frequently becoming a brief narrative,
generally used in Biblical times for didactic purposes. (Not to be confused
with an allegory.)” The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible in <http://www.
crossmarks.com/parables1/paris1.htm>.
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 79
biblical use of parables are can be primarily sought in the

way cases gathered throughout legal development are
processed in the English law of precedents. For centuries,
law has been made from individual judicial decisions,
forming an immense body of case law. In their part of
deciding upon facts (by qualifying them and ascribing legal
consequences to them), p r e c e d e n t s are treataed as
enactments valid in and of themselves. As the basis of any
culture of judge-made law, they are shaped in view of one
another: each procedure concluding in a decision has
searched for a justifiably equitable answer to a concrete chal-
lenge in a concrete situation, although grounded upon,
within the framework of and in continuation of, the under-
lying social, political, moral and legal cultures of society. For
us as actual actors, and for posterity—and also for the
doctrinal elaboration and systematisation of the aggregate of
individual precedents as messengers of the English legal
culture—it is not the individual case or casual decision that
represents the normative constraints in an ever-emerging
system of law and order. Rather, it is the fact (also inspired
by our own normative presuppositions) that every casual
decision is the m a n i f e s t a t i o n of the spirit of the
underlying culture, running through a long and uninter-
rupted historical process, and therefore reflecting a certain
mentality, thought-pattern and selection of values, taken
both in their individual continuity and global unity. The
moment of ‘truth’, characteristic of the given culture,
surfaces behind and in all of them.This is the truth raised by
PONTIUS PILATE in his dramatic question,69 and which we,
too, must continuously search for, despite not having any
hope that we can find it once and for all through any one
single act.
Once the question of truth is raised, we may be tempted Its truth is inherent in
to think that “truth” is somehow co-extensive with the total our whole culture
set of “teachings”. Accordingly, the Truth is perhaps hidden
somewhere in the Gospel, or more precisely, in the text of
69
“What is truth?” John 18:38.
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 80
the New Testament, in a way similar to how English law is

said to be inherent in the set of precedents.
Both the New The use of precedents presupposes a search through and
Testament and the selection from the mass of precedents in order to find an
system of precedents example apt for our purposes, and also relate it to the situa-
presuppose a tion presented by the case. This can result in a flexible and
relentless search for variable jurisprudence. On the other hand, considering that
truth judge-made law is not the coherent construction of a logical
system built consequently upon principles, rules, and excep-
tions to rules, but rather the chaotic amalgamate of
historically incidental problems with our responses to them
(superimposed on one another and arbitrarily shaped within
the boundaries of judicial discretion), it is not to be expected
that every individual situation will have a precedent that
directly relates to it in an ‘applicable’ way. Otherwise
speaking, the variance and dispersion of conflicts solved by
precedents as well as the way they can or cannot be linked to
new situations calling also for legal response are equally acci-
dental. One thing is sure, notwithstanding, namely that in
our problems we can turn for inspiration only to the set of
patterns at our disposal, exemplified by precedents.
The lesson is Similarly, it is obvious that in historically changing situa-
historically formed tions and cultures, and under given conditions, any two
theologians, priests or believers may interpret JESUS’ teach-
ings—as any two English jurisprudents, judges or politicians
may interpret the aggregate of precedents—in at least
two concurrent ways. One may suggest that when such and
such was the case, JESUS responded this or that, which has
this or that consequence for us in our common tradition.
The other, without denying some common presuppositions,
may contradict him with reference, for instance, to his
own personal experience of and sensibility to the underly-
ing question, or to further ethical or social dimensions
of the case not yet necessarily reflected in the pattern
referred to.70
70
This is one of the reasons—also in the law’s formal cultures—for the
almost necessary emergence of schisms and conceptual polarisations in an
apparent mutual negation (because by raising additional aspects, leading to
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 81
In European history, all spiritual renewals and tensions (example: »return«

connected with ecclesiastic institutionalisation (e.g., heretic as the motive used
movements, the Reformation, and sects) started with the by reform tendencies
objective of ideally r e c o n s t r u c t i n g the original in the Church)
teachings and spirituality of JESUS CHRIST. Both JOHANNES
CALVIN and MARTIN LUTHER initiated only re-interpreta-
tion, with the explicit programme of returning to the
message they drew from reading the New Testament, and of
identifying and restoring layers that they believed to have
been forgotten, damaged or corrupted in time. Let us
consider one of the conceptual clashes (which also had insti-
tutional consequences) between Catholicism and the
Reformist churches: is the task of interpreting the Bible, the
Body of the Law, designated to SAINT PETER, the Teaching
Church, and ultimately to the priests? Or is it addressed
directly to each of us in the community, so we may seek
inspiration therefrom without any mediation whatsoever?
Are there separate classes of those who teach and those who
are taught? Or is the Church simply a Communion of
believers of equal rank? The Reformation, in rejecting the
Catholic ecclesiastic hierarchy, offered a new response to the
dilemma. They professed that the ecclesiastic organisation
has to form a single and undifferentiated unity with no priv-
ileged or superior status accorded to priests than to any
common believer. Consequently, not even the See
bequeathed by JESUS CHRIST to SAINT PETER (and, since his
martyrdom, to the elected bishop of Rome at any given time)
can hold any privilege. For the Bible is destined for every
opposite directions)—as in the case of, e.g., schools in Jewish, Roman, and
modern law, rites in Islamic law, in brief: isms—and their battle for tempo-
rary exclusivity, sometimes ending in their reconciliation of mutually
complementing one another. For their assessment in the perspective of the
law’s ultimate end, see, by the author, ‘Goals and Means in Law’ in <http://
www.thomasinternational.org/projects/step/conferences/20050712budape
st/varga1.htm> & ‘Buts et moyens en droit’ in Giovanni Paolo II Le vie della
giustizia: Itinerari per il terzo millennio (Omaggio dei giuristi a Sua Santità
nel XXV anno di pontificato) a cura di Aldo Loiodice & Massimo Vari
(Roma: Bardi Editore & Libreria Editrice Vaticana 2003), pp. 71–75.
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 82
one, to be read by any one. As it is translated into the

languages of all nations, every individual must read it, and
preferably learn from it as well. Priests are just like the rest
of us. Maybe they are more skilled and learned, therefore we
may give special commissions to them, but still, they cannot
replace us either in reading or in drawing personal conclu-
sions.
Its task is cultural: All this is based on the assumption that no doctrine
making us meditate “derives” from the Bible in a logical sense. For the Bible is
about what meant for something other than drawing deductive conclu-
it suggests us sions. It is meant for a far more elevated and independent
and morally autonomous task, and this is to make us ponder
about its teachings. It is meant to make us m e d i t a t e , to
deliberate on it in solitude or in communion, at home or out
in the field, at night or during the day.We should never stop
meditating about its teachings and about the message we
may feel it s u g g e s t s here and now.
(A scandal generated Let me refer to a major debate at the end of the 19th and the beginning
by RENAN’s of the 20th century. For in the middle of the 19th century ERNEST RENAN
reconstruction of the published his book on the life of JESUS, which he meant to be the first in
Bible) a series dedicated to New Testament topics, aimed at charming a mass
audience.71 In France, in the upheaval caused by the agitation for the
separation of State and Church, he became a leading figure in the anti-
ecclesiastic movement, and this caused understandable indignation.
This happened concomitant to the period of Faith, Reason, and
Unreason,72 when the Catholic Church issued the doctrine of papal
infallibility (1870) and a series of further dogmas. In an anticipated
response, by allegedly returning to undamaged CHRISTian roots revealed
from original sources and inspirations, RENAN was actually contesting
two thousand years of continuity since the Church’s foundation.
71
Ernest Renan Vie de Jésus [1863] (Paris: Nelson & Calmann-Lévy
n.y.) 282 p. [Les collections Nelson]. For want of a more specialised work,
cf., for the evaluation of his work, Richard McClain Chadbourne Ernest
Renan as an Essayist (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press 1957) xxii +
264 p.
72
An expression by Paul Johnson A History of Christianity [1976]
(Harmondsworth: Penguin 1980) [Pelikan Books], part VI.
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 83
As a late continuation of the argument in Hungary, LAJOS SZIMONIDESZ: the

SZIMONIDESZ had a similar theory. In his treatise, full of a New Testament,
Protestant pastor’s reforming intentions at a time when the being inductive, has
outrage caused by RENAN was still alive, he formulated and avoided the trap of
defended inductive theology. He argued that it was high time narration in dogmas
for a re-interpretation, since throughout the centuries
historical Churches might have read the teachings of JESUS
CHRIST with unfounded expectations. For biblical texts can
be read both from dogmatic and non-dogmatic points of
view. Religions also differ from one another in the patterns
of thinking they actually help to promote. He thought the
most unique, naive and individual moment in the history of
CHRISTianity was that of its re-birth exactly through Refor-
mation. This moment of CHRISTianity is nothing but the
embodiment of thoughts and considerations formulated in a
way so as to resist their t r a n s f o r m a t i o n i n t o
d o g m a s .73 This is inherent in the tradition of the New
Testament, for JESUS CHRIST’s testimony of parables
mapped out a path that avoids the trap of narration in
dogmas.74
73
Similarly Hans Weder Metaphor, Parable, HermeneuticsThree Lectures
delivered in Budapest (Budapest: Centre for Hermeneutical Research
[1997]) 60 pp. [Zürich–Budapest Hermeneutical Project 1]: “the transfor-
mation of a parable into theological theory is to be avoided” and in
particular p. 40.
74
Lajos Szimonidesz A világ vallásai [Religions of the world] [Budapest: [inductivity offers
Dante 1928] (Budapest: Könyvértékesítô 1988) 723 pp., especially in para. secure path whilst
II.A.1 at pp. 442–447, concludes (on p. 446) that “The rock on which Jesus deductivity
builds and on which He wants his listeners to build is this inductive method
can only promise
of thinking, deriving directly non-available truths from well observed and
circumspectly gathered data. God has never been seen by anyone. Anyone apparent security]
who does not intend to learn about Him by relying on uncontrollable tradi-
tions, but wants to approach Him through His own thoughts, must follow
the only secure path of deriving them from the facts of how the world is
governed. Jesus followed this path.This method brought Him the recogni-
tion that, as a participant in the new godly revelation, He could present God
from His most true side, presenting God to mankind through getting close
to His heart.The deductive method provides considerably weaker founda-
tions, for as Jewish scribes have also noted in their more sincere moments,
it sometimes hangs mountains on a hair, piling explanations and customs
on a few laws. For everything depends on the point of reference, and
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 84
Σ: The culture Parables are metaphorical expressions, which are

of parables may last (although not by themselves but in their aggregate within a
throughout changing culture) suitable for promoting and developing a culture
times, whilst which is incessantly cared for in tradition, whilst kept alive
thesis is every day and preserved under changing conditions. In
only temporary contrast, theses are vulnerable. A thesis may tend to become
obsolete as it is self-closed, final, finite, and thereby it may
call for questioning, that is, for being re-confirmed or modi-
fied. Or, the metaphorical moment inherent in the parable is
hardly more than a reference, a reminder of what we experi-
enced collectively, in catharsis. Even if extended to or
inculturated in a new medium,75 this does neither affect its
roots nor require its figurative expressions to be re-formu-
lated.
doubting this will cause the whole construction built upon it to collapse. If
the premise is not true, the truths derived from it cannot be true either; if
the godly revelation is not reality, the laws relying on and sanctioned by its
authority are meaningless, too. Deduction, like sand, flows out from under
man’s feet, but the elements of induction are pieces of rock, which properly
put together, stand more securely in and of themselves, than the illusory
rocks of deduction.” Similarly in Lajos Szimonidesz Zsidóság és kereszténység
[Judaism and Christianity] (Budapest: Dante n.y.) 318+ pp. at pp. 86–89.
[nature is solid whilst It should be noticed for the sake of conceptual similarity that in one of
systemicity equals to the revolutionary preliminaries to the French Code civil, CAMBACÉRÈS
(1793) wrote with a similar mistrust towards theoretical constructions:
mere sand]
“After having marched long enough on the ruins, we have to raise the
grand edifice of civil legislation; an edifice simple in its structure yet
majestic in its proportions; simple in its structure yet solid to the extent
that it is based—instead of the sand of systems—on the firm soil of the
laws of nature and on the unbroken soil of the republic.” [„Après avoir
longtemps marché sur des ruines il faut élever le grand édifice de la légis-
lation civile: édifice simple dans sa structure, mais majestueux par ses pro-
portions; grand par sa simplicité même, et d’autant plus solide, que n’é-
tant point bâti sur le sable mouvant des systèmes, il s’élevera sur la terre
ferme des lois de la nature, et sur le sol vierge de la république.”] Cf., P.
A. Fenet Recueil complet des travaux préparatoires au Code civil I (Paris:
Videcoq 1827), p. 2.
75
Cf., e.g., László Boda Inkulturáció, Egyház, Európa Az Evangélium és
a kultúrák átültetése [Inculturation, Church, Europe: Adapting the Gospel,
adapting cultures] (Budapest: Mundecon 1994) 192 pp.
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 85
“In terms of C. H. DODD’s classic definition, a parable is »a metaphor

or simile drawn from nature or common life, arresting the hearer by its
vividness or strangeness, and leaving the mind in sufficient doubt about
its precise application to tease it into active thought.«76 Thus a parable is
always open-ended, inviting our involvement and response, and creating
uncertainty by subverting our conventional ways of thinking and
behaving. It offers a chance to experience the world and ourselves in a
new way.”77
In sum, deductivity tries to arrive, from a starting point Inductivity is open to

available ad libitum at a given time, at an outcome that what is not yet
can, as derived from its premise, still be taken as secure, known;
necessary, and in this respect, also universal. In contrast, deductivity is closing
inductivity as a contemplation starting out from what is only down in what is
signalled, cares for whether or not there are parts integrating already thematised
with one another, whether they constitute a unit together,
whether anything worthy of pondering arises from them,
and what a message this or that will have actually for
mankind.
Narration in parables and development of doctrines out of Logic is additional to
theses are differing channels of communication. They a revelation’s truth
address different audiences and call for different types of
mental processing. Although they may have been intimately
interrelated in the life and teachings of JESUS CHRIST and
may have the same roots in our belief, it is not the inner logic
of a text bequeathed to us but the intention of their author
received by us as divine that their interconnection stems
from.
76
C. H. Dodd The Parables of Kingdom (London: Nisbet & Co. 1935), p.
5 & <http://www.crossmarks.com/parables1/paris2.htm>.
77
Cserháti Márta ‘The Good Samaritan: Parable or Example?’ in The
Bible in Literature and Literature in Bible Proceedings of the Conference
“Teaching »Bible and Literature« at Universities”, ed.Tibor Fabiny (Buda-
pest Centre for Hermeneutical Research & Zürich: Pano Verlag [1995]) 223
pp. on p. 173.
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 86
Convincing through 2.3.1.2. CICERO’s testimony CICERO himself and the rhetoric
being convinced elaborated by him is of standard value for human thought.78
He was both a lawyer and an eloquent orator. His oeuvre is
imbued by the elementary experience of convincing and
being convinced. We are always deeply affected when
listening to the reproductions of his performances or reading
his writings albeit they were meant just not to offer alterna-
tives to thinking. For CICERO’s rhetoric starts in some
direction and convinces his audience by proving its rightness
despite the fact that he actually does nothing but exclude all
other choices or alternative paths by the convincing force of
his rhetoric.When we finally reach the shared conclusion we
feel fully convinced that the conclusion is cogently derived
from his arguments.
with rhetorics and A closer logical analysis reveals however that CICERO’s
repetitions, calling to writings and art of speech are completely void of strict
shared attitudes to life logical conclusion. That is, his manner of construction is
other than that of starting from principles and premises orig-
inated in logical presumptions that would allow further
propositions to be derived therefrom.What he does is rather
reminiscent of the painting-style characteristic of modern
impressionism. He identifies himself with some prevalent
values and builds an atmosphere pertaining to the given
(rhetorical) situation. He articulates certain convictions,
experiences and traditions, a l r e a d y present in the given
78
For CICERO’s ideas, see Neal Wood Cicero’s Social and Political Thought
(Berkeley: University of California Press 1988) xiii + 288 pp., for his
linguistic means, Charles Causeret Études sur la langue de la rhétorique et de
la critique littéraire dans Cicéron (Paris: Hachette 1886) 245 pp.; Louis
Laurand Etudes sur le style des Discours de Cicéron (Paris: Hachette 1907)
xxxix + 388 pp; Marin O. Liscu Etude sur la langue de la philosophie morale
chez Cicéron (Paris: Les Belles Lettres 1930) 308 pp. [Collection d’études
anciennes];V. Paladini ‘-cuceribe retire e iratire’ Ciceroniana II (1960) 1–2,
pp. 15ff; Walter Ralph Johnson Luxuriarace and Economy Cicero and the
Alien Style (Berkeley & London: University of California Press 1971) 72
pp. [University of California: Classical Studies 6]; Harold C. Gotoff Cicero’s
Elegant Style An Analysis of the Pro Archia (Urbana: University of Illinois
Press 1979) xiii + 255 pp.; Carl Joachim Classen Recht, Rhetorik, Politik
Untersuchungen zu Ciceros rhetorischer Strategie (Darmstadt: Wissen-
schaftliche Buchgesellschaft 1985) 390 pp.
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 87
community as common attitudes to life, then he names

them. Free repetition is again reminiscent of impressionism:
common life experience, as well as emotional rhetorical
elements and the arguments built upon them are all made
use of throughout his speeches and writings as many times
and in as many variations as expedient. The repetitions and
other means of conviction all point in one direction. And
only after we have been convinced can we learn that the
entire argumentation served only for the rhetorical,
emotional (etc.) preparation of CICERO’s conclusion, repre-
senting also his own personal and political stand.
What we have in mind here is a shared empathy that committing ourselves
emotionally concludes—according to the measure applied, by other means than
i.e., in every possible way—from everything he said or wrote. the sheer force of
There is only one difference that distinguishes them from logic
ordinary conclusions. Namely that neither the structure, nor
the reasoning, or ways of conviction, are such as to allow
anything logically to derive and be derived from it. On the
contrary, they are such that are capable of r e m i n d i n g
the audience recurrently and variably of the initial condi-
tions he has depicted and, through their self-multiplying
effects, of assisting the audience in being conditioned in the
way also shared by him, and eventually make us c o m m i t
ourselves to common traditions by acknowledging the roots
and foundations of our common existence, namely, consid-
erations and common facts of life to which we have no
alternatives anyway.
2.3.1.3. Saint AUGUSTINE Our next example is Saint AUGUS- Making his train of
TINE (and we will realise when advancing in the thought accepted
chronological order that, methodologically speaking, he is through the
the representative of the pole opposite to that of Saint authenticity of his
THOMAS AQUINAS). It is not by mere chance that his best internal experience:
known work is the Confessiones, a combination of essay,
poetry, and personal confession. Saint AUGUSTINE presents
his ideas in a manner that we classically owe to JEAN-
JACQUES ROUSSEAU, and undertakes to let everything out of
himself by describing, naming and even conceptualising
what is inherent in him (maybe just as a whirl of unidentified
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 88
features and qualities), be it noble or ignoble. Both what he

will have eventually accepted and what he fights again and
again when it arises in him inextirpably. AUGUSTINE exposes
his earthly adventure as an honest revelation in his quality of
a human and, as regards his book, also for the sake of making
himself accepted by the outer world in accordance with his
place taken in it. His personality is equivalent to the entirety
of his thoughts. This is what he intends to reveal to the
outside world79 and his audience of posteriority.80 By doing
so, the personal existence (internal experience, etc.) is
granted ontological significance,81 along with all ontological
consequences of this.
79
On the AUGUSTINian range of ideas and manner of expression, see
Robert Honstetter Exemplum zwischen Rhetorik und Literatur Zur gattungs-
geschichtlichem Sonderaustellung von Valerius Maximus und Augustinus
(Konstanz 1977) 238 pp. [Univ. Diss.] and Tilman Borsche Was etwas ist
Fragen nach der Wahrheit der Bedeutung bei Platon, Augustin, Nikolaus
von Kues und Nietzsche (München: Fink 1990) 336 pp., especially part III;
on his social philosophy, Robert Austin Markus Saeculum History and
Society in the Theology of St. Augustine [1970] (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press 1988), especially at pp. 154–186; on his conception of
language, Karl Kuypers Der Zeichen und Wortbegriff im Denken Augustins
(Amsterdam: Swets & Zeitlinger 1934) 99 pp. and U. Wienbruch
‘»Signum«, »significatio« und »illuminatio« bei Augustin’ in Der Begriff der
Representatio im Mittelalter Stellvertretung, Symbol, Zeichen, Bild, hrsg.
Albert Zimmermann (Berlin & New York: De Gruyter 1971), pp. 76–93;
and on his style, Constantin I. Balmus Étude sur le style de saint Augustin dans
les Confessions et la Cité de Dieu (Paris: Les Belles Lettres 1930) 327 pp. and
Robert J. O’Connell Soundings in St. Augustine’s Imagination (New York:
Fordham University Press 1994) x + 309 pp.
80
[with personal “[A] homogeneous presentation […], whose authenticity is
authenticity] supported by the narrator’s authority, the religious fervour and the minute
accuracy of details”; “its strength lies in the unbroken dramatic vivacity
with pauses increasing the tension and with the artistic combination of
biographical and contemplative elements which sustain the unique
dynamism of the presentation; with being seemingly undivided making the
perspective harmonious.” József Balogh ‘Bevezetés’ [Introduction] in Szent
Ágoston Vallomásai [Confessions] I [reprint of the ed. 1943] (Budapest:
Akadémiai Kiadó & Windsor 1995), pp. xxxv and xxxvii.
81
[by expressing William E. Connelly The Augustinian Imperative A Reflection on the
ontological existence] Politics of Morality (Newbury Park, Ca.: Sage 1993) xxiv + 168 pp.
[Modernity and Political Thought 1] examines the ideas of Saint AUGUS-
TINE in comparison with NIETZSCHE’s views; Luigi Alici Il linguaggio come
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 89
What AUGUSTINE lets us learn is not a line of logical with confession

(con)sequences. It is neither a set of propositions for which trusted
the inference of saying A implies saying B as well is valid, as
the latter proposition is linked to the former by the partial
identity of inclusion, sequence (etc.). Nor is it a kind of
context in which we could ignore even the concrete truth
contents of the derived proposition, because after all it is
sufficient to know that we had sufficient reasons to say A,
and B will necessarily derive from it. For in the realm of
formal logic,82 if one states a truth and does not refute it,
then something else as another statement will in and of itself
also conclude from it. Here, though, we cannot expect
anything of the kind.The truth83 here is not revolved by some
abstract and impersonal necessity of the sequence of propo-
sitions, but we ourselves undertake, out of inner conviction,
s y m p a t h y for and a f f i n i t y to the life and personal
credibility of a man known to have lived a tormented life.
In this context, Saint AUGUSTINE as a historical person- Σ: we believe his
ality is identified with the confession of his own path of life. confessions, since we
His work exemplifies his life, and his life his work. The share his values
segno e come testimonianza Una rilettura di Agostino (Roma: Studium 1976)

208 pp. [La Cultura 10] sees his work as one of the crucial sources of
WITTGENSTEIN’s fundamental recognitions, which “as being a personal-
ontological, that is, inner dimension, [leads] from the semantic structure to
ontological existence” (cover IV).
82
In sharp contrast to the “logic” of everyday life with practical
common sense in the background, where each and every stand taken by us
is situational and, therefore, of an incidental purpose and validity, not
presupposing coherence in a wider context—beyond confidence in and
responsibility for human stands (also situational in practice). As projected
onto one of the main tenets of logic, see, by the author ‘Az ellentmondás
természete’ [The nature of contradiction] [1989] in Útkeresés Kísérletek –
kéziratban [Searching for a path: Unpublished essays] (Budapest: Szent
István Társulat 2001), pp. 138–139 [Jogfilozófiák].
83
“His work is built up with one single move […:] a sphere […], with
each surface point of which being regularly connected to the hidden centre”
without “any linear progress made”, as Servais (Th.) Pinckaers (OP) writes
in his Les sources de la morale chrétienne Sa méthode, son contenu, son
histoire (Fribourg: Éditions Universitaires & Paris: Éditions du Cerf 1993),
ch. ix.
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 90
authorial message becomes an organic part of the story of

the frail human person, that is, of his own intentionally
bequeathed conviction:84 everything he meant to communi-
cate to us results directly from his path of life.The source of
our conviction lies in the fact that we identify with his values
by b e l i e v i n g his confessions.
as we see ourselves Yet, there is a distinctive element in our identification,
in him namely that we are not expected to identify with everything
in a way such that—independently of our intentions, reluc-
tantly subjecting ourselves to some unrelenting logic
transcending the human existence—we too start confessing
them (left with no other choice), but only inasmuch that we
believe he is a trustworthy man with all his virtues and sins.
That is to say, everything we find out from and about him
speaks of the values experienced and suffered by a real
human being. Moreover, it is precisely his path of life that
makes him worthy of our interest and makes his path an
example: behold, thus evolves the life of a man! It is the same
credibility from which our trust derives. Actually, everything
we initially thought to have been derived from the text of
AUGUSTINE’s Confessiones proper does in fact derive from the
complex intertwinement of our faith, trust and hope.
Tradition is something 2.3.1.4.The Talmudic lesson Following our chosen path we can
more than mere arrive at tradition. Searching for original and trustworthy
irrationality embodiments primarily among religions, the Jewish his-
torical tradition and the eastern Byzantine orthodoxy is
84
[As godly creature, MAGDA SZABÓ—‘Az idô doktora: Szent Ágoston’ [The doctor of time:
natural and simple] Saint Augustine] Nagyvilág XXV (1980) 4, pp. 577–590—writes as a
personal confession: “Here stands man, dust in AUGUSTINE’s magic circle,
naked, with God leaning on a more plain, transparent and natural canopy
of heaven than ever, and looks down at him, so self-evidently as the sun
shines and the birds sing; and the dust man just stands there, and everything
he starts, reaches his hand after or actually reaches is just dust, foolishness,
vanity, and hardly any of his steps are firm or sound; but he knows that God
created him to be just like this, He accepted him and loves him just as he is,
and maybe He loves him only because of being like this, because He can love
him like this; well, he still dares to look up at Him to these plain and natural
and heady heights from the magic circle.”
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 91
particularly interesting from our perspective of the method-

ology of thinking. Starting from these grounds we might
even arrive at modern traditions.
Of course, it might also occur that the persistent want for rationalism
would lead to the narrowing down of thinking and emotional capacities
to such an extent that anything which does not fit into the patterns of
conceptual language built upon abstractly defined meanings could be
perceived as the breeding ground of irrationalism. GEORGE LUKÁCS85
also stuffed everything he did not understand, or the involvement with
what he rejected, into the pool of irrationalism, thereby bequeathing a
noble example to those later labellers who were to come out of his
school.
Taken all the above surveyed, we should notice how the Moral force of
way of thinking characteristic of the New Testament debates born from
becomes step by step organised into a system. Well, as is meditation
known, the people portrayed in the New Testament were
doomed to dispersion, launching the Diaspora-epoch in the
life of the Jewish community. Needless to say, their religious
life continued along the path familiar from various parts of
the Bible, thus from the narrations in the Gospels as well.
This meant discussions held inside and outside the temples,
and with time, the wisdom reflected by debates becomes
synthesised into the rabbinical traditions. As we know, the
Jewish community did not have its own independent state or
a central organisation for over two millennia; therefore, the
local rabbis became—nolens volens—the actual leaders and
cementing moral forces of their respective community, and
even the representatives thereof. Interestingly enough, the
role they actually filled in the community was after all not so
much of a priest’s—i.e., of a consecrated personality—, but
rather of the sage’s. They were the scribes and rhetors who
could prove the strongest in debates due to their learned
skills and to their life dedicated to meditation.
85
Georg Lukács Die Zerstörung der Vernunft [The Destruction of
Reason] (Berlin: Aufbau-Verlag 1954) 692 pp. & (Neuwied am Rhein &
Berlin-Spandau: Luchterhand 1962) 757 pp. [Werke 9].
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 92
Searching The most particular about the tradition incorporated by

for ponderable the Talmud is that neither its setting, nor its message can be
considerations, ascribed simply to a book of laws, or some collection of
instead of precedents.86 The result is specific in that it cannot prove
logical derivation formal or formalisable because it does not even bear actual
decisions. Instead, what it rather includes is philosophies
and argumentations, which mostly cannot even be
conceived of as genuinely legal in character. Loose interrela-
tions, highly scattered references, perhaps not even
understandable at first glance. What we are expected is just
to reflect on ponderable aspects: what it meant by what,
what it wanted to influence in what direction, if at all. And
one begins to guess only after having taken everything into
account what its loose reference may have been related to: a
point of view, a comparable situation, or, on the contrary, a
frightening counterpoint. What can be unravelled from it
appears to a reader brought up in a different culture some-
what like a collection of the Jewish sagesse, or rather some
particular versions of the narratives known from the New
Testament: the p a r a b l e s . As to its essence, it is nothing
other than the recollection of certain situations, their
comparison with other situations, their individual and
comparative evaluation, and, finally, their re-confirmation—
as contrasted with freshly recalled control-situations.
86
[the will of God “The source of the Law and of its authority is the will of God as
contrasted to a expressed in Scripture. From the standpoint of rabbinism there is no code,
and none can exist, which can supersede the Torah.” Louis Ginzberg ‘The
liveable life]
Codification of Jewish Law’ in his On Jewish Law and Lore Essays (Phila-
delphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America 1955) 262 pp. on p.
183.The dilemma of law is exactly how to still arrive from such a fixed and
unchanged manifestation of will at a practical solution that in addition to
implementing the divine intention, would also allow a liveable life. Cf., e.g.,
D[avid] Daube ‘Texts and Interpretation in Roman and Jewish Law’ Jewish
Journal of Sociology 3 (1961) 1, pp. 3–28. As to the practical modification of
the unchangeable commandment, see Haim H. Cohn ‘The Lesson of
Jewish Law for Legal Change’ and Norman Solomon ‘Extensive and
Restrictive Interpretation’ in Jewish Law and Current Legal Problems ed.
Nahum Rakover (Jerusalem: The Library of Jewish Law 1984), pp. 15–28,
resp. 37–45.
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 93
A text such as the above may support and guide our Availability of some
thinking inasmuch as it helps us clarify that if we give this or choice among values,
that evaluation of a given situation, which arguments with pondering
c o u l d be wielded for and against it. And we can also arguments
observe the faint outlines of a value-choice in the back- for/against it
ground. By this we unavoidably come closer to the
realisation that, after all, we should rather make a decision in
a certain initially given direction, and if we eventually make
this decision, what arguments could support our choice.
Looking for any kind of systemicity in the textual embod- As tradition and life
iments or summary of such and similar traditions would be lived through, alien to
in vain. In terms of any logical standard, neither of the ‘cases’ any systemicity
refer to others; and neither of the ‘situations’ compare to
others. The components are not even as organised as—
bringing a distant example—the various types of Hungarian
folk tales,87 or as BÉLA BARTÓK and ZOLTÁN KODÁLY could
be in possession of an established thesaurus of Hungarian
folk songs to be able to start their systematisation. Returning
to the Talmudic example, in such textual environment it is
simply not conceivable for anybody to start a reasonable
systematisation, if any kind of systematisation is imaginable
at all. For the idea of systematisation itself would amount to
denaturalising the underlying tradition. Even the mere fact
of formulating the idea of system in relation to this tradition
is alien to its underlying nature.88 As soon as systematisation
is started, tradition would immediately be deprived of
precisely its most distinct character and bloom. By denatu-
ralising it we would peel off everything that makes it
traditional, thus the way situations follow one another in
real life.
87
Cf. János Berze Nagy Magyar népmesetípusok [Hungarian folk tale
types] I–II (Pécs: Baranya Megye Tanácsa 1957).
88
“It is precisely the wealth of contradictions, of differing views, which
is encompassed and unqualifiedly affirmed by tradition.” Gershom
Scholem ‘Revelation and Tradition as Religious Categories in Judaism’ in
his Messianic Idea in Judaism & Other Essays in Jewish Spirituality (London:
Allen & Unwin 1971), pp. 282ff.
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 94
Talmud as A scribe may be right when noting that in its practice of interpretation
rabbinical tradition: there are numerous Talmuds—their number supposedly corresponds to
the number of rabbinical communities displaying historically indepen-
dent features. Over the centuries, these communities could have
organised into a loose hierarchy at the most in lack of a central organisa-
tion. Behind the loose network of the Jewish community in the Diaspora
often stood the bare fact that where there was a rabbi with a stronger
personality, his life, fame and professing power induced a spontaneous
hierarchisation.Whereas, according to their corpus, we can distinguish as
many Talmudic traditions as we inherited. Among these a number stand
out by their value radiating a universal example, and this is most natu-
rally so.We just ought to remember that rabbis often conferred with each
other, and for most of their lives they did nothing but read, contemplate
and debate. They were also able to learn from one another, and their
most outstanding teachings grew to be known.
There was a political power very influential up to the nearest past (and
we ought to understand that it still may have a lot of surprises for the
future in the actual role it fills), which provided political support through
its own force for the desire of the historical community of orthodox Jews:
the law of the State of Israel (or at least some of its layers) to become the
embodiment, and to survive as a branch-off, of this classical tradition.89
It is an open question, however, whether the law of a modern state—with
its relevant aspects secularised—could be organised from a deeply reli-
gious tradition crystallised in various historical eras and under different
conditions. This was questionable already several decades ago and it
remained to be so.The arguments may have changed with time, but the
dilemma is mostly still the same.90
89
This has already occurred in some areas of family law, in matrimonial
law, and, moreover, in their judicial assessment as well. Chaim I. Goldwater
‘Religious Tribunals with a Dual Capacity’ Israel Law Review 12 (1977) 1,
pp. 114–119. Cf. also Guido Tedeschi ‘On the Choice between Religious
and Secular Law in the Legal System of Israel’ in his Studies in Israel Law
(Jerusalem:The Hebrew University Students’ Press 1960), pp. 238–288.
90
Cf., by the author, Codification..., p. 202, note 64 as well as Jogi
elméletek, jogi kultúrák Kritikák, ismertetések a jogfilozófia és az összehason-
lító jog körébôl [Theories of law, legal cultures: critical essays and reviews
in legal philosophy and comparative law] (Budapest: ELTE “Comparative
Legal Cultures” Project 1994), pp. 448–450 [Jogfilozófiák].
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 95
At the same time, the Jewish people recognise the can it be codified?
rabbinical legal tradition truly as their own. So far, they have
firmly resisted even the mere idea of its systematisation.
They know that the sacred t r a d i t i o n lies exactly in
such apparently chaotic and incidental juxtaposition:
namely, tradition itself stands behind the way and into what
all of this has evolved.Thus, the question justifiably arises (as
it has arisen in English law as well): is it conceivable and
feasible at all to credibly codify this tradition into a law
(book)—as it happened with the English and American
laws? Should we just recall that in the continental legal
development of Europe the recording, compilation and
finally the re-enactment (as new and independent laws)
served for the basic systematisation of the normative legal
material, whereas in case of the Anglo–American legal devel-
opment this job was performed by textbook-writing, that is,
an attempt to systematically expound the legal material in
the form of a ‘textbook’.91
Again, the source and medium of Jewish law is the tradi- It can only remain a
tion within which it has ever developed. Each of the tradition until it is not
components is part of this tradition in its very given form given a new message
and no other, even if appearing to be c h a o t i c , and can through
remain the original part of tradition only as long as it keeps systematisation
its originally given form.Why is this so? Well, because in the
moment when it ceases to be the same as it has originally
been—that is, in the moment when its historically evolved
random casuality is transcended by some re-enacted
systemicity resulting in a new quality92—, then e x t r a
message would necessarily be added to the corpus (and,
thereby, also to tradition): something that has never been an
inherent part of it. For we know that nothing can be sys-
tematised in one single and exclusive way. In terms of logic,
91
Cf., by the author, Codification..., ch. III, para. 3–4, on the one hand,
and pp. 164 and 325, on the other.
92
Maimonides Mishneh Torah. Cf., e.g., The Jewish Law Annual I (1978),
pp. 1–176.
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 96
the number of equally conceivable and feasible systematisa-

tions is infinite. In consequence, by the fact of embodying
tradition (through transforming and thereby also rigidifying
it into certain—and not other—notions through re-positing
it in a conceptualised way) as classified and organised into
notional sets, we also acknowledge that we have already
imposed our own points of view—external, conceptual, and
logical, i.e., all bound to our own culture—upon it.
Classification The rabbinical tradition—together with the sum of
would destroy inherent examples, arguments and paradoxes—can
openness continue to prevail, expand and make itself liveable,
providing—its chaotic nature notwithstanding—for its
renewal guided by its own spirituality, embodied in and
actualised by newer and newer decisions, in the same way
that we could learn from the example of English law. On the
other hand, in case we systematised tradition into a set of
codified concepts—although, for obvious reasons, when
searching for the ratio decidendi, in each case we can start
looking for a point of reference and launch the analogical
reasoning only at some given notion—, we would be practi-
cally bound all the way through by the conceptual
c l a s s i f i c a t i o n we initially adopted when processing
tradition through its conceptualising systematisation. In the
same way—and this is a recurrent experience of all acts of
legal transplantation—, if we implant a codified set of
concepts into a community with different conceptual tradi-
tions, this will necessarily generate a (somewhat) different
and independent jurisprudence, in any case of a deforming
effect on the original environment.The bare fact of system-
atisation somehow precodifies those future situations of
which this or that conceptually systematised normative solu-
tion can be the case—thereby d e l i m i t i n g our
problem-sensitivity from the very beginning to this or that
previously codified field. Yet, in principle, each locus
expressed by diverse linguistic means so much as each
concept bears infinite possibilities and potentialities of
connection, and by far no systematisation can comprehend
them exhaustively simply because of technical limitations.
So, if the systematisation introduces a different (conceptual)
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 97
tradition, there are serious chances that the tradition will at

last prove stronger and break through systemic boundaries.93
2.3.1.5. Orthodox CHRIStianity According to its theology, Dramatic uniqueness

Orthodox CHRISTianity—as to its literary manifestations,94 of life situations at
may we think either of DOSTOEVSKY (his horrific torments DOSTOEVSKY and
of conscience)95 or TOLSTOY (his spiritual struggles)96 TOLSTOY:
93
However objective it may seem, t a x o n o m y —the systematisation [taxonomy
of either real entities (e.g., elements, minerals, flora and fauna) or does not find but
traditions, human behavioural forms and ideas—always means a creative creates its subjects]
systematisation. Actually, it does not “find” its subjects but “creates”
them—according to interests, conventions and cognitive traditions,
external to the subject itself. Cf., e.g., John Dean ‘Controversy over
Classification: A Case Study from the History of Botany’ in Natural Order
Historical Studies of Scientific Culture, ed. Barry Barnes & Steven Shapin
(Beverly Hills, Ca. & London: Sage 1979), pp. 211–230 [Sage Focus] espe-
cially at pp. 212 and 226, and, by the author, ‘Theatrum legale mundi avagy
a jogrendszerek osztályozása [On the classification of legal systems]’ in Ius
unum, lex multiplex Liber Amicorum: Studia Z. Péteri dedicata (Studies in
Comparative Law, Theory of State and Legal Philosophy) ed. István H.
Szilágyi & Máté Paksy (Budapest: Szent István Társulat 2005), pp. 219–244
[Jogfilozófiák / Philosophiae Iuris // Bibliotheca Iuridica: Libri amicorum
13]. It is to be noted that at the beginning the projection of statuses defined
by social dependence and life conditions served for the formulation of
logical relations, especially of hierarchy and various sub- and co-ordinative
relations. Cf. Emile Durkheim & Marcel Mauss Primitive Classification
[1903] trans. Rodney Needham (London: Cohen & West 1963) xlviii + 96
pp. and in particular at pp. 82–84.
94
For a sensitive treatment from our perspective, see George Steiner
Tolstoy or Dostoevsky An Essay in Contrast (London: Faber and Faber 1959)
355 + xiv pp. and especially Lev Shestov Dostoevsky, Tolstoy and Nietzsche
introd. Bernard Martin, trans. S. Roberts (Athens, Ga.: Ohio University
Press 1969) xxx + 322 pp.
95
On DOSTOEVSKY’s underlying social philosophy, see Jean Dronilly La
pensée politique et réligieuse de F. M. Dostoievski (Paris: Librairie des cinq
continents 1971) 501 pp. [Etudes russes 2] and Stephen K. Carter The
Political and Social Thought of F. M. Dostoevsky (New York, etc.: Garland
1991) 300 pp. [Political Theory and Political Philosophy]; for his circle of
ideas, ?hbq Uhbujhtdbx Relhzdwtd [Yuri G. Kud’ravtsev] Nhb Rheuf
Ljcnjtdcrjuj Cj,snbqyjt> Cjwbfkmyjt> Abkjcjacrjt [Dostoevsky’s three
circles: Mental, social, and philosophical] (Vjcrdf% Bpl-dj VUE 1979) 342
pp.; on his criticism of the Western life-ideal and on his detachment from
the Western way of thinking, Bruce K.Ward Dostoyevsky’s Critique of theWest
The Quest for the Earthly Paradise (Waterloo, Ont.: Laurier University
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 98
equally—displays a CHRIST and His setting as wrapped into

some sort of Slavic features. Taken its best known forms of
expression, what happens here is not the logical treatment
or reconsideration of some eternal truth or axiomatic
principle—its conceptual analysis and logical breaking
down—but the continuously recurrent re-asking of an ulti-
mate question, the question of questions: what can I, a
hopelessly self-reliant and unique being, do under condi-
tions which always are hopelessly u n i q u e , since not
showing resemblance to anything else? And if I have eventu-
ally killed a man, can I possibly forgive myself? With such
expectations given, the intensity of the drama is afforded by
the conscious uniqueness of situations and players.
their unreparability Our most evident example might be DOSTOEVSKY.97 The
cannot be expressed situation itself, as always given, is irresolvable98—and first
conceptually
Press 1986) xiv + 202 pp., Barbara Wett »Neuer Mensch« und »Goldene
Mittelmässigkeit« F. M. Dostoevskijs Kritik am rationalische-utopistischen
Menschenbild (München: Sagner 1986) 238 pp. [Slavistische Beiträge
194], Ina Fuchs »Homo apostate«, die Entfremdung des Menschen Philosophi-
sche Analysen zur Geistmetaphysik F. M. Dostoevskijs (München 1987)
800 pp. [Hochschule für Philosophie Diss.], Wayne Dowler Dostoevsky,
Grigor’ev, and the Native Soil Conservatism (Toronto & London: University
of Toronto Press 1982) 235 pp.; on his two excluding but still complemen-
tary ways of elaborating contradictory reality, Geoffrey C. Kabat Ideology
and Imagination The Image of Society in Dostoevsky (New York Guildford:
Columbia University Press 1978) xiii + 201 pp.
96
On TOLSTOY, see Richard F. Gustafson Leo Tolstoy Resident and
Stranger: A Study in Fiction and Theology (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton
University Press 1986) xvi + 480 pp. [Sources and Translations Series of the
Harriman Institute, Columbia University], especially ch. V: »The Ways to
Know«, pp. 217ff; Jörg Thaeter Die Beziehung des Individuums Zur Un-
begrenztheit und zur Gemeinschaft: L. N. Tolstoj als »Seher des Geistes«”
(Kiel 1988) 244 pp. [Univ. Diss.], as well as Laura Jepsen From Achilles to
Christ The Myth of the Hero in Tolstoy’s War and Peace (Tallahasse, Florida
1978) xii + 179 pp.
97
For example, “Every statement made is not only in anticipation of
another’s reply, but of self-contradiction, all of which leads to a highly
ambiguous sentence structure and a peculiar style and tone.” Irina Kirk
Dostojevskij and Camus The Themes of Consciousness, Isolation, Freedom
and Love (München: Fink 1974), p. iii. On his command of language, see
Malcolm V. Jones Dostoyevsky after Bakhtin Reading in Dostoyevsky’s
Fantastic Realism (Cambridge, etc.: Cambridge University Press 1990)
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 99
and foremost because DOSTOEVSKY himself does not

consider it resolvable, perhaps with one exception: his
person.Yet, he (and this special emphasis contributes also to
DOSTOEVSKY’s prominence) is more pretentious than to try
to solve only in normatively general terms the shocking
problem, which an absolutely unique (thus neither concep-
tually delimitable, nor unambiguously solvable) situation
represents in a given moral world order. As if he suggested
that no approach would be conceivable without the
concomitant exclusion of other approaches, although, in
principle, these other approaches might be similarly possible
as well on the level of the individual case.
2.3.1.6. Modern “irrationalism” By examining an almost “Essayism”

contemporary tradition we can arrive at what we could call,
in absence of a more suitable name, essayism. From our
perspective, not so much the genre which eventually bears
the contents is of particular interest, but rather the under-
lying thought.Within the European culture prevalent at the
end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, it was
NIETZSCHE who expressed it in the most clear form. In the
Hungarian thinking tradition, BÉLA HAMVAS and NÁNDOR
VÁRKONYI, two somewhat great but secluded minds,
were the ones who revived and followed this tradition, not
necessarily in response to NIETZSCHE, but rather as a recon-
sideration of the respective roles played by wisdom and
knowledge in the development of human civilisation.
xvii + 221 pp., especially at pp. 145 [on »Catharsis«] and 193–199 [on
»Authority, Mystery and Miracle in Human Discourse«].
98
ISTVÁN BENEDEK—‘Dosztojevszkij lelkivilága’ [Dostoevsky’s inner
world] ValóságVII (1964) 4, pp. 32–46—explains (on p. 40) the self-closure
of the situation as a paranoid self-description: “the autistic ideal of freedom,
which Raskolnikov attempts to fulfil, the pathologic freedom-ideal charac-
teristic of the schizophrenic […], is a distorted and false freedom as it relies
on the rejection of community.”
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 100
NIETZSCHE’s stubborn NIETZSCHE’s thoughts99 caused controversy all through

denying of the his life owing to the fact that he always argued against the
time-spirit: prevailing tradition which others considered to be the exclu-
sive. Although he expressed his thoughts in an entirely lyrical
form, he seemed to have said foolish and irrational things,
moreover, on subjects and in a manner that others may have
rightly sensed as annoying or eccentric, exactly because
denying so rigidly, vehemently, evidently, convincingly and
definitively100 the true nature of everything any reasonable
person could justifiably state at the fin-de-siècle under the
pressure of the proper time-spirit.
it is our intentions This may also contribute to understanding why NIET-
standing behind our ZSCHE has become an incredibly provocative and timely
language-use author in the eye of today’s methodology of sciences,
assuming the logical reconstruction of contemporary philo-
sophy of science and cognition. It rather seems that it is some
primitive and rudimentary truths in the propositions
disguised into typical NIETZSCHEian negations (and coded
in his particular language) that are of such fundamental
value to today’s cognitive sciences. In his book Willen zur
Macht, he gave voice to the conviction that, in ultimate
analysis, no symbol has a definite meaning, as “No path
199
For a survey of NIETZSCHE’s social world-view, see Keith Ansell-
Pearson Nietzsche contra Rousseau A Study of Nietzsche’s Moral and
Political Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1991) xvii +
284 pp.
100
[cult of formlessness] According to József Révay’s sensitive formulation—‘Immoralizmus
(Nietzsche születésének 100. évfordulójára)’ [Immoralism (To the 100th
anniversary of Nietzsche’s birth)] Athenaeum [Budapest] XXXI–XXXII
(1946), p. 21—, “NIETZSCHE always felt repugnant to closed, definite,
complete or rounded ideals [...]; openness, incompleteness and »not-yet-
fulfilledness«, we might say formlessness, have a primary role in
experiencing the »Sollen«.This formlessness, openness or restlessness, as the
potentiality and command of development, is the most conspicuous aspect
of »Sollen«, that is, of morals.This causes morals to drive us eternally, urging
without momentary rest, and responds to why morals is a constant state of
alert and tension. This tension cannot be resolved durably by any kind of
performance or achievement […]; the realisation or »resolution« of morals
would eliminate the Sollen itself, thereby putting an end to morals.”
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 101
leads from the concept into the essence of the things”.101 Or,
from another approach, our tradition, life experiences and
prejudices are the exclusive ones to give meanings—but only
for what they so intend.102 As is known, the nature of tradi-
tion lies in that each generation selects what it will adopt for
itself from the legacy of past generations, that is, what it
intends to use from the past in the interest of achieving its
goals, and how will it do so. It is the mask of our human
i n t e n t i o n s and practical commitments that after all
hides behind the appearance provided by the conceptually
neutral mediation achieved through language103—similarly
to how the mere projections of our emotions, realisations or
intentions may lurk behind our thought patterns, often
following scientific ideals.104
101
„Aus dem Begriff führt kein Weg in das Wesen der Dinge.” Nietzsches
Werke IX, hrsg. Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche & al., 2. Auflage (Leipzig: C. G.
Naumann 1901–1913), p. 264.
102
„Das Kriterium der Wahrheit liegt in der Steigerung des M a c h t - [the futility of
g e f ü h l s.” Friedrich Nietzsche Werke in drei Bänden, hrsg. Karl concepts]
Schlechta, III (München: Hanser 1956), p. 919. Cf. also Gisela Lück Niet- [truth in function of
zsches Kritik der Erkenntnis als Verfestigung Untersuchung zu Nietzsches
the feeling of power]
Analyse von Philosophie, Sprache und Historie (Köln 1985) iii + 232 pp.
[Univ. Diss.], especially ch. I/5, p. 108: “die vollstandige Destruktion der
überkommenen Wahrheitbegriffs, die den Platz und Perspektivismus
räumt, den gerade NIETZSCHE vertritt, wenn es das subjektive Machtgefühl
als Wahrheitskriterium einführt.”
103
According to NIETZSCHE, notions have only one role to fulfil in [use of concepts
language. That is the mediation between other fictions and metaphors. equals to act]
Since no correspondence theories of truth had any convincing force to him,
he did not ascribe any descriptive or reflective role to language. “NIETZSCHE
[…] attempts to provide us with a means, a tool, with which we may take an
a c t i v e and creative part in structuring that reality which is of concern to
us. To do this he must maximize the plasticity, fluidity, and, of course, the
ambiguity of his own language and use his termini not as concepts […] but
as s i g n s and m e t a p h o r s , which can have a multitude of meanings.”
Ruediger Hermann Grimm Nietzsche’s Theory of Knowledge (Berlin & New
York: de Gruyter 1977) xii + 206 pp. [Monographien und Texte zur Niet-
zsche-Forschung 4], quote on p. 123. For the additional philosophical
evaluation of metaphors, cf. Philosophical Perspectives on Metaphor ed. Mark
Johnson (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press 1981) xiii + 361 pp.
104
Cf. also Josef Simon ‘Language and the Critique of Language in
Nietzsche’ and James C. O’Flaherty ‘The Intuitive Mode of Reason in
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 102
(nihil, but not At this point we may confess that all this stands for the undertaking of
irrationalism) some sort of nihilism—yet, by far not of the kind that was once accused
to be. It is especially bizarre to recall the spectacular way GEORGE
LUKÁCS turned away from NIETZSCHE, crying heresy. This was a little
man’s fear from irrationalism, a man’s whose identity was shaken, and
who later sought refuge in Bolshevism. As to the after-effects of
LUKÁCS’s response, it could not only result in declaring irrationalism the
source of all evil and in trying to eliminate it from his own world with
some professorial exorcism, but it could also take shape in that when he
was unable to interpret something rationally (because of being panicky,
or perhaps due to his hysterical escape, magnified by an internal alien-
ation, he might have seen the only touchpoints in the rational), he
immediately qualified it irrational—deceiving even himself, since acting
as if he was able thereby to characterise genuinely the complex and
contradictory feel for world shared by many of his contemporaries.
(not a conceptual As we may know from the literature on GEORGE LUKÁCS, but from his
expression) own manifestations as well, due to his aggressively constructed intellec-
tualism and self-confident conceptualism, he never gained enough
modesty, self-knowledge and self-control to realise (or at least to learn
from the few friends he may have kept from his youth) that his sense for
quality was a rather limited phenomenon; his responsiveness towards
modern art was next to negligible; he remained almost insensitive to the
natural limits of cognition; and moreover, he did not have the ear for
non-conceptual expressions in general and for the domains of the senso-
rial, emotional and subconscious, in particular.
(not according to the It is even less justifiable or defensible that LUKÁCS, in his panic-
ideal of science stricken run from the brown barbarianism (Nazism), not only ran into
either) the arms of the red barbarianism (Bolshevism) but he was not capable of
retiring in this other extreme either, maybe learn silence and calm down
within Moscow’s special Bolshevik imperial HEGELianism to resist the
temptation calling him to renew his own messianic expectations and
Zarathustra’ in Studies in Nietzsche and the Judaeo-Christian Tradition ed. C.

O’Flaherty,Timothy F. Sellner & Robert M. Helm (Chapel Hill & London:
The University of North Carolina Press 1985), pp. 252–273 and 274–294,
respectively; in a more general sense, also Maudemarie Clark Nietzsche on
Truth and Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1990) xiv +
298 pp., particularly ch. 3, para. 2: »Language as Metaphor«, pp. 69–77
[Modern European Philosophy] as well as Peter Poellner Nietzsche and
Metaphysics (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1995) xi + 320 pp. [Oxford
Philosophical Monographs].
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 103
ventures and try out the role of a magician’s in the philosophy of history,
the role of the great teacher and explainer. Returning to the debate of the
turn of the century, we seem to grow more confident in our conviction
that it was by no means NIETZSCHE’s thoughts that were irrational, but
rather certain kinds of interpretation of them, namely, the half-blind
intellectual behaviour which attempted to push the thought back into
non-existence and damnation just because it deviated from the usual,
with the childish gesture of crying out Este procul Satanas!, as common
with MANIcheans. LUKÁCS neglected the fact (and in his The Destruction
of Reason he seemed to try to construe some peculiar substitute for virtue
from his one-sided approach) that science is one of the ways of
processing human cognition—namely, the way eventually characterised
by the logical ideal of axiomatism. Being unreceptive to anything
different from his own approach, he was simply unable to even consider
the kind of thinking inherent in NIETZSCHE’s work.
Neither could he identify with the kind of mentality that

made BÉLA HAMVAS great and unique.
HAMVAS’s way of thinking105 is not anything reducible to a HAMVAS: cognition is
simple logical formula. He is not from a world in which if not promoted by mere
one states A, a different B, concluding from or negating it, dichotomisation
can also be stated. He did not walk into the dead-end which,
according to his deep conviction, has already destroyed
European civilisation at its early germs. In his works, compa-
rable to some poetic vers libres, he depicts his intellectual
experience with essayistic tools, while realising and making
us realise how unusual his views on the world are. For
HAMVAS the established thinking culture of the entire
human race must be degenerated inasmuch as it is content
with an intellectual performance exhausted in the dicho-
105
Cf., e.g., for few translations, Béla Hamvas Silentium Essays, hrsg.
Gerhard Wehr, trans. Jörg Buschmann ([Hannover]: M 1999) 126 pp.,
Kierkegaard in Sizilien Essays, trans. Ákos Doma (Berlin: Matthes & Seitz
2006) 276 pp. and Die Melancholie der Spätwerke trans. Ákos Doma (Berlin:
Matthes & Seitz 2008) 61 pp., as well as Bela Hamvas Odabrana dela I–III
(Beograd: Centar 1994), <tkf {fvdfi Scientia sacra !Cdzotyyjt pyfyyt@
gth. ?. Uectd !Vjcrdf% Nhb rdflhfnf 2004@ 363 pp. [Bibliotheca Hun-
garica] and Bela Hamvaš & Katalin Kemeň Svet slike – slika sveta Apstrakcija
in nadrealizam u Mad-arskoj, prev. Sava Babić (Beograd: Dereta 2001) 261
pp. [Biblioteka Kontinent Hamvaš Kolo 1].
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 104
tomisation of stating either A or non-A (as its counterpart in

a logical negation, or the negation of negation, or synthesis
in the HEGELian sense). The world in HAMVAS’s eye is an
integral whole: a t o t a l i t y which humans approach
through all their senses including intuitive contemplation
and emotions—and by no means exclusively through a
hollow and dry conceptual intellectualism. He thinks that
we have long lost the bloom and humbleness in the human
approach to the world—perhaps already with THALES, at the
beginnings of Greek philosophy.
CAUDWELL: 2.3.1.7. Beyond conceptual strait-jackets Now let us consider

two further thinking traditions of the 20th century, which
may also seem particularly pioneering—although from a
different methodological perspective.
The first to be mentioned is CHRISTOPHER CAUDWELL, a
thinker of exceptional talent and productivity, who passed
away tragically early. Having been of a leftist belief, he took part
in the Spanish republican battles, fought for the Soviet Union,
and, his young age notwithstanding, died as a multiple inventor
in the field of aeronautics and as a philosophical talent that
remained a promise. His immensely thrilling treatise, pub-
lished under the title Illusion and Reality, testifies that although
he was an ardent developer of theoretical MARXism, he still
preserved the poet and utopianistic dreamer in him. Aspects
that seemed irrational to others following the traditional
MARXist manner of discourse could become relevant in his
scholarly treatment amidst the upheavals of the 1930s. Never-
theless, his considerations were regarded as heresies in the
England of the last years of peace before the SecondWorldWar,
when his work was first published—already posthumous—,
and neither were any followers born three decades later in
Hungary when the translation was published.106
106
Christopher Caudwell Illusion and Reality A Study of the Sources of
Poetry [reprint of the new ed. 1946] (London: Lawrence & Wishart 1966)
342 pp. For a critical overview, cf. H. Gustav Klaus Caudwell im Kontext Zu
einigen representativen Literaturformen der dreissiger Jahre (Frankfurt am
Main: Lang 1978) 301 pp. [Europäische Hochschulschriften 14: Angel-
sachsische Sprache und Literatur 65].
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 105
According to CAUDWELL’s crucial realisation, poetry as poetry as cognition

well as other (non-theoretical) forms of linguistic expression
may be of equal value to cognition in the intellectual appro-
priation of the world. Otherwise, the human intellect does
not usually appropriate the world in a way as to which at a
given moment it, so to say, starts “cognising”, and from then
on it does nothing but “cognise”. A scholars’ life (and espe-
cially the everyday life) is neither about, so to say, to be
scholarly (that is, following scientific model-values) occu-
pied with or committed to the so-called reality. Be it that one
composes—thus, writes one’s own human (so, among other
capacities, also intellectual) encounters with reality in forms
of poems, short stories, novels, confessions or utopias—or
be it that one uses words according to canons other than
those paradigmatically accepted in scholarship—e.g., with
the loose ambiguity of everyday speech, up to the concrete-
ness of indication, or with the application of the individual
language of personal confession—, in either case it will
surely differ from the conceptual language required by the
strict axiomatic ideal. The subject will still remain the same
in both cases: the human being’s encounter with the outside
world. CAUDWELL was a rigid LENINist in that he confessed
that there exists an objective reality which is independent
from our consciousness, and this is reflected by linguistic
propositions composed in accordance with conceptual
logic. Nevertheless, he was aware of the fact that reality
presented and represented by poetic forms is the same
reality as anything else.
It may be relevant here to recall that LUKÁCS fought with the same (LUKÁCS’ realism:
problem throughout his entire life, and he constructed his theory of the literary prose taken
so-called greater realism in the spirit of it. For LUKÁCS it was still theory as the reflection of
which filled the role of pattern and measure, and he constructed his ideas reality)
on the intellectual appropriation of the world (called cognition)107 to the
analogy of science, rigidly staying within the boundaries of paradigms
and criteria set by scholarship. LUKÁCS had no other options but to iden-
107
E.g., Georg Lukács Die Eigenart des Ästethischen I. Halbband
(Neuwied am Rhein & Berlin-Spandau: Luchterhand 1963), ch. II.
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 106
tify everything he could not fit into this epistemological bed of

Procrustes artificially constructed upon the basis of conceptual
constructs, be they conventional or merely arbitrary, with irrationalism.
Moreover, he even arrived at identifying this irrationalism with what
DIMITROV of the Communism Internationale108 labelled as the Soviet
doctrine’s Fascism—with a gesture of some sort of self-destructive,
ironic irrationalism. Driven by his desire for rationalism and literary
realism, he even raised the works, for instance, of ZOLA, BALZAC and
WALTER SCOTT to the status of universal types and literary patterns.
However, he used such criteria (alien to artistic expression and void of
any deeply humane message) and arrived at such borderline areas that
we can hardly tell at this point now whether he was truly able to appre-
ciate the genuine literature, that is, the literary wonder, especially the
catharsis in them, at all. As to fine arts, we actually learned from his old
friends that LUKÁCS was the least susceptible to the acceptance of beauty
as such, with no involvement of personal interests or theoretical specu-
lations. Perhaps for these reasons, anything that might have been entirely
irrelevant or unnoticeable to others could become a criterion in his theo-
rising inasmuch as they happened to match his theoretically construed
questions, or his theory of realism, as the case may be. When theorising
about them, he might have even declared the aforementioned authors
the peaks of absolute and universal literary accomplishment at an ideal
level—in a hierarchy of accomplishments established by him, a kind of a
canon he theoretically constructed, in which LUKÁCS defined literature
as the particular (if not segmented or rudimentary) way of “cognition”,
and therefore allowed science in the narrow sense to prevail as its sole
(albeit ultimate) ideal.
even if elaborated Nevertheless, CAUDWELL, as the witness of the fermenting

through other ways times after the Great War, suspected that poetry cannot be
than scientific interpreted according to the usual patterns of scientific epis-
propositions temology. For a poem is not meant to be elaborated in the
same way as scientific propositions and theses are analysed.
A poem is not to be understood, and its meaning is not to be
construed, in the same way one unfolds the message of a
scientific thesis and processes its lessons—having in mind
the scholarly expectation that the procedure will offer some
108
Cf. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgi_Dimitrov>.
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 107
new realisations within the prevalent system of paradigms

and allow us to learn more about reality and its scientific
reflection.
The other thinking tradition is related to SUSANNE LANGER: speech as
LANGER. She represented a German emigration at Harvard personal revelation
between the two world wars. She was a pupil of neo- about the world
KANTians, and especially of ERNST CASSIRER who sought
refuge there from Nazism. First she became his pupil, then
his translator. Her own work, published under the title
Philosophy in a New Key, besides having undertaken a
popular summation, was aimed at laying the theoretical
foundations of philosophy of arts, at the same time offering
also an epistemological and semiotical-semantical synthesis
which bore CASSIRER’s impact on it.109 According to her
starting point, our speech and our spoken language are
basically no other than our personal manifestation, i.e.,
r e v e l a t i o n , about the world we live in.
Around the same period of time, an American appellate (FRANK: the judge
court judge—thus making the decision in law after the jury’s searches for just
statement—published a book of wide interest110 in which he solution, adjusting
hazarded to express an opinion regarded as heretical at the what and how he
time. According to his views, the judicial procedure cannot does to this)
and actually does not purport or venture to establish what
“derives” from the law—or from the selected precedents—
but it simply seeks the possibilities of a j u s t decision.The
problem—as the author explained it by comparing it to the
parallel boundness and freedom of musical composing and
editing111—consists of the possibility of how one can argue
109
Susanne Langer Philosophy in a New Key A Study in the Symbolism
of Reason, Rite and Art, 3rd ed. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
Press 1942) xx + 313 pp. For an essayistic overview of her oeuvre, cf. also
Susanne K. Langer Philosophical Sketches (London: Oxford University Press
1962) 190 pp. For a critical survey, cf. Norah Alison Martin Hegel and
Langer Investigating the Becoming of Mind (Edinburgh: University of
Edinburgh 1989) [Theses].
110
Jerome Frank Law and the Modern Mind [1939] (Garden City:
Doubleday 1963) xxxv + 405 pp.
111
Jerome Frank ‘Say It With Music’ Harvard Law Review LXI (1948)
6, pp. 921–955.
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 108
for the individual justness of an individual case upon the

basis of available precedents, that is, how a judge can afford
enough discretion to be able to make his o w n decision
through the due assessment of the case.
Language usage is At this point, in her reasoning, LANGER reduces the
built on comparison different ways of thinking to one common denominator.
and analogy Staying within the range of arts, she raises the issue: if we
were able to express our message also through the language
of music, could we be sure that we would express the same
in the same manner as, for instance, we actually did through
the language of the available legal precedents? Or, why are
the precedents recorded, developed and elaborated in the
given (and no other) conceptual language (broken into one
given set of concepts, using given conceptual distinctions,
and so on)? Is this perhaps due to the effect of the axiomatic
language of geometry and is it done to its analogy? Still, no
theologist, jurist or moral philosopher can contest that,
whatever unique features life conditions may display, their
homogenous evaluation, and the moral and legal lessons
drawn from them can only build upon the c o m p a r i s o n
with and to the a n a l o g y of some ‘precedents’, that is,
upon previous patterns. Thus, the evaluation can only be
performed in a way that we first define a p r i n c i p l e ,
then draw a conclusion from it, declaring that the given
lesson derives from the said principle. Well, LANGER raises
the next question as well: is it conceivable to transmit a
lesson, originally available in the language of precedents, in
the language of music? Is it conceivable to express our condi-
tions and dilemmas of decision in a musical form, or even in
the one of visual arts? For it is a commonplace to state that
music “touches” entirely different parts of the psychological
ego than an impressionist or surrealist form of visual expres-
sion, yet both of them, similarly to any other human
manifestation, speak of the same human totality, torn
between conflicting pressures of the same reality.Therefore,
it ought not to represent solely by reflecting its subject, and,
after all, it needs not to be figurative either. Or, despite that
a language other than the scientific can “touch” different
parts of the psychological ego, it may still speak about the
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 109
same subject. However, scientific language, as opposed to

the former point of view emphasised by the psychology of
language use, may presume a semantic embedded more
clearly and epistemologically in the ontology of human
communication.
This can be explained in part by a widely known circum- Recoursing to
stance, namely that both spoken and written language language, our thought
follows strict rules. For instance, the sentences that make up is broken up in order
language are constructed from subjects and predicates, and to fit the rules of
it is again largely determined what functional words can be language:
put before, between and after the subjects and the predi-
cates. Certain relative choices are of course always available,
but their variety and number are limited. Furthermore,
linguistic expression must be broken into discrete units
(sentences and series of sentences showing a complex inter-
twinement of sub-, supra- and co-ordinative relations), that
is, into clearly differentiated and differentiating parts. So,
when we speak we also give shape to (and greatly determine
as well)— f r o m t h e v e r y b e g i n n i n g of the sheer
act of using the ‘language’—an expressible human thought,
doing so in accordance with linguistic demands and poten-
tialities. We must find the proper ways of shaping ideas and
thoughts, of linking, comparing and deriving them, only
exploiting the potentialities of the structural and conceptual
framework of language. We must place the notions into an
o r d e r built from elements and states, interrelated and
placed into a sequence at any given time. Thus, our
thinking—and in fact also our imagination—is dominated
by patterns and rules which, at the same time, have nothing
to do with the thoughts we want to express through
language, nor have they any connections to the reality we
attempt to reflect through our thoughts (Figure 6).
This all leads to the emergence of the possibility of a notionalisation
surprising conclusion. We are neither dominated by the involves limitation by
outside world, nor by our thinking on the outside world, but classification // are
rather by its medium, structure and means of expression, poetry and formal
which is language. For all the various situations in which we conceptualism
can conceive of reality, or about which we can have thoughts equivalent?
at all, are i n i t i a l l y s h a p e d b y t h e s t r u c t u r e
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 110
(Figure 6)
o f l a n g u a g e .112 In retrospect we must realise that our

thinking is far from being free, since we can only think as
predetermined by the situations of linguistic expression and
the sociological position taken in communication.Taking an
elementary example: we may bring forth some words and
put them ungrammatically at the phrase’s beginning, but we
must say the subject and the predicate immediately after
them. This will all depend on, among other things, whether
we want to compose a sentence in an affirmative, interroga-
tive or imperative mood. So, when we simplifyingly say that
“we think”, as a matter of fact we operate with notionalised
words, creating a structure predetermined by a given
scheme and putting the words into a certain orderly
sequence, although we have to operate with these as if they
were discrete entities, however they are not. At most they can
represent certain selected and artificially isolated aspects of
the extremely complex correlations of the totality of the
world. We are aware that linguistic elements not only serve
as, e.g., independent words as bare components of the gram-
matical and syntactic construct of a text, but also as the
112
As just one exemplification for the fact that floating understanding of
the time may render also its linguistic expression timeless, which, by the
same stroke, causes polysemantics in both lexica and syntactics, cf., Pál
Miklós ‘Idô – kínaiul’ [Time – in Chinese] Liget IV (1991) 3, pp. 17–30.
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 111
conceptual representation of reality.When using a word in a

linguistic context we must presume that each word has a
somewhat different meaning. In other words, we assume
that individual words (at least most of them) are ascribed to
and stand for different notions.That is, we use words notion-
alised to a certain extent.Yet, we thereby also presume that
the individual concepts have boundaries as well. Although
we should take into consideration that it is not the concepts
themselves that have limits, but we are the ones to ascribe
d e l i m i t a t i o n s to them—throughout their creation
and also in the course of conceptual practice. In the mean-
time, it is also conceivable that—for instance, turning from
the argumentative conceptual exposition to poetic expres-
sion—we write hundreds of pages of an epos, or perhaps a
never-ending poem (with which we may “exhaust” our
universe or our sensation about it by “objectifying” our
uniquely individual personality), yet, the entire written
oeuvre will not necessarily bear a different message than that
described in argumentative prose by one notion: ‘love’,
‘faith’, ‘religion’ or anything we please—the way we person-
ally experience it. What should we choose then: BYRON’s
hundreds of poetic lines, or the concise entries in the Ency-
clopaedia Britannica? We may choose either of them, but we
must do so in the right time and for the right purpose.
Perhaps we should choose the former if we long for the infi-
nite horizons of personal experience, and the latter if we are
curious about the self-closure of abstract symbolism.113
When we use linguistic-conceptual denominations Denomination is
—continues LANGER—we simply denominate i m p e r - through conceptual
f e c t l y . For we can denominate everything we want to identification
express only by linguistic means, that is, through
c o n c e p t u a l i d e n t i f i c a t i o n . The parallel drawn
between music (or the figurative and non-figurative arts)
and language becomes fully understandable only at this
point. For as soon as we commit into the conceptual
113
See, above all, James Boyd White Heracles’s Bow Essays on the
Rhetoric and Poetics of the Law (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press
1985) xviii + 251 pp. [Rhetoric of Human Sciences].
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 112
language what a given piece of music or poem “is about”, we

instantly falsify its meaning. On the other hand, it would be
clearly foolish to claim that anything not transmitted in the
language of scholarship is necessarily alien to our intellec-
tual cognitive activity appropriating reality also by reacting
to it.
within the bounds of In most cases we do not even make conscious enough
the homogeneity of what options we are facing. For once we resort to language
language as to a scientific ideal, we become captives of a strait-jacket.
We thereby certainly redeem the chance of truly being able
to propose anything according to the ideal of scholarship.
Whereas if we do not make this choice, then we turn our
backs to the entire ideal, at least to the extent of the com-
munication in question, and by choosing the different
homogeneous medium of a different ideal we arrive at, for
instance, a vers libre.We may also arrive at a form of expres-
sion in which the words themselves are not separated.We can
express our thoughts by any kind of sequence of symbols
after all (even at full discretion, changing from one moment
to another), and in such cases it will entirely depend on
how the reader will manipulate the letters—symbols and
signs—and how he will interpret them.
Posited commands 2.3.1.8. Patterns of thought, patterns of law When in a compar-

can only be either ative methodology of the moral and legal mind as the first
observed or broken instance to autonomy we stated that from the words of JESUS
CHRIST, recorded in the New Testament, His teachings
cannot be “deduced”, we meant not to express something
shocking, but to confirm an otherwise familiar philosophical
realisation. Taking the opposite stance, if we stated that the
teachings of JESUS CHRIST could be formulated in terms of
“conclusions”, and that they could be aligned into a logical
sequence of doctrinal propositions with the definitive rigour
of geometry, and, moreover, that He even enunciated them
with axiomatic pretensions, we would be saying that
although the Master expressed himself unequivocally, he did
so in a manner that prevents us from acting in an
autonomous way. For if we claim that there is a law available
for all of us, then the Law—only remembering of the debates
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 113
around both the Old and the New Testaments—decides

everything in and of itself, thanks to its prevalence; there will
no longer be any room for meditation and conscience; and
therefore, there will be no room for any autonomous deci-
sion-making either. Since—merely applying what is arising
from the revelation of the Law—either the breaking of the
law or its subservient observation are our only choices:
tertium non datur. This, however, is not the meaning of the
law of JESUS CHRIST.
On the other hand, what exists and validates itself through The pattern set by
our CHRISTianity is the accumulation and superimposition JESUS CHRIST is an
of individual situations generated by the continuity of life at instance and not a
any given time; and we are expected to take an irrevocably proposition: it calls for
personal decision with regard to them. Although we can personal
resort to ample sets of clues to help us with points of refer- responsibility
ence in our dilemmas, no previous example, case or pattern
can afford an excuse to relieve one from the responsibility of
taking a p e r s o n a l stand. This is not so because the
examples at our disposal were deficient, or because JESUS
CHRIST lived a life too short or too perfect to give examples
of sufficient variety and subtlety, or even because the Apos-
tles did not perform the job of committing His deeds and
teachings into writing with proper faithfulness and
completeness. It is simply so—and this is the methodological
message—because the parables are not meant for such a
purpose.114 Several times more parables could still not offer
such a perspective. For the pattern set by JESUS CHRIST must
itself be taken as an i n s t a n c e , and not as a p r o p o -
s i t i o n . It ensures the a u t o n o m y of man, and it
assumes p e r s o n a l r e s p o n s i b i l i t y in return.
Should we be exempt from free choice between concurrent
alternative decisions personalising the Law, we would feel
this construction to be damaging to human dignity.
114
For an observation from a methodological perspective, see Eliezer
Segal ‘Law as Allegory: An Unnoticed Literary Device in Talmudic Narra-
tives’ Prooftexts 8 (1988), pp. 245ff.
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 114
KANT’s There are cultures in which the freedom of choice and the
morality / legality: idea of moral autonomy are so deeply rooted that they
duality of inner cannot allow anything different (especially, external and
self / external enforceable regulation of behaviour) to develop. From such
accountability a perspective, it is but a natural consequence that what we
usually (as lead by own cultural presuppositions) call law
proves to be the exact opposite and negation of any
autonomous, responsible personal choice, as it is based on
h e t e r o n o m y and the b r e a k i n g of the own will
(and thereby also on the exclusion of whatever relevance of
any own evaluation of situations).We may be aware of it, but
are nevertheless deeply socialised to it (not even noticing it
by the time we go from the infants’ nursery to the kinder-
garten).Well, in cultures where such external law supported
by force forms the basis of social co-existence, we, as its
addressees, can have only one thing to do: follow its orders.
Moral considerations with own dilemmas in evaluating situ-
ations will not matter any longer. Law conceived like this, as
KANT makes clear in a classical way,115 is built upon a duality
in which external and internal— m o r a l and l e g a l —are
separated.The former is related to matters of conscience, to
what derives from our personality, from our internal
substance. Society is not concerned with this directly. What
mainly concerns the outside world in Western modernity is
that we should not hurt our fellow-men, not take their
things, take advantage of the community’s property, and so
on. It is with our exterior that we participate in social
commerce: this is what we can help or damage society with.
In this perspective, the nature of our interior is by no means
a criterion for judgement. Of course, it was clear to KANT
that there is a relation between interior and exterior.
However, he differentiated between the spheres of morality
and legality, knowing that their interaction (its direction
or character) is not at all shortcut, immediate or unam-
biguous. Their co-relation rather reveals a c o m m o n
115
Immanuel Kant Die Methaphysik der Sitten in his Werke hrsg. Ernst
Cassirer,VII (Berlin: B. Cassirer 1916), p. 14.
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 115
t e n d e n c y — which, however, pertains rather to psycho-

logy and social ontology, instead of behavioural sciences
proper.
Among the above-mentioned cultures the most remark- The empirehood of
able has developed in China.This radiated through Korea to China called for
Japan. As is known, China is one of the oldest states in organising force
history. Its law is not only developed, but has a long history capable of
as well. The Chinese empire can claim an experience even self-organisation:
older and more challenging than the Roman Catholic
Church. As is also known, China has always been an empire
due to both size and machinery.What we could learn much
later in Europe as statehood had originally operated in
China as empire-hood.Yet, what was used as, and for, law in
Europe had never been considered law in China. The
empire-hood of China, undisturbed for thousands of years
(in any case not shaken by external powers), produced
instruments of control original both in shape and action,
differing from the ones in Europe.116
116
According to Derk Bodde & Clarence Morris Law in Imperial China [the natural character
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press 1967) xiii + 615 pp. of li]
[Harvard Studies in East Asian Law 1] on p. 21, the li draws its universal
validity from its age-old harmony with human nature and cosmic order. At
the same time—as R. P. Peerenboom Law and Morality in Ancient ChinaThe
Silk Manuscripts of Huang-Lao (State University of New York Press 1993)
xvi + 380 pp., [SUNY Series in Chinese Philosophy and Culture] especially
at p. 126 adds to the above—it is an order in constant forming through
varying interpretations under changing conditions.
For the basic notions of Chinese law, see Gray L. Dorsey ‘Two
Objective Bases for a World-wide Legal Order’ in Ideological Differences and
World Order Studies in the Philosophy and Science of the World’s Cultures,
ed. F. S. C. Northrop (New Haven, etc.: Yale University Press 1949), pp.
442–474 and Hyung I. Kim Fundamental Legal Concepts of China and the
West A Comparative Study (Port Washington, New York & London:
Kennikat Press [National University Publications] 1981) xiii + 175 p. For
its complexity, see L.T. Lee & W.W. Lai ‘The Chinese Conceptions of
Law: Confucian, Legalist and Buddhist’ Hastings Law Journal 29 (1978)
6, pp. 1307–1329 as well as Bjarne Melkevik ‘Un regard sur la culture
juridique chinoise: l’École des légistes, le confucianisme et la philosophie
du droit’ Les Cahiers de Droit 37 (1996) 3, pp. 603–627.
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 116
Fa, and the Sometime in the 3rd century BC, only for a short and tran-
disintegration of rule sitional period, one of the thought trends, legalism [fajia]
and of legism prevailed over the others, supported by one of the reigning
groups.117 It focused on enforcing, as the basis of law, one of
the components of the indivisible tradition of Chinese law,
the layer of fa. The dynasty concerned was soon abolished,
and the former viewpoints of CONFUCIUS became prevailing
again.Thus, China could organise social co-existence undis-
turbed—all the more, as the next falter could lead China into
temptation only two and a half thousand years later under
the Communist rule of MAO TSE-TUNG. In the so-called
Great Leap Forward period (also called the “Cultural Revo-
lution”) China gave up its modern culture of formal law,
adopted by the end of 19th century under European
(German and French) imperialist pressure for modernisa-
tion, later refurbished through Moscow mediation in order
to meet the requirements of power centralisation. Thus,
instead of any rule of formal law, in a re-modernisation
attempt by MAO, announcing “permanent revolution”,
China again allowed a non-formal patriarchal agent to
prevail which gave free scope for political-social influences
(with agitative pressure and direct, “spontaneous” violence)
at any given time and which—at least according to Western
evaluation—resulted in anarchy, unforeseeability and unre-
liability, and, for so many, also humiliation, destruction and
annihilation. Comparative historico-philosophical analyses
have proven that through loosening the framework of formal
117
E.g., A. F. P. Hulsewé ‘The Legalists and the Laws of Ch’in’ in Leyden
Studies in Sinology ed. W. L. Idema (Leiden: Brill 1981), pp. 1–22 and
Thought and Law in Quin and Han China Studies Dedicated to Anthony
Hulsewé on the Occasion of His Eightieth Birthday, ed. W. L. Idema & E.
Zürcher (Leiden, New York, København, Köln: Brill 1990) ix + 224 p.
[Sinica Leidensia XXIV] as well as A. C. Graham Disputes of the Tao Philo-
sophical Arguments in Ancient China [1989] (La Salle, Ill.: Open Court
1991), para. 3: »Legalism: An Amoral Science of Statecraft«, pp. 267–292
and Wang Zhiyong ‘Le positivisme juridique dans la Chine ancienne’ in
Legal Systems and Legal Science Proceedings of the 17th World Congress of
IVR, VI, ed. Marijan Pavčnik & Gianfrancesco Zanetti (Stuttgart: Steiner
1997), pp. 58–70 [Archiv für Rechts- und Sozialphilosophie, Beiheft 70].
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 117
law, China has actually returned to her own cultural

antecedents and traditions, but in a distorted form, artifi-
cially leading to a forced path, and with a frightful falter
indeed.118
While the dilemma, without being resolved, is still haunting in new (the dilemma of ordo)
forms. From both historical-philosophical and cultural-anthropological
points of view, the question is unanswered of what a human being
(honest, morally authentic and serious) and a human community is
expected to recognise as law in society. Perhaps the increase in the West
of comparative philosophical and cultural-anthropological investiga-
tions into old and different solutions can also be attributed to such a
troubling uncertainty.119
According to CONFUCIUS, only a measurement capable of preservation of

giving subtle answers and expressing nuances supports man personal autonomy,
in his moral capacity. Sharp contrasts and extreme formula- instead of the
tions can hardly go with it. For whatever conceptual conformity of legality
representation could only force the inimitable uniqueness of
personal life into artificially devised cages of categorisation
and classification and thereby would necessarily destroy
personal particularities by homogenisation. Moreover,
conceptuality subordinates personal moral features to
others’ classificatory judgement which is inhuman. After all,
in a community like China, it is assumed that we all repre-
sent moral quality, hold internal values, and these all arise
118
Cf., by the author, Codification…, pp. 239–242, especially at note 73.
Also cf. James P. Brady Justice and Politics in People’s China Legal Order or
Continuing Revolution? (London, etc.: Academic Press 1982) xiii + 268
pp. [Law, State & Society 8]. For a comparative background—promising
much but remaining scarce in theory—see also Werner F. Menski Compar-
ative Law in a Global Context The Legal Systems of Africa and Asia 2nd ed.
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2006) xx + 674 pp.
119
Cf., from the literature of the last decades, especially Philippe Nonet
& Philip Selznick Law and Society in Transition Toward Responsive Law
(New York, etc.: Harper & Row 1978) vi + 122 p. {discussed by the present
author in his ‘Átalakulóban a jog?’ [Is the law in transformation?] [1980] in
Varga Jogi elméletek..., pp. 226–236}, as well as Eugene Kamenka & Alice
Erh-Soon Tay ‘The Traditions of Justice’ Law and Philosophy 5 (1986) 3, pp.
281–313.
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 118
from within. Therefore, we have to assume to be able to

decide what we need to do in various situations. We should
act not for others’ sake, not for gods’ or fellow-men’s appre-
ciation, and especially not simply to do good or to meet
requirements imposed on us by external norms. The
c o n f o r m i t y o f l e g a l i t y is unknown and mostly
rejected as a specimen of hypocrisy in this culture. Instead,
it is the fulfilment of moral quality that has to make us act,120
that is, to live our life in a way so as to, expressed by the
Japanese, “not lose face”. Anyone forcing a judgement on us
would surely cause more damage than the eventual moral
disapproval of our environment. That is to say, e x p e r i -
e n c i n g o u r a u t o n o m y comes first, and what it
may suggest comes only after. This is maybe the optimum
way of strategic planning for a huge empiredom.
common search for In various practical situations in the Chinese culture of
compromise and autonomy, the event which caused the tension is approached
peace, avoiding carefully, from a distance, and avoiding all formalities.There
external authority is no fight with abstract norm formulas, no disputes directed
to forced channels, selected from the store of patterns artifi-
cially framed and predefining its outcome, or rephrasing
them through norms, so that the other party with arguments
and aspects rendered irrelevant shall be defeated. Conflicts
of the past, or considerations and arguments brought up
once in their resolution, are referred to, if at all, as memories
only.The discussion is kept among such frames that the part-
ners agree on decisive issues by themselves, without any
external constraint.Their approach to merits should neither
lead to extreme and repelling formulations, nor harm the
other.With no polarised opposition between their respective
status, there will be no extreme result either. Not having a
plaintiff and a defendant, there will be no winner and loser
120
To use the almost practical explanation by CONFUCIUS: “[The
Master said] »If you govern them with decrees and regulate them with
punishments, the people will evade them but will have no sense of shame.
If you govern them with virtue and regulate them with the rituals, they will
have a sense of shame and flock to you.«” <http://www.island-of-freedom.
com/CONFUCIUS.HTM>.
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 119
either. The participants debate in merits as equal partners,

aware of their common responsibility (rowing “in the same
boat”) and being doomed to a common fate both as humans
and moral beings. They can only achieve their respective
goals t o g e t h e r . For the p e a c e of society can only be
restored if they have returned to the everyday life while
“keeping face”.
The sides in the dispute are expected to know how to Resolution of dispute:
reach a resolution by themselves.Their whole community is local responsibility /
responsible for it (by no means only indirectly or in a Ensuring peace:
symbolic sense). In order to reach it, a third person, mutu- imperial responsibility
ally acceptable for their communities, usually takes part in
the resolutions. For China was the statehood of an empire of
incredible dimensions. The state power relied on winning
mutual acceptance for and transmitting the tradition of
common values, considered by far more important than the
individual life with a narrow personal perspective.The apex
value was the empire’s life, continuity and survival as a whole
under all circumstances. Therefore, there was a need (and
not on a village, town, district, or other local level, but on the
mandarin-administration level, extending to huge regional
units) for building in safety valves to ensure that trivial
everyday quarrels were solved from own sources. The
Chinese mentality is well characterised by the fact that the
only real empire-level regulation was practically born within
this circle. For the persons concerned had to know how to
solve their disputes, on the one hand. They had to do so
within such limits that the dispute should not degenerate. Fiat iustitia, pereat
The respective community had to bear direct responsibility mundus! unknown in
for it.Thus, they avoided, with apparent success, the extreme balanced (ancient)
trap of both personal fall and damaging the community.121 cultures
121
As is known, the rigid followance of the principle Fiat iustitia, pereat
mundus!, and the obsessed community-deteriorating chase of justice, may
equally produce victims. For the classic interpretation of the relentless
desire of truth, based on the work of HEINRICH VON KLEIST, see Heinrich
Christian Caro Heinrich von Kleist und das Recht Zum 100jährigen
Todestage Kleist’s (Berlin: Puttkammer & Mührbrecht 1911) 51 pp., Adolf
Fink ‘Michael Kohlhaas – ein noch anhängiger Prozeß: Geschichte und
Kritik der bisher ergangenen Urteile’ in Rechtsgeschichte als Kulturgeschichte
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 120
On the other hand, when no resolution was arrived at in the

community, the case unavoidably went to the mandarin.
Instead of administering justice, his task was to punish those
who proved to be unable to find the ways of a just resolution.
He proceeded in a manner that the mere fact of turning to
him generated a repressive effect, and, next time, the
communities would favour prevention of dispute-degenera-
tion by effectively resolving it in merits.
Sharp contrast The point here is not simply about the opposition of
between informal non-formal and formal patterns of conflict-management,
dispute-resolution and but also about a legal-anthropological basic situation.122
formal Namely, sometime, somewhere a dispute occurs.This situa-
conflict-settlement: tion is considered injurious by someone. Somebody ascribes
it to somebody else, considering him responsible for the situ-
ation. Usually, the situation can be solved by those involved.
This is the n o n - f o r m a l resolution of
d i s p u t e , avoiding a formal decision which would declare
one party the winner and the other the loser. In conse-
quence, the dispute and the underlying conflict will vanish
completely. Even the memory that a difference had once
occurred soon disappears in the mist of the past. In the
European culture of the f o r m a l s e t t l e m e n t o f
c o n f l i c t , however, one turns to an outsider to reach a
decision. The decision-maker, as formal authority, will
polarise the disputed terms into one of the exclusive alter-
natives of “he is right” and “he is not right”, artificially
putting an end to the conflict and formally naming one
winner and one loser.
Festschrift für Adalbert Erler zum 70. Geburtstag, hrsg. Hans-Jürgen

Becker & al. (Aalen: Scientia 1976), pp. 37–108, Horst Sendler Über
Michael Kohlhaas – damals und heute (Berlin: de Gruyter 1985) 45 p.
[Schriftenreihe der Juristischen Gesellschaft zu Berlin, Heft 92], J. Hillis
Miller ‘Laying down the Law in Literature:The Example of Kleist’ Cardozo
Law Review 11 (1989–1990) 5–6, pp. 1491–1514 as well as Recht und
Gerechtigkeit bein Heinrich von Kleist hrsg. Peter Ensberg (Stuttgart: Akade-
mie-Verlag 2002) 204 pp. [Frankfurter Kleist-Kolloquium].
122
For an overview, see Law and Anthropology ed. Peter Sack (Aldershot,
etc.: Dartmouth 1992) xxx + 527 p. [The International Library of Essays in
Law & Legal Theory: Legal Cultures 3].
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 121
Let us continue the intellectual journey through the so- its failure can lead
called primitive tribal practice of Papua New Guinea.When to a feud
an injury occurs and cannot be solved by those involved, it
will become a case of the community. If not solved promptly,
it will affect a widening group among the tribe in question.
If no solution is presented by the tribe, ultimately the tribes
(communities) concerned will drift into conflict. Under so-
called primitive conditions, without institutionalised courts
and formal fora of decision-making available, this can lead to
a feud. One of the sides, not tolerating the unresolvedness
any longer, openly announces breaking off, a process that
will irrevocably generate violence and cause damage.123
What is broken in such a case is called shalom.124 It means this is why shalom is
p e a c e , the maintenance of which is the cardinal issue in a the supreme value
123
E.g., Law and Warfare Studies in the Anthropology of Conflict, ed.
Paul Bohannan (Garden City, New York:The Natural History Press 1967)
xiv + 441 pp. [American Museum Sourcebooks in Anthropology] and, by
Leopold Pospísil, The Anthropology of Law A Comparative Theory (New
Haven HRAF 1974) xiii + 385 pp. and in particular at p. 2 as well as
Kapauku Papuans and Their Law (New Haven:Yale University Department
of Anthropology 1958) 296 pp. [Publications in Anthropology 54].
124
For the sources of Jewish law, see Elliott N. Dorff & Arthur Rosett
A Living TreeThe Roots and Growth of Jewish Law (Albany, NewYork: State
University of NewYork Press 1988) xv + 602 p., George Horowitz The Spirit
of Jewish Law (New York: Central Book Co. 1963) xl + 812 o., titles I–III:
»Torah« / »Talmud« / »Codes«, pp. 8–67 and Harry C. Schimmel The Oral
Law A Study of the Rabbinic Contribution to Torah She-be-al-peh
(Jerusalem & New York: Feldheim 1971) 170 pp.; for its cultural (religious
and philosophical) environment, Ze’ev W. Falk Law and ReligionThe Jewish
Experience (Jerusalem: Mesharim 1981) 238 pp. and Bernard S. Jackson
‘Ideas of Law and Legal Administration: A Semiotic Approach’ in TheWorld
of Israel Sociological, Anthropological and Political Perspectives, ed. R. E.
Clements (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1989), pp. 185–202;
for its moral determination, Moshe Silberg ‘Law and Morals in Jewish
Jurisprudence’ Harvard Law Review 75 (1961) 2, pp. 306–331; for the
traditions of making it liveable in a state environment, see Moshe Silberg
Talmudic Law and the Modern State [1961] trans. Ben Zion Bokser (New
York:The Burning Bush Press 1973) xiii + 224 pp, ch.VIII: »At the Cross-
roads«, pp. 131–153, as well as—in connection with the conflict between
modern secular town-planning and the continued need for a so-called
“Jewish telegraph” {once “the poles crossing the roads on the outskirts of
villages with their wires leading from nowhere to nowhere which made a
courtyard out of the whole village to practically release the prohibition of
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 122
Jewish community,125 for being an indispensable prerequisite

to its survival. A community drifted into war for whatever
reason has the chance that its future existence will become
questioned or undermined. Hostility would even exclude
the mere chance of future resolution. It would eventually
declare one of the parties victorious, and the other defeated.
Breaking of the equilibrium and the intention to balance it
out can easily lead to the community’s moral or physical
annihilation.Then the shalom is over, at least for an extended
period of time. As a natural consequence, brute victory can
easily incite revenge, back strike, and renew the struggle.
imperial law is Hostility endangers the whole community, threatening its
devised to retaliate future on the whole, therefore it must be blocked and
unrest prevented at all costs if possible. Mandarin justice comes
into sight under such conditions. The mandarin, as the
emperor’s representative, can only apply imperial laws.This
is the emperor’s law. It is not meant to provide just and equi-
table patterns for individuals of the population (constituted
by groups of various order and rank), as opposed to the
Roman-rooted procedural pattern with an individualist life-
ideal that does this in Europe.The imperial law is not meant
for taking a decision for the individual directly concerned. In
a situation when the shalom is the prerequisite for peace, and
peace for the survival of the community, the emperor’s law
must opt for communal existence, instead of caring about
justice or equity for the individual person. For the subjects
»carrying in the street« on Saturday”, in the author’s reviewing Arthur

Linksz’ memories in ‘Egy élet a századelôn’ [A life at the beginning of
the century] Valóság XXIX (1981) 3, pp. 114–116}—Davina Cooper
‘Talmudic Territory? Space, Law, and Modernist Discourse’ Journal of Law
and Society 23 (1996) 4, pp. 529–548; and for the Jewish orientation
towards duties instead of rights, Suzanne Last Stone ‘In Pursuit of the
Counter-Text: The Turn to the Jewish Legal Model in Contemporary
American Legal Theory’ Harvard Law Review 106 (1993) 4, pp. 813–894;
lastly, for its contradictory nature, Bernard S. Jackson ‘Jewish Law or Jewish
Laws’ Jewish Law Annual 8 (1989), pp. 15ff, especially at 19–23.
125
E.g., László Márton Pákozdy ‘Törvény és igazságszolgáltatás a
Bibliában’ [Law and administration of justice in the Bible] in A Biblia világa
[The Bible’s world] ed. László Rapcsányi (Budapest: MRT Minerva 1972),
p. 145.
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 123
themselves and their communities have already had plenty

of time and opportunity to do this. If they could not, the
consequences would fall upon them, too. The very fact of
either having turned to the mandarin or their helplessness
having compelled the mandarin to take measures proves that
their sense of balance had been upset and they, pushing their
truth or personal interest into the foreground in a selfish
way, endangering their whole community, undertake the
threatening state of u n r e s t . So the final goal is that the
ones involved in the conflict resolve it from the very begin-
ning, putting all their power into scale, and by no means
stretching the strings by increasing tensions in the hope that
the stronger, more aggressive and persistent will end by
winning or getting more.
It is an incredible warning to modesty for us that this Sense of proportion
culture, usually called primitive, was so much thought- and
through and consistent exactly in preserving the basic own responsibility in
tissues of societal life, proving great wisdom in self-restraint so-called primitive
and trust in strategic perspectives. Only prejudice may communities:
qualify this law to have been underdeveloped.Yet, in almost
every tribal community one can find the realisation that
there is an optimum, and the resolution of conflict has to be
done within it. It is the most personal responsibility of every
one to find a resolution in their own case. If the sides in the
dispute cannot reach it, then their community—through the
mediation of the local sage, priest or teacher—must take the
case over, so that the situation causing the conflict will be
reconsidered, and the dispute resolved.126
In every conflict-resolution arrangement there is a point individual justice
which defines how far the dispute or eventually its degener- to be pursued
within bounds
of collective peace
126
It is remarkable that the “law of the jungle”, formulated in Rudyard [even
Kipling’s poem The Second Jungle Book, is built upon the “judicious mixture “law of the jungle”
of individualism and collectivism” within social co-operation, and not on
is balanced
the unlimited and merciless pursuit of individual concerns. See J. L. Mackie
‘The Law of the Jungle: Moral Alternatives and Principles of Evolution’ in favour of the
Philosophy 53 (October 1978), No. 206, pp. 455–464. collectivity]
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 124
ation into hostility can go.127 If therefore the events transcend

this very point, the whole judgement may easily t u r n
o v e r . Beyond this point the one who might have been right
at the time when the injury was still hidden and the dispute
latent will not be right. Neither will the one with whom the
search for truth degenerated into coarse shapes. The blame
has to be taken by the one who, by over-claiming and relent-
less desire for truth, did not promote acceptable ending still
equitable for everyone. Responsible will be the one who
pushed his personal affair up to an extent threatening the
community’s existence, ignored prudentia, and proved to be
incapable of reaching a compromise at the right time.
Li / fa: The ideal of CONFUCIUS in China was the li. According
heteronomy to its conception, we were all born to be sovereign,
will not break autonomous moral beings. All of us must know what we
autonomy deserve, and what is equitable in a given situation. There-
but retaliate fore, the li encourages us to resolve any dispute directly as
unsuitability to living it inspired by our human i n s i d e , paying attention to the
dignity and moral integrity of our fellow-men as well. Our
moral order is autonomous, as it was born with us, and its
actualisation depends on us. As opposed to it, the imperial
law—the fa—has only the task to maintain imperial exis-
tence, the security and peace of the e m p i r e . The moral
autonomy presupposed by the li is not simply an opposite of
the heteronomy represented by the fa. Neither is the latter
calibrated to administer or ponder justice between quar-
relling individuals. It can only be used according to its
purpose, so that the disapproval of the parties in failing to
compromise is expressed. Therefore, in brief, the fa was to
deter and punish—in and for itself. Its ultimate goal was not
to be taken advantage of, and anyone who experienced it
should not wish it happen again. Anyone once getting
involved, even as a witness, with the mandarin’s fa was surely
crushed. It was repressive since the one who forced external
authority to remedy the own injury has already “lost face”.
It had a social preventing force, because the poor soul who
127
E.g., Simon Roberts Order and Dispute An Introduction to Legal
Anthropology (Harmondsworth: Penguin 1979), pp. 117ff [Pelican Books].
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 125
was just summoned in front of the imperial official as a

witness could be thrown in jail and his properties could be
confiscated, even though he was only a witness, and if ques-
tioned, most likely told the truth.
It is remarkable that in the Far-Eastern culture of the by punishing for the
autonomous ideal of personality and social settlement, rejection of
heteronomy, reserved as a final guarantee, puts an end to performing the own
disputes and prevents them from aggravating, yet it does not autonomy
break autonomy; it only punishes rejection of accepting and
performing autonomy.
Thus, the fa is designated for the empire, and not to set The empire cares for
imperial machinery in motion in petty affairs. Conflicts the integrity of the
must be solved when and where they occur, without risking whole, and not for the
aggravation, causing trouble beyond their own sphere, sensitivity of
and plunging imperial peace into danger. For even the self-asserting
most personal and insignificant affairs can degenerate into individuals
hostility of imperial extensions if the principle of fiat iustitia,
pereat mundus! is inconsiderately and selfishly followed.
It is not by chance that neither in China and Japan, nor in Responsible
tribal cultures has the notion of right and righteousness even co-operation requires
been invented.128 After all, what is r i g h t ? The legal theory no concept of right
of MARXism, from its own positivist point of view, denied the
notional independence of ius [the right; ‘subjektives Recht’],
and only recognised the notion of objective law, the lex [the
law; ‘objektives, gesetztes Recht’], as an independent compo-
nent. It considered the former to be only a derivative
(projection and consequence) of the latter.Without taking a
stand,129 we can realise that talking intelligibly about right
128
E.g., Karl Bünger ‘Entstehen und Wandel des Rechts in China’ in
Entstehung und Wandel rechtlicher Traditionen ed. Wolfgang Fikentscher,
Herbert Franke & Oskar Köhler (Freiburg & München: Alber 1980), pp.
465ff [Veröffentlichungen des Instituts für historische Anthropologie E.V.,
Band 2].
129
Cf., e.g., as a monographic summary, Carl Wellman A Theory of
Rights Persons under Laws, Institutions and Morals (Totowa, New Jersey:
Rowman and Allanheld 1985) 225 pp., and in the mirror of studies covering
the field, Rights ed. Carlos Nino (Aldershot etc.: Dartmouth 1992) xxxiv +
466 pp. [The International Library of Essays in Law & Legal Theory:
Schools 8].
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 126
presumes a l a w that serves as a basis, be it enacted or only

mentally anticipated. For positive order can be assumed as
being enacted by the free will and absolutism of man, and
also as being derived from godly order. This is n a t u r a l
l a w , according to the western world concept.130
Still Chinese law is Well, one can question whether there was legal order in
law, as it builds China at all. For Chinese traditional culture was built on the
community from the harmony and mutual functioning of morally autonomous
co-operation of beings to an extent almost equivalent to denying any
autonomous persons (western) concept of law. At the same time, the li presup-
poses that we are independent islands in the sea of one
common moral order, creating our laws for ourselves.These
laws exist only in ourselves.Yet,
(1) what originates from us and what is to be formulated
by us has to express that what is inherent in the order
of nature;
(2) for this reason, our existence is a constant struggle,
balancing between our various roles in experiencing
our real life and the different moral impulses from our
inside in the succession of situations we face;
(3) this presupposes continuous receptivity, empathy and
mutual readiness for compromise towards all similar
initiative of our fellow men towards us;
(4) the success of which can only be ensured by a resolu-
tion in progressing co-operation.
That is, in the practice of our own personal existence, our
autonomy has to be embodied by a sequence of (seemingly
sovereign) decisions so as that all this, in total sum and
overall effect, promotes peace and order in and for the whole
c o m m u n i t y . Failing to do so, we would have to turn to
the procedure of the fa, anticipating our own crush and
moral breakdown, so that the autonomous order of the
community could reach its equilibrium again.
130
Cf., e.g., in the light of selected papers, Natural Law ed. John Finnis
(Aldershot etc.: Dartmouth 1991) xxiii + 354 pp. [The International
Library of Essays in Law & Legal Theory: Schools 1, 1–2]. Its naturalistic
social bases are revealed by Ernst-Joachim Lampe in Grenzen des Rechtspo-
sitivismus Eine rechtsanthropologische Untersuchung (Berlin: Duncker &
Humblot 1988) 227 pp. [Schriften zur Rechtstheorie 128].
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 127
In Japan there exists the giri morality,131 which in relation Giri in Japan: only
to law is the equivalent of the Chinese li.132 It is omnipresent, signalling moods in
indestructible and resistant. Japanese culture and language language & achieving
are embedded in its idea so much that moral dilemmas in catharsis in want of
limiting conditions, characteristic to the western push for schematism
notionalisation and systematisation, cannot even be formu-
lated in them.133 For instance, moral schematism with
axiomatic pretensions would be unimaginable in Japan,
131
E.g.,Yosiyuki Noda Introduction au droit japonais (Paris: Dalloz 1966)
287 pp. [Les systèmes de droit contemporains XIX], title IV, chapter III, pp.
191–200.
132
E.g., Guntram Rahn ‘Recht und Rechtsverständnis in Japan’ in Ent-
stehung undWandel rechtlicher Traditionen, pp. 486–487 as well as Karl Bünger
‘Entstehen und Wandel des Rechts in China’ in ibidem., p. 460. Cf. also John
O. Haley ‘Sheating the Sword of Justice in Japan: An Essay on Law Without
Sanctions’ in Journal of Japanese Studies 8 (1980) 2, pp. 265–281. For a
summary, see Joy Hendry Understanding Japanese Society (London, New
York & Sydney: Croom Helm 1987) 218 pp. [The Nissan Institute / Croom
Helm Japanese Studies Series], especially ch. 12 on »The Legal System and
Social Control«, pp. 185–201 and Ezra F. Vogel Japan as Number One
Lessons for America (Cambridge, Mass. & London: Harvard University
Press 1979) xiii + 272 pp., especially ch. 9 on »Crime Control: Enforcement
and Public Control«, pp. 204–222.
133
“In the English manner of writing, the meaning becomes clear, but [Japanese culture is
at the same time it becomes limited and shallow. […] We do not make such founded on
useless effort, but use those words which allow sufficient leeway to suggest
imagination; and
various things, and supplement the rest with sensible elements such as
tones, appearance of letters, rhythms, etc. […] of the sentence […], whereas Western culture, on
the sentence of the Westerners tries to restrict its meaning as narrowly and conceptual
detailedly as possible and does not allow the smallest shadow, so that there thematisation]
is no room at all for the imagination of the reader.” The novelist TANIZAKI
JUNICHIRO as quoted by Kawashima Takeyoshi in his ‘The Status of the
Individual in the Notion of Law, Right, and Social Order in Japan’ in The
Japanese Mind Essentials of Japanese Philosophy and Culture [1967] ed.
Charles A. Moore (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press 1987) x + 357 pp.
on p. 263. About the notion of change resulting from thought cycles and not
from logical evolution, see Lily Abegg The Mind of East Asia (London &
New York: Thames and Hudson n.y.) vii + 344 pp., especially ch. II [on
»Thought without Logic«], pp. 23–68. In a strong critical approach, cf. Peter
N. Dale The Myth of Japanese Uniqueness (London & Sydney: Croom Helm
& Oxford: University of Oxford Nissan Institute for Japanese Studies 1986)
233 pp. [The Nissan Institute / Croom Helm Japanese Studies], ch. 7 on
»Silence and Elusion«, pp. 100–115.
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 128
which—as the prototype of confession handbooks with

entire catalogues of moral sins—ab ovo classifies the
taxonomy of our falling into sin.Thereby it could only trivi-
alise its occurrence into the mere actualisation of a series of
previously notionalised, expressed and systematised eventu-
alities, as t h e case of the finite realisation of situations of
infinite variability. This is why such a schematism could be
inconceivable in Japan, as it unwillingly suggests that it is not
enough that I have sinned; it is not enough that I have given
account for my sinful deed; it is not enough that I do
penance for my sin; furthermore, I must also attach a
taxonomic classification to it (indeed: just as if I were
approaching the living world as CARL VON LINNÉ did, or the
elements of nature as DMITRI IVANOVICH MENDELEEV did),
so that we can be assured of what subcase and variety or
exception to the case I have committed. In such a schema-
tism it is not likely that we will be able to achieve the
complete catalogue of human sins. It is not likely that we will
give way to catharsis at the end. It is not likely that finally we
will focus the rest of our attention on the reparation of its
irremediable consequences. For, in the ultimate analysis,
every circumstance we can think of will be conceived as the
case of a closed and somewhat rigid classification scheme.
In the West, we name A Japanese never talks about emotions or moral things. As
everything as for us, westerners, however, we are used to communicating
mentally anticipated, about our moral wretchedness, fears and anxieties, and
depersonalised and digging deeply into the subconscious remindingly of a vivi-
neutralised section, we all are infected—and inasmuch corrupted—by
the idea of notional strictness. For we n a m e everything,
and conceptualise everything. We even notionalise things
that are morally unimaginable, even that which derives from
schemes of notional combinations merely as a logical possi-
bility. Through this we almost challenge the horror—under
the pretext of the neutrality of logical examples—to become
true as self-fulfilling. We make an advance of everything, at
least in mental anticipation. At the same time, we deperson-
alise our most personal things, as we tame our most intimate
fears we are even afraid to overthink, and our most hidden
bad dreams, only to transform them into a case of previously
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 129
formed conceptual schemes and classes. After all, ever since

notional culture has developed, we seize things not in their
fallible existence, but break them into a sequence of prefab-
ricated schemes built on previous judgements while
providing them a taxonomically value-free description.
Communication in the Far East is simply not meant to Cultures are built on
confer on man’s personal matters, morals and parables.The contemplation &
Japanese go out into the woods, amongst the flowers, watch meditation
the stone-garden or the holy mountain, and contemplate. in the Far East:
The ornamental garden of stones, the majesty of the Fuji-
jama, or the cherry-blooming: all of these bear more
messages to them (as they make them realise more) than any
abstract reasoning. The Japanese reason not with casual
partners in a smoky café, rather they talk to the holy place or
favourite flowers amidst nature. It is not by mere chance that
in Japan the stone-gardens, taken care of as representatives
of human values and natural harmony, have been the work-
shops of spiritual recharging for hundreds of years.
We might remember that GEORGE LUKÁCS, in his youthly yearn to be (longing for
somewhere else—in Florence—wanted to become a FRANCIScan monk. unmediatedness
He longed for the completeness of human realisation. He looked for the in the West)
dogma-free practicality, the pureness not suffering from the distorting
mediation of society, and, last but not least, the naturality of their belief,
just as Saint FRANCIS and the other order-founding fathers could talk to
birds, and live the life of nature. He longed for frames not shaped artifi-
cially by man, and free of alienation—paradoxically, only a few years
before he joined the Communist party, being lead by the hatred for his
own society, which ensured him a life like a lord’s, and maybe even
created the possibility of wishing to get away from his man-of-the-world
medium.
Thus, taxonomic naming and axiomatic conceptualisa- with subtlety to be

tion cannot be part of the Far Eastern world concept, preserved
because they would exclude subtle thinking. Therefore,
many things resist to be discussed at all thoroughly. In Japan,
modernising effects were intensified by the American in-
fluence which, through the measures of after-WWII
occupation, also introduced modern formal law, such as:
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 130
constitution, laws, contracts, collective agreements,

compensation, formal suing and courts.Will the new pattern
prevail? Society is actually left cold by the issue: what is
hidden in its means and what possibilities do they bear?
Working place identification and other attachments are
incorporated into a moral and emotional ambience of soli-
darity, bearing more importance to them than anything else
their money could buy. At working places—be it small or
large—disputes are not characteristic at all, not even trade
union fights. Bosses direct mainly not by orders or manifes-
tations of authority, but rather by setting examples.
Globalism: challenge Human organisation has strange varieties.134 Our exam-
and danger ples above might seem miraculous—if we are unable to make
them accepted as natural by explaining their circumstances.
It is another question that relying on the storehouse of
different traditions, who and with what prospects can step
into the 21st century, the roots of which might seem Euro-
pean yet are—more and more visibly—dominated by
American ideas. It is a further issue whether, for the rest of
the world, it is feasible—and especially: worthwhile—to
follow this end-of-century and beginning-of-the-new-
millennium western pattern.We can only remember that the
ending of history135 has always proved to be a Utopia, and the
wish to preserve different human and civilisational patterns
is not an anthropologically romantic vision of getting away,
or a mere fantasy about the past.136
134
For a cultural comparative-historical approach, see, e.g., Reinhard
May Law & Society East and West Dharma, Li, and Nomos: Their Contri-
bution to Thought and to Life (Wiesbaden: Steiner 1985) 251 pp. [Beiträge
zur Südasienforschung {Südasien-Institut, Universität Heidelberg} 105],
especially at pp. 118–200.
135
Newly, under a liberal disguise, see Francis Fukuyama The End of
History and the Last Man (London: Penguin 1992) xxiii + 418 pp.
136
As an influential stimulation, cf. René David ‘Deux conceptions de
l’ordre social’ in Ius Privatum Gentium Festschrift für Max Rheinstein, I
(Tübingen: Mohr 1969), pp. 53–66 and René Dekkers ‘Justice bantu’ in
Revue roumaine des Sciences sociales: Série de Sciences juridiques XII (1968) 1,
pp. 56ff. Recent literature seems to reassure reasonable doubt and openness
towards different cultures. See, first of all, Peter Sack ‘Bobotoi and Sulu—
Melanesian Law: Normative Order or Way of Life?’ Journal de la Société des
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 131
2.3.2. Heteronomy
2.3.2.1. Saint THOMAS AQUINAS A new approach with a previ- Change of epochs
ously unknown consequentiality appears in the work of the between AUGUSTINUS
first, and maybe the most prominent, representative of the and AQUINAS
alternate major way of thinking, and this is Saint THOMAS
AQUINAS.137 We know what an important achievement it was
on his part to revive Greek traditions, especially ARISTOTLE’s
ideas.We also know how AQUINAS re-formulated the concept
of God, and into what order he arranged his proofs for it.Yet,
only one point of view will be of interest from the perspective
of our present analysis, namely the startling methodological
turn which the European thought took during the centuries
between Saint AUGUSTINE and Saint THOMAS AQUINAS. It
prepared the ground for an exceptionally important para-
digmatic change,138 and, at the same time, it appeared as
completed in its full armour.
Océanistes XLI (Juin 1985), No. 80, pp. 15–23 and ‘Melanesian Jurispru-
dence: A »Southern« Alternative’ Archiv für Rechts- und Sozialphilosophie
Supplementa II (1988), pp. 91–101.
137
On the way of thinking of Saint THOMAS AQUINAS, see Johannes A.
Aersten Nature and Creature Thomas Aquinas’ Way of Thought (Leiden:
Brill 1988) ix + 413 pp. [Studien und Texte zur Geistesgeschichte des
Mittelalters 21]; Norbert Bathen Thomistische Ontologie und Sprachanalyse
(Freiburg, etc.: Alber 1988) 236 pp. [Symposion 85]; Rudolf Teuwsen
Familieähnlichkeit und Analogie Zur Semantik generellen Termini bei
Wittgenstein und Thomas von Aquin (Freiburg, etc.: Alber 1988) 234 pp.
[Symposion 84]; Gudrun Schulz Veritas est adaequatio intellectus et rei Unter-
suchung zur Wahrheitslehre des Thomas von Aquin und zur Kritik Kants an
einem überlieferten Wahrheitsbegriff (Leiden: Brill 1993) vi + 192 pp.
[Studien und Texte zur Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters 36].
138
“In [Saint AUGUSTINE] one does not encounter the same antitheses [separation of
between knowledge and faith that was to characterize much of later Western knowledge and faith]
Christian thought. […] These syntheses [of Saint BONAVENTURE, Saint
THOMAS, and DUNS SCOTUS], especially the THOMIStic one, tended to
become overrationalistic in imprisoning intuitions of a metaphysical order
in syllogistic categories which were to hide, more than reveal, their properly
speaking intellectual rather than purely rational character. […] These
theologies, therefore, although belonging in a certain sense to the sapiential
dimension of the CHRISTian tradition, characterize the crucial intermediate
stages of the process whereby knowledge became desacralized and philos-
ophy gradually divorced from wisdom”. Seyyed Hossein Nasr Knowledge
and the Sacred The Gifford Lectures, 1981 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh Univer-
sity Press 1981), pp. 19 and 22–23.
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 132
The conclusive As we have pointed out at an earlier stage, the most

(irrefutable) strength striking feature in Saint AUGUSTINE’s thought is his authen-
of a conceptual ticity. We are able to know who he was because he had an
system: authentic life revealed in confessions, and therefore we can
trust his answers. From this also derives that everything he
said or thought may bear a message for us.Well, to approach
the counter-example, with Saint THOMAS AQUINAS it is
exactly this circumstance (the subjective side with the
personal involvement and authenticity) that becomes irrele-
vant, almost to an absurd extent—not due to his person but
the methodology he choose, consequently also as a message
of his oeuvre. In his case it is irrelevant, next to intimacy, that
for most of his life he talked about God. The strength of his
personal belief in God was not so much relevant either when
he discussed faith in God or the proofs for it. The exclusive
message of Saint THOMAS’s work is that he mentally created
a system, the axiomatic set of God-proofs, which itself repre-
sented a totality, from the existence, organisation and logical
closure of which the existence of something else, of God,
as the case may be, derives directly—as we know from
Geometry: because of the axiomatism of the thought-repre-
sentations which are valid in and of themselves.
there is no Therefore, it is not at all a sign of cynicism if we wonder
categoricity of logical —let us repeat it again: only from the perspective of metho-
derivation in personal dology and of the message embodied exclusively by a text—
testimony whether the question relating to any personal confidence or
authenticity, thus, for instance, Saint THOMAS’ most inti-
mate belief in God, can be relevant here. For in his work, built
from syllogisms and logical proofs as a legacy externalised
for posterity, no statement concerning the existence of God
can bear the character of a personal testimony. Consequent-
ly, when weighing the conclusive strength of his assertions
on the existence of God, it is again irrelevant whether he
supports their truth in his own authentic personality.139
139
[while the real per- A number of contemporaries confess, with deep affection, his deep
sonality of Saint faith, his commitment in his exemplary monastic service, and on the unity
THOMAS is also of emotion, passion and knowledge both in his person and in his faith in
God. Cf. The Life of Saint Thomas Aquinas Biographical Documents, ed. &
contemplative]
trans. Kenelm Foster, O.P. (London: Longmans & Baltimore: Helicon n.y.)
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 133
Since, from the very moment one faces the THOMIStic God-
proofs, one must unavoidably confront with his certainty in
God’s existence, because these proofs themselves, as
elements of a closed system of thought, already anticipate
the final result. Therefore, on the grounds of AQUINAS’
system of proofs, stating the result will not say anything new,
since as a consequence this will be nothing more or else than
a pure logical regularity and necessity. (It is another ques-
tion, of course, that his firm conviction of being sensible and
reasonable enough to build up a logified conceptual system
on the existence of God is based on his personal belief on
adequatio rei et intellectus.)
Hence, God must exist. Everything we can assert as a therefore its logic
thesis in the system of axioms will derive directly from the takes a firm stand
existence of the axioms and their interrelation. Our personal on its own,
relationship to the theses will not be relevant here, nor will independently of
anyone be interested in whether we can or want to believe personal faith
them. Our participation in the entire process is incidental
anyway, and our personal beliefs, convictions and under-
lying motives will make a difference strictly from a personal
perspective. For instance, maybe some day one can be proud
of having been at the well of such noble thoughts. Similarly,
the question of what THOMAS AQUINAS believed in when he
sank into himself can only be a contribution to his biography
because his God-proofs stand by themselves: they neither
require nor tolerate any addition. Consequently, due to the
fact that the existence of God is no longer a function of
xii + 172 pp. “Is there a single word or phrase that might indicate the kind
of person AQUINAS was, as our sources reveal him? I suggest »a Christian
seer« as perhaps the least inadequate, provided the adjective be given
enough force to include sanctity. »Saint« alone is too general a term, »sage«
is too secular, »prophet« too ambiguous, »theologian« too narrow. »Contem-
plative« might do, except that this term hardly conveys the immense
e f f o r t towards vision that marked the vocation of St. THOMAS, and
except that this was an effort also to render i n t e l l i g i b l e , in terms of
human rational discourse, all such vision as could be gained; and so to
communicate it to others, according to the ideal of the Order of Preachers,
contemplata aliis tradere.” (p. 23).
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 134
personal belief but of the systematic set of proofs he

happened to be the first to formulate, our personal attitude
(belief or will to believe) is also bound to lose importance.
The system is It is the same logic from which derives that there are no
valid and gapless more or less interesting or serious (etc.) issues in THOMAS
on its own: AQUINAS’ system.The corpus of the Summa Theologiae raises
it responds to what its quite a few questions some of which might seem bizarre
case is at first for our days’ reader, at least in the way they are
circumscribed and analysed by AQUINAS. For instance, he
raises the question: “Utrum plures angeli possunt simul esse in
eodem loco”,140 that is, how many angels can fit into one
place?141 Looking for today’s practical reason behind such
formulations would be rather inadequate and useless. For
we are dealing with a system of thought which is irreplace-
able, complete, coherent and indivisible. In other words, it is
valid and gapless in and of itself. For this reason it offers
perfectly complete answers to the questions that can be
raised as a case of the system. And, cases of the system
cannot be questioned—even if they seem strange to us,
external observers, who live in another era and share a some-
what differentiated outlook on the world. Neither can our
perspective and consideration be relevant since it is external,
thus alien to the system—our way of raising questions,
inspired by our everyday common sense, obviously not
being a case of the system, whereas the question about the
140
Thomas Aquinas Summa Theologica I 52, 3 [“Can several angels be
in the same place?”].
141
As Scholasticism has been mocked since VOLTAIRE as one dealing
with issues in a finicky manner, for instance, contemplating about the
number of angels that are able to dance on the point of a needle. However,
as Charles Ess remarks in his ‘Notes on David Peat, Einstein’s Moon: Bell’s
Theorem and the Curious Quest for Quantum Reality’ History and Philosophy
of Science (Fall 1997) in <www.drury.edu/ess/philsci/bell.html>, “there is
apparently no record of any medieval discussion of how many angels could
sit/dance on the head of a pin/needle. This is apparently modernist
propoganda intended to denigrate the ways of knowing of an earlier time in
the effort to demonstrate the superiority of »modern« ways of knowing, i.e.,
natural science.” Nevertheless, as to the question proper, “[t]his is at least
as important issue from a scientific perspective as, for instance: what
happens when two beams of light collide.”
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 135
angels can be a case of the system inasmuch as AQUINAS

conceptualised it once. By looking at the axioms and theo-
rems of the system we can easily tell what is inside and what
is outside the system. The fact that one proves a particular
question to be a case of the system implies that the system
has an answer to it and this answer is complete. THOMAS
AQUINAS was aware of this and also broke it down in logic.
This is t h e a n s w e r of the system—be it expressed in
principles or as quantified, for example, in the eventual
number of the angels that can fit into one place.
Nothing is incidental or random in a system of thought Our presence is
like this. It is only our personal existence that falls outside of incidental, but the
it, hence being incidental. In the same way it is incidental system is necessary
that we happened to come in touch with it. In consequence,
the opinion we form about the system is also incidental—our
way of thinking and perspective being external to the system.
All these questions are independent of the system, which
bears its validity in itself.142
The theological idea of the system is in fact the applica- Mos geometricus
tion of the strict EUCLIDean, i.e., axiomatic, conceptual
system to matters of societal life and transcendence as well.
This approach establishes itself in European scholarship
with the beginning of the modern era, up to the end of the
18th century, as being called mos geometricus.143 The geomet-
rical way of thinking remained the leading paradigm of
European scholarly life until the end of the Enlightenment.
142
It is exactly this that becomes worth reconsidering in our days’ moral
theological reconstruction. For this thousand-year-old systemic thought
used to axiomatise (i.e., posit and derive), yet it thereby also transformed
everything into rules as a set of obligations and prohibitions, shifting the
emphasis from its overall foundation, resisting logification yet of cardinal
importance, i.e., the active—CHRISTian—love permeating everything. For
by having become an issue of commandments and prohibitions first of all,
the nominalism emphasised the notions of law and obligation in moral as
against inner spontaneity and impulse, which are the concepts character-
istic of love. Pinckaers, chs.VII and IX.
143
Firstly in Baruch Spinoza’s Ethica ordine geometrico demonstrata
[around 1670–1674] ed. J. van Vloten & J.P.N. Land in Benedicti di Spino-
za Opera quotquot reperta suntTom. I, Ed. 2, 3rd ed. (Den Haag: Nijhoff 1890).
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 136
It was not always followed but was respected at all times as

an ideal pattern:144 as the standard for how to structurate our
thinking, argumentation and world-view so that scientific
methodology can prevail in it.
GROTIUS is only to 2.3.2.2. GROTIUS HUGO GROTIUS was not only a natural
represent what lawyer but a committed adherent to the geometrical idea as
natural law is, well.145 His magisterial work De iure belli ac pacis is regarded
axiomatically today as the aggregate of the tenets of natural law broken
broken down down and applied more geometrico to a given field. From the
perspective of our methodological inquiry this means that if
we recognise some theses and fundamental ideas as axioms
of natural law, then the whole system—including its applica-
tion to war and peace—derives from it out of logical
necessity.This intellectual venture suggests self-referentially
that it is entirely irrelevant who has actually created it. The
novelty in this respect is only that it is the system itself to
144
As a reconstruction of the history of ideas in the field of law, cf., e.g.,
Gerhard Otte ‘Der sogenannte mos geometricus in der Jurisprudenz’ Quader-
ni fiorentini per la storia del pensioero giuridico moderno 8 (1979), pp. 179–196
and, in the context of its feasibility and essential inaccessibility, Eike von
Savigny ‘Zur Rolle der deduktiv-axiomatischen Methode in der Rechtswis-
senschaft’ in Rechtstheorie Beiträge zur Grundlagendiskussion, ed. Günther
Jahr & Werner Maihofer (Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann 1971), pp.
315–351. As a background, see also Dieter von Stephanitz Exakte Wissen-
schaft und Recht Der Einfluß von Naturwissenschaft und Mathematik
auf Rechtsdenken und Rechtswissenschaft in zweieinhalb Jahrtausenden
(Ein historischer Grundbegriff) (Berlin: De Gruyter 1970) xii + 273 pp.
[Münsterische Beiträge zur Rechts- und Staatswissenschaft 15] especially
at pp. 72ff. See also, by the author, as a summation of researches carried on
as early as in 1972, ‘Heuristic Value of the Axiomatic Model in Law’ in Auf
dem Weg zur Idee der Gerechtigkeit Gedenkschrift für Ilmar Tammelo, hrsg.
Raimund Jakob, Lothar Philipps, Erich Schweighofer & Csaba Varga
(Münster, etc.: Lit Verlag 2009), pp. 127–134 and ‘The Quest for
Formalism in Law: Ideals of Systemicity and Axiomatisability between
Utopianism and Heuristic Assertion’ Acta Juridica Hungarica 50 (2009) 1,
pp. 1–30 & <http://www.akademiai.com/content/k7264206g254078j/>.
145
For the intellectual environment, see The World of Hugo Grotius
(1583–1645) Proceedings of the International Colloque organized by the
Grotius Committee of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and
Sciences (Amsterdam, etc.: Holland University Press 1984) vii + 214 pp.
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 137
state it as a categorical point of principle. (Naturally,

GROTIUS’ pride is merely a sign of self-esteem, as he
happened to be the first to give birth to such a thought, the
validity of which is grounded in itself.)
At the same time, axiomatism offers GROTIUS a self- System closed as
revealing thesis on natural law. As he expresses it: natural law valid in itself:
is valid in itself—so much that if we presumed (which, as he systemically it does
wisely adds, would be hardly possible without committing not even presuppose
the deadly sin of blasphemy) that God does not exist, the the existence of God
propositions of natural law in a system like GROTIUS’ would or man:
still retain their validity. Moreover, they would attain an
absolutely binding force. Natural law thereby announces its
claim for validity, taken and founded in and of itself. Since,
once it comes to existence, it is valid, and its v a l i d i t y is
founded i n a n d o f i t s e l f . Once it is created, not
even God himself can change it any more. To make it clear,
GROTIUS neither gives expression to, nor assume that the
creator of natural law, God, does not exist. Instead, he claims
that his natural law would exist and be valid even if one
assumed that there was no God or that He was not
concerned with human matters or that humans did not
exist146—this being a paradoxical statement typically from
within the system, for this would obviously be absurd
outside of it, as only the existence of the society of humans
can make it intelligible to talk about natural law.147
Thus, a pattern of thought was thereby born in which the it is the world that
relationship between the underlying idea and its elements becomes incidental
became independent, so much that the entire (outside) as compared to
w o r l d seemed i n c i d e n t a l when compared to it. systemic validity
The outside world was thereby shaken, the world which, as
we could learn from both GEORGE LUKÁCS’s ontology of the
social being and the experience of mankind, is built also
from human practice (the same human practice lying at the
foundation of the fact that we have raised the question at all).
146
Hugo Grotius De jure belli ac pacis Prolegomena, sect. xi.
147
See, e.g., Ernst Cassirer The Philosophy of the Enlightenment [1932]
(Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press 1968) xiii + 366 pp., pp. 239ff.
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 138
LEIBNIZ 2.3.2.3. LEIBNIZ A few centuries after GROTIUS we can arrive

at one of the most prominent thinkers of the 18th century,
regarded today as the precursor to modern thinking. And
this is GOTTFRIED WILHELM LEIBNIZ,148 who corresponded
with reigning princes in French (mostly about imperial
affairs, as well as on moral, political, legal and especially
international and diplomatic issues); as a private person he
spoke in German; and recorded everything that qualified as
science in Latin: mathematics, including geometry, logic,
language and jurisprudence.
Law is a conceptual For LEIBNIZ, jurisprudence is a conceptual science. Its
science: a series language, Latin, bears the infinite variability and flexibility
of operations of a classical vocabulary (with the exceptionally polished
with formulas potentialities of construction offered by its well-developed
grammar), at the same time being the standard language of
the entire cultural community of Europe. This particular
circumstance granted ground and prospect, permanence
and continuity, renewal and universality also for law and
thinking about law. For LEIBNIZ, thinking meant a well-
arranged series of conceptual operations; a sequence which
could be unquestionably reduced to a set of given Latin
formulas.149 According to LEIBNIZ, scholarship as a science is
148
On LEIBNIZ’s way of thinking, see Benson Mates The Philosophy of
Leibniz Metaphysics and Language (New York, etc.: Oxford University
Press 1986) xi + 271 pp.; Marcelo Dascal Leibniz Language, Signs and
Thought: A Collection of Essays (Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John
Benjamins Publishing Company 1987) xi + 203 pp. [Foundations of
Semiotics 10]; Olga Pombo Leibniz and the Problem of Universal Language
(Münster: Nodus 1987) 321 pp. [Materialien zur Geschichte der Sprach-
wissenschaft und der Semiotik 3].
149
[finding the truth is “For our intellect, in view of its weakness, must be directed by a
nothing else than certain mechanical thread; in this connection, recall that, with regard to
operation with thoughts which represent things that do not fall under the imagination, only
the characters are available. Furthermore, all the demonstrative sciences
characters]
deal with nothing but equivalences or substitutions of thoughts, and show,
in fact, that in some necessary propositions the predicate may safely replace
the subject, and that in any convertible proposition the subject may also
replace the predicate and that in demonstrations a proposition formerly
called a ‘conclusion’ may safely replace any of the truths now called
‘premises’. Hence, it is evident that truths themselves would appear succes-
sively on paper through the mere analysis of c h a r a c t e r s , that is,
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 139
ideally the mere logical interconnection of Latin formulas.

His inclination towards formal reduction led him to the early
dream of what the world today knows as the computer. (As
is known, the mental reconstruction of elementary natural
systems was the one to lead in our century to the formula-
tion of the primitive idea of cybernetics.150)
According to LEIBNIZ, all thoughts and recognitions are Thoughts as logical
nothing but the l o g i c a l reconstructions of c o n c e p - reconstructions of
t u a l relationships. This forms the basis of scientific conceptual
problems as well. Their solution is a function of the logical relationships:
configuration of concepts. Thus, problem-solving can be
reduced to elementary operations: the connections into
which we place the concepts and the relations we establish
between them. At the time, Europe considered the Latin
language a godly gift, forming the basis of human culture,
and being of a nature that is so universal that genuine human
quality could hardly do and develop without it.They consid-
ered the Latin language as the natural medium for the
existence of mankind, which can serve as a basis both for our
communication with God and for the cognition of reality.
Since Latin offers language structures ready-to-take which
allow us to approach the outside world, by speaking about it
and also by understanding its motion and connections.
The edition of LEIBNIZ’s texts is still not complete. In each linking a predicate to
of his works—presenting an abundance of problems, and a a subject: judgement-
strictness and discipline in conclusion—he treats the & invention-machines
problem to be solved as an issue of how to link a logical
p r e d i c a t e to a logical s u b j e c t . In order to simplify
the process of responding, LEIBNIZ invented concept-
calculators: gadgets that originated in a mathematician’s
conceptual Utopia, later describing these calculators in the
most minute details. The first machine of this kind was the
through orderly and uninterrupted substitution.” Gottfried Wilhelm

Leibniz ‘[Fragments on the Analysis of Langauge]’ [September 11, 1678,
C. 351–354] in Dascal, p. 161.
150
Cf., e.g., Charles Francois History and Philosophy of the Systems
Sciences (2000), passim <www.uniklu.ac.at/˜gossimit/ifsr/francois/papers/
history_and_philosophy.pdf>.
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 140
judgement-machine, a mechanical construct (of a wooden

sliding structure) serving the co-ordination of logical predi-
cates to logical subjects. His second machine was the
invention-machine, but with this creation the greatest
thinker of the Western world of the time became the captive
of his own thought-trap. He intended to rely upon the
following assumption: if the world is such as we grow to
know it and what we mentally reproduce by co-ordinating
certain predicate(s) to certain subject(s), then we can
cognise cognition itself by attempting to decide what predi-
cates to co-ordinate with what subjects so that this leads to a
true judgement, and what other predicate(s) to other
subject(s) so that this results in a false statement.
co-ordination- It did not even occur to him that inasmuch as we could
machine as the ascertain all these, the oeuvre of human cognition would be
inventory of completed once and for all. These problems arise
judgements for throughout his scientific work, and he even invented a co-
filtering out ordination-machine to perform the sequence of mechanical
false judgements operations necessary to provide the solution. He had the
following presumption: we know the Latin language and its
thesaurus, thus, we also know what notions can be used as
subjects and what notions as predicates.This way a complete
i n v e n t o r y o f j u d g e m e n t s can be made by
constructing all feasible judgements. When done, there
will be only one task left, that is, to get the entire corpus of
verifiable knowledge, by filtering the false judgements out,
through these means.151
Calculemus! The same pattern of thought asserted itself in the
Calculemus! way of thought. LEIBNIZ reasoned that if all
human dilemmas are reducible to conceptual operations,
then human meditation, be it on existential or moral
matters, will again be nothing more than the conceptualisa-
tion of a calculational operation with notions. Thus,
151
[we surely have truth The inference of modern philosophy of science is built upon a similar
but we cannot know paradox realisation: “The truth is an end we can attain but we cannot know
in what and when] when we have attained it.” Ilkka Niiniluoto ‘Fallibilismista’ Sosiologia
Journal of the Westermarck Society XI (1974), Nos. 5–6, pp. 274–286 on
pp. 275f [summarised on p. 316].
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 141
anything we ponder about can be reduced to c a l c u l a -

t i o n . From this derives the fact that a contradiction can
only be the result of a mistake in thought, which we make
when facing a complex logical problem too complicated to
be thought through in all its ramifications. Therefore, he
describes his ideal in a classical subtleness: here we have two
men in a dispute but without being able to reach a decision.
They take out their slates, then picking up their chalks, they
cry out: “Now, let us calculate!” And, they start calculating,
instead of arguing without method, like fools do. LEIBNIZ has
actually professed with a deep conviction that by following
his advice all dilemmas can be resolved once and for all—be
they moral affairs or matters of exact sciences.
2.3.3. The dilemma of the evolution of thought

As shown by the developments discussed in the present World created as a
book, here we will present the basic concepts, patterns and logical entity, built
ways—declared redeeming—of human thought. We may and operated like a
realise that the dichotomy between deductivism and induc- clockwork
tivism actually runs all through the European (furthermore,
in part also through non-European) history of human civil-
isation. It is another realisation that the variant we were
eventually born into and got accustomed to in the course of
our education and socialisation is neither a necessity in
itself, nor one without historical alternatives. Our entire
thought-culture, including the legal culture of argumenta-
tion we developed, is built upon the ideal of deductive logic,
backed by the Utopia of final axiomatism.152 Both THOMAS
AQUINAS and GOTTFRIED WILHELM LEIBNIZ are representa-
tives of this idea, which is the prevalent thought-trend
152
For a wider overview, see, for example, José Ortega y Gasset L’évolu-
tion de la théorie déductive L’idée de principe chez Leibniz (Paris: Gallimard
1970) 342 pp. [Bibliothèque des Idées]. Concerning the foundations in
principles, cf., from the classics, Blaise Pascal ‘De l’esprit géométrique’ in
his Oeuvres complètes III, ed. Jean Mernard (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer
1991), pp. 360–437 [Bibliothèque Européenne].
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 142
throughout the development of European civilisation.153 In

the form of expression of its early ideology, the world itself
becomes one enormous clockwork. It is a creation of God,
the clockmaster, and since He has already built in all the
necessary rules of operation, once started, it operates
smoothly. Nature, living creatures and society, all have their
places assigned. And the Creator may withdraw and watch
both its operation and our efforts at trying to find our own
place within the earthly scheme, from the distance and with
a serenity of absolute certainty.154 Such an allegorical image
153
[clock as a metaphor] From the perspective of the history of science, see Anneliese Maier
‘Die Mechanisierung des Weltbilds im 17. Jahrhundert’ [1938] in her Zwei
Untersuchungen zur nachscholastischen Philosophie 2. Auflage (Roma: Edizio-
ni di Storia e Letteratura 1968), pp. 13–67 [Storia e Letteratura 112], Marie
Boas [Hall] ‘The Establishment of the Mechanical Philosophy’ Osiris 10
(1952), pp. 412–541 {as synthetised, see his The Mechanical Philosophy
(New York: Arno Press 1981) 541 pp. [The Development of Science]} and
E[duard] J[an] Dijksterhuis The Mechanization of the World Picture [1950]
trans. C. Dikshoorn (Oxford: Clarendon 1961) viii + 539 pp.; for the role
of mathematicians, J. A. Bennett ‘The Mechanics’ Philosophy and the
Mechanical Philosophy’ History of Science 24 (1986), pp. 1–28; and finally,
on the role played by the capitalist stimulation in the “mathematical-
mechanical world-view”, Richard W. Hadden On the Shoulders of Merchants
Exchange and the Mathematical Conception of Nature in Early Modern
Europe (Albany: State University of New York Press 1994) xviii + 191 pp
[SUNY Series in Chinese Philosophy and Culture]. In a historico-socio-
logical interpretation, see also Steven Shapin The Scientific Revolution
(Chicago & London:The University of Chicago Press 1996) xiv + 218 pp.
154
European thought originates the image of the universe as a clock—
in which the Creator God appears as the Clock-Creator—from The
Wisdom of SOLOMON: “[God] has disposed all things by measure and
number and weight.” TheWisdom of Solomon (11:20) in The Holy Bible. “For
if someone should construct a material clock would he not make all the
motions and wheels as nearly commensurable as possible? How much more
[then] ought we to think [in this way] about that architect who, it is said, has
made all things in number, weight, and measure?” Nicole Oresme Tractatus
de commensurabilitate vel incommensurabilitate mutuum celi [around 1350] ed.
Edward Grant (Madison, Wisconsin 1971), pp. 292–295. “[T]he situation
is much like that of a man making a clock and letting it run and continue its
own motion by itself. In this manner did God allow the heavens to be moved
continually according to the proportions of the motive powers to the resis-
tances and according to the established order [of regularity].” Nicole
Oresme Le Livre du ciel et du monde [1377] ed. A. D. Menut & A. K. Deverny,
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 143
has not only shaped our endeavours towards methodology,

adjusting them to strict requirements and discipline, but still
provides the cornerstones for our drawing of conceptual
analogies and comparisons up to this day.155 Even if it has
never been truly challenged and shaken, we ought to know
that neither has it been the exclusive view, nor has it
displayed the full scale of its inherent potentialities.
Every feature that is instrumental within the given frame, as an exclusive
and what we could implement also in our legal culture, is pattern
built upon this axiomatic ideal. Obviously, it defines the
essential boundaries and perspectives of our thinking-
culture as well. One of its properties is the exclusivity of our
thought. This is testified, above all, by the evidence of how
trans. A. D. Menut (Madison,Wisconsin 1968), p. 289. “So that the world

being but, as it were, a great piece of clockwork, the naturalist, as such, is
but a mechanician: however the parts of the engine, he considers, be some
of them much larger, and some of them much minuter, than those of clock
or watches.” Robert Boyle ‘The Excellency of Theology Compared with
Natural Philosophy’ [1665] in The Works of the Honorable Robert Boyle ed.
Thomas Birch, IV (London: J. and F. Rivington 1772), p. 49. All the above
quotes are from Otto Mayr Authority, Liberty and Automatic Machinery in
Early Modern Europe (Baltimore & London: Johns Hopkins University
Press 1986) xviii + 265 pp. [Johns Hopkins Studies in the History of Tech-
nology] on pp. 56, 38–39 and 56, respectively. Cf. also Lynn White, Jr.
Medieval Technology and Social Change (London, etc.: Oxford University
Press 1962) xi + 194 + 10 pp., and, in a wider context, John Henry The
Scientific Revolution and the Origins of Modern Science (Houndmills, Hamp-
shire and London: Macmillan & NewYork: St. Martin’s Press 1997) x + 137
pp. [Studies in European History], especially at pp. 90–92. It is also worthy
of mention that the mechanical world-view inherent in the clock-metaphor
was at its peek during the absolutistic era in Europe.This explains why the
fundamental idea of feed-back already presented by HERO OF ALEXANDRIA
in his Pneumatics (fl. 1st century AD) was only taken over in modern
England—originating the terms of ‘balance’, ‘checks and balances’, as well
as ‘supply and demand’ (paradigmatic in our modern world-concept)—
despite that HERO’s work was published in Europe as early as in 1575.
155
See, e.g., for the relationship between the terms ordo naturae and ordo [ordo naturae &
rationis (and, within the latter, ordo intellectuum and ordo cognitionis) and, as ordo rationis]
the basis for these, for the distinction between ordo and malum, Hermann
Krings Ordo Philosophisch-historische Grundlegung einer abendlän-
dischen Idee [1941], 2., durchgesehene Auflage (Hamburg: Meiner 1982)
xiv + 129 pp.
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 144
much we have become accustomed to considering every-

thing we have achieved through a methodical process to be
an exclusive issue of our intellectual development and a
result without alternatives.156
But: extended to all Today’s analyses conducted in the fields of the philosophy
fields? do we really of science, linguistic philosophy and cognitive sciences have
think like that? all proven how false this exclusivity is. No doubt, the more
geometrico way of thinking is one of the most promising
potentialities within the history of human thought.157 At the
same time, we have reasons to believe that this is an over-
simplified construction: something that can exclusively be
applied in an adequate way and with adequate results to the
description of pre-defined conditions on strictly limited
areas, exclusively as one of the equally feasible conceptual
constructions which openly undertakes the burden of
abstract conceptualisation to an extreme extent in view of
achieving a complete formalisation.158 This very considera-
tion may however raise doubts as to whether we are truly
capable of axiomatic thinking, and whether thinking this
way is possible in a manner worthy of a human being
and adequate to human conditions. We are familiar with
the dialectics of anthropomorphism and d y s anthropo-
morphism—notably that we gain most of our notional
constructions edifying our scientific world-concept from the
abstracting projection and over-generalising extrapolation
of our human relations, cutting them from their original
156
Richard J. Bernstein Beyond Objectivism and Relativism Science, Her-
meneutics, and Praxis (Oxford: Blackwell 1983) xix + 284 pp. calls, on pp.
16–20, this limitedness ‘CARTESian anxiety’ which concludes, with objec-
tivism shattered or becoming unprovable, only to chaos and nihilism.
157
On deductive presentation and system-construction, see Deduktion-
ssysteme Automatisierung des logischen Denkens, 2. überarb. Aufl., ed. K.
H. Bläsin & al. (München: Oldenbourg 1992) viii + 291 pp.
158
To some extent—and especially in its underlying methodological
motive—the situation is the same with the trust in numbers, where quan-
tification (depersonalised, by a form apparently objective) takes the
sharpness of a decision. Cf. Theodore M. Porter Trust in Numbers The
Pursuit of Objectivity in Science and Public Life, (Princeton: Princeton
University Press 1995) xv + 310 pp. and especially at p. 8.
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 145
roots—, among others, from GEORGE LUKÁCS’ late ontology

of the social being,159 describing institutionalised fields like
religion, politics, economics, law, or scholarship, patterned
by the ideal of their homogenising medium, in order to be
able to serve the heterogeneous demands of social totality
with own, particularly adequate means. Yet, contemporary
philosophy of science has an expressly critical view on the
above issue. For instance and above all, extreme simplifica-
tion is seen in our attempts at axiomatic thinking on matters
of society (i.e., policy, social pragmatism and morality),
presupposing and apparently also performing ideals
pertaining otherwise to mathematics (clearness, purity,
sharpness, and categorical simplicity), moreover, being led
by a childish hope that we can thereby provide a complete
and final solution to the underlying queries without leaving
any dilemmas or doubts behind.
As the exact opposite, today’s realisations in philosophy of Axiomatism has
science point at the substantial boundaries of artificial no relevance in reality
human constructs (thus, primarily, at the structural limita-
tions of axiomatically constructed mental systems and their
suitability to generate second reality, as well as of their
adequacy and cognitive strength in mental reconstruction).
For philosophies of science argue against the claim for such
artificial constructs to be used as universal patterns,
whereby it reveals that no presuppositions substantiating
such a claim have any equivalents or relevance in reality.
We may also contemplate how mankind’s greatest works Creative uncertainty
and thought creations in human matters were born. Under- versus axiomatism
taking the odium of over-simplification and reducing the
alternatives at our disposal to two, we may ask further: which
kind of thinking proved to be more productive, the one led
by the axiomatic ideal or the one embedded in c r e a t i v e
u n c e r t a i n t y ? Let us exemplify these, even if only
superficially, with the greatest mentors of humanity in
159
Lukács Die Eigenart des Ästethischen I, ch. II and György Lukács
A társadalmi lét ontológiájáról [Zur Ontologie des gesellschaftlichen Seins]
I–III (Budapest: Magvetô 1976), particularly I: »Die wichtigste Prob-
lemkomplexe«, passim.
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 146
matters of religion and morals. Well, regardless of personal

affiliation, we may think of the line of prophets from the Old
Testament or of JESUS CHRIST from the New Testament, in
either case we will encounter unambiguous indications for a
justifiable response. One could also recall the founders of
religions and builders of moral systems of various non-Euro-
pean cultures, like BUDDHA, CONFUCIUS or MOHAMMED.
The fact that the most prominent ancestors and religion-
founders of mankind on the globe thought the way they did
cannot be traced back to personal traits or to mere co-inci-
dence. As far as their way of thinking is concerned, BUDDHA,
CONFUCIUS and MOHAMMED adhered to the same tradition
as the Old Testament prophets and JESUS CHRIST did.
Continuing the line, we may of course arrive at the medieval
and modern eras, spiritually mastered by Saint AUGUSTINE,
and MARTIN LUTHER and JOHANNES CALVIN, respectively.
(example: the Let us turn to another field and have a look at the poten-
Grundgesetz of Bonn tialities in law as they are embodied, for instance, by the
Preamble of the German Constitution (Basic Law or Grund-
gesetz).160 This text, comprising hardly a hundred words,
sounds like a moral teaching, as if it were a passage from the
New Testament or from some other transcendental message.
It is rather poetry than anything else. Political pamphlets and
brochures on law issued in the once German Democratic
Republic and the occupant Soviet Union used to brand this
very Preamble simply as the “precursor of fascism”. The
principal STALINist objection, proclaimed from the concep-
tual heights of “socialist legality”, claimed that law is
expected to operate with exact formulations. This very text,
however, consists of an exceptionally rich variety of moral
and historico-philosophical considerations which withstand
strict conceptualisation and, therefore, might give way to
different interpretations under differing conditions, and the
ones who apply it may actually use it when and wherefore
160
For the preamble of the German Constitution, see Willi Geiger ‘Zur
Genesis der Präambel des Grundgesetzes’ Europäische Grundrechts-
Zeitschrift 13 (1986) 3, pp. 121–126 and Dietrich Zais Rechtsnatur und
Rechtsgehalt der Präambel des Grundgesetzes für die Bundesrepublik Deutsch-
land vom 23. Mai 1949 (Tübingen: [Univ. Diss.] 1973) 241 pp.
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 147
they please and motivate in merit. Obviously, as the argu-

ment could be continued, a firm stand in specific issues is by
far not excluded, and if it is eventually the case of law, then
it is meant for telling us precisely how to act, for instance, as
judges obliged to make a decision. As an instance from the
other pole, the conceptual clearness of STALIN’s Soviet
Constitution (1936) might also be assessed from such a
perspective. Indeed, the ideal of the legal culture of Civil
Law systems in Europe is linguistic representation with
axiomatic pretensions and striving for exhaustive conceptual
description. There is no contradiction in that the Germans
could not praise enough the Preamble of their Constitution,
first of all by referring to its inherent ability to provide
instructions and encouragement in various constitutional
contexts and processes even under unforeseeable condi-
tions. It has this ability because by formulating the ethos and
historical efforts of the German statehood on the level of
principles it actually responds to the most diverse questions,
and, after all, provides a guiding basis for further action
without the least necessity to be amended when political re-
evaluation is due under changed conditions.
The Preamble of the Grundgesetz selects values from such setting a direction
a wide range and in such a broad social context that it without being
becomes capable of fulfilling the task of setting the direction specific)
without the slightest need for itself to undertake the decision
and the concrete evaluation of future situations. From our
own perspective, we can say that it can do so because it does
not bear any axiomatic stand or deduction whatsoever in
regard to the hierarchy of values and the instrumentalisations
through which they are to be fulfilled. That is, at any given
time, it leaves the decision to the prevailing political and insti-
tutional system as to whether under new conditions the
reunification of Germany should or should not be evoked, or
the challenge of re-armament be undertaken, and so on.
Perhaps it is not by mere chance that we arrive at LUTHER (example: the
and CALVIN when continuing the above line of thought.Well, divergent paths
it is more than interesting that MARTIN LUTHER exerted a LUTHER and CALVIN
fertilising influence both in his life and after.Witch-burning, took)
intolerance on the level of principles did not derive from the
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 148
Reformation in Germany in the same way they did in

Switzerland. It is hard to prove how great a role any indi-
vidual may have had in the historical separation of real
situations following parallel starting points, and how great
the one of the accumulation of conditioning differences,
intertwined (yet diverging) may have been.161 Thus, we
cannot say whether the personality, way of communication,
rigourism of principles or inclination towards exhaustive
normative regulation characteristic of JOHANNES CALVIN
played a role in the divergence of directions or not. With
regard to the theological foundations, however, these two
main streams of Protestantism did not differ so much to
determine their fates in posteriority.Yet, the same basic idea
of Protestantism actually led to the birth of entirely different
accomplishments in both style and the hard facts of the
time.162
161
For another crucial period of European history, this is the endeavour
of JOHN LUKÁCS, solving the enigma in his The Duel Hitler vs. Churchill, 10
May–31 July, 1940 (London: Bodley Head 1990) 276 pp.
162
[CALVIN’s Cf., e.g., Euan Cameron The European Reformation (Oxford:
merciless logic] Clarendon Press 1991) xv + 564 pp. According to GEORG HUNSTON
WILLIAMS’ summary—The Radical Reformation 3rd ed. (Kirksville, Miss.:
Sixteenth Century Journal Publishers 1992) xlvi + 1513 pp. [Sixteenth
Century Essays and Studies]—, CALVIN excelled especially in his icono-
clastic violence, dogmatism, self-centred rigourism and in the unnecessary
generation of martyrdoms (p. 1187), “who in several ways was closer to the
radicals than LUTHER in his resolution to cleanse both doctrine and polity
of all traditional elements that were not expressly mandated by Scripture
and in his great interest in sanctification and church discipline, was with
respect to the state much closer to the papal Church in seeking to ground
political authority and competence in revelation, desirous wherever
possible to work for a regenerate magistracy under the tutelage of the
reformed Church.” (p. 1282) Or, such is “CALVIN with the pitiless logic so
characteristic of the French temper, so unassainable in his conclusions
when his premises are granted.” R. H. Murray The Political Consequences of
the Reformation Studies in Sixteenth-century Political Thought (London:
Benn 1926) 301 pp. [The Library of European Political Thought] on p. 81.
– In practice this corresponded to a system of interlocking control, infil-
trating even in private life, to the drive to denouncement, the mutual
generation of fear, hatred and enmity, as well as to the intensification of the
psychological stress, through the internalisation of guilt, a harsh regime of
child-rearing and through the merciless suppression of rituals to regulate
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 149
Being led by the ideals interiorised during our “scientific” In science:

upbringing, we are only allowed to think that the axiomatic school-generating
pattern, and no other, is the one which corresponds to the thought
standards of science. Although, if only recalling the → applications
outstanding examples, what we can see at all times is that (a) → generation of isms:
at some point in history a school-generating oeuvre is born rigidifying thought into
and (b) this—through a number of more or less servile doctrinarism instead
copying—is continued in the so-called a p p l i c a t i o n s , of liberating it
soon followed by (c) the assertion of competing trends, and
finally (d) the whole movement wears out, fades and extin-
guishes; we may say: it dries up. This is the fate of the
“i s m s ”: MARXism, FREUDism and structuralism equally
shared it. It can be observed everywhere that under all of the
so-called applications the expectations underlying the initial
thought (with the components thereof) are made absolute
without any creativity or additional insight. Since we are still
not dealing with an axiomatically operating system, incoher-
ence (otherwise insignificant or insensible) between parts
and elements, applied categorically and exclusively with
axiomatic pretensions, or sometimes even mere inaccuracies
in expression, may lead to contradictions which, nolens
volens, will mercilessly break up the whole system into a
series of trends, ultimately causing its disintegration. As a
matter of fact, each oeuvre—KARL MARX’s and SIGMUND
emotions. “[O]ne central aim of the reformers was to bring popular piety
under professional clerical control, for they claimed alone to know the
difference between true religion and false superstitions. After the Reforma-
tion, the confessionalization of society thus implied competition by
contending elite groups to control and restrict the expression of sanctity in
social life. Moreover, the very fact of confessional competition itself
hastened desacralization.” R. Po-Chia Hsia Social Discipline in the Reforma-
tion Central Europe, 1550–1750 (London & New York: Routledge 1989) vi
+ 218 pp. [Christianity and Society in the Modern World], quote on p. 193,
and especially at pp. 35, 136–137 and 164–183. For the CALVINian notion
of “social disciplining”, see Gerhard Oestreich Neostoicism and the Early
Modern State (Cambridge 1982) viii + 280 pp. [Cambridge Studies in Early
Modern History]. Cf. also I. John Hesselink Calvin’s Concept of Law
(Allison Park, Pa.: Pickwick 1992) xii + 311 pp. [Princeton Theological
Monograph Series 30].
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 150
FREUD’s alike—will generate as many trends, “isms” or

schools, as many people there are who attempt to apply it in
a quasi-axiomatic manner. As soon as they turn into an
“ism”, the initial thought itself is already doomed to death.
Instead of having liberating effects, “isms” rather close
the original idea and force the thinking processes into
ready-made form(ula)s. In absence of the ethos inspiring the
original recognitions the only thing left behind will be dry
doctrinarism.The once creative idea is thus made incapable
of renewal, of being able to adjust the emphases in its points
of view to the changing conditions.
Ambiguity, able to On the other hand, the most conspicuous feature of the
fertilise, versus patterns of thought capable of avoiding the trap of axioma-
tism is that they continuously f e r t i l i s e thinking
precisely by their unavoidable a m b i g u i t i e s with
openness to both flexibility and further creative interpreta-
tions.
axiomatism, It would be hard to tell which of the alternatives did more
strong enough to good for humanity. It may not be easy to formulate such an
standardise answer—as it would contradict our entire socialisation—,
but one of the choices at our disposal is the fertilising ambi-
guity. However, it would not in the least be easy to show why
and in what particular domains of truly human matters the
axiomatic pattern of thought has undoubtedly excelled—
except for the area of standardisation.
Undeterminedness This very fertilising ambiguity—u n d e t e r m i n e d -
and unclosedness n e s s and u n c l o s e d n e s s —presumes and
presupposing encourages some sort of autonomy against moral philo-
autonomy sophical heteronomy. By no means does it just praise the lack
of strict methodical discipline (of rambling, inconsistency,
or even the lack of principles), but it leaves it up to our
personal decision to select and balance among—when
pondering upon—the values. Preference is always given to
alternative solutions. Being ambiguous itself it gives free
scope to our personal responsibility to develop our own
i n t e r n a l discipline in order to allow us to become, also
in our thinking, followers of genuine traditional values and
thereby generators of new values ourselves (Figure 7).
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 151
Axiomatism Fertilising ambiguity

everything is predetermined, the totality and its parts are both
closed, undetermined and open,
unambiguous and possibly ambiguous and
exclusively necessary; therefore bearing alternative choices; therefore
the thinking process has no chances: the thinking process begins with
through the application of open chances:
ready-made elements, it serves new starts and
all of its components serve its creative re-consideration
subordination
into the prevalent system
Heteronomy Autonomy
directed by ready-made patterns, man himself shapes his own world
therefore without being subjected to any kind
the thinking process is of automatism, therefore
reconstructive and restitutive; thus
individual human beings are relieved he himself makes the choices
of creative choices; all in all, by his acts at any given moment,
consequently
being free of responsibility, he is responsible
the given outcome by contributing to the creation of
simply happens to them the successive states of the process
Rigid Flexible
changes only through freely shapable
change of systems (by means of e v o l u t i o n :
(by means of r e v o l u t i o n : any new initiative being
abolishing the old and re-launchable in any direction)
institutionalising the new);
inflexible: responsive:
offers answer only the answers it provides shape
within the system, its framework,
while undertaking undertakes every kind of renewal,
any new approach; increasing its ability to provide
perspective and evaluation are more adequate answers
defined exclusively from any given perspective
from within
its own established system
Underlying mechanical world-view Underlying autopoietical world-view

causal-mechanical laws prevail the rule of stochastic necessity
allowing no exceptions, with mere statistical probability,
externally determined in which
once and for all; the future can be predicted
mostly in directions;
symbol: clockwork, symbol: BROWNian motion,
created and started by the Creator the prevailing order being formed
resting after this point, and looking from the apparent chaos
from distant serenity at His oeuvre at any given time
in operation
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 152
Law is objectified Law is open

through positivation, as practical realisation of principles or
with the ideal of codification, rules followed like examples;
excluding any kind of ambiguity, and embedded in society as
placed above society; wherein an assumable choice
legal consequences are drawn resulting from public consent,
exclusively by logical necessity arising in absence of anything better
as formal responses, by means of as the fruit of dialectic debates
deduction in the community;
reminiscent of the logic of answer is done in merits,
justification built by means of
inductive reasoning
conforming to
the logic of problem-solving
Gaps in law Gaps in law

there are, there are not and cannot be any,
since the system of classification since tradition comprises everything:
can never be complete: order is re-established by re-asserting
they stand for criticism principles and re-actualising
with dramatic effect; therefore the meaning of rules,
auxiliary techniques circumventing undertaking the past only
them have born to resolve them as an antecedent
(Figure 7)
After World War II, JEAN-PAUL SARTRE happened to give

voice to major moral dilemmas modern times were facing, in
“The starry heavens form of a philosophical pamphlet which has finally become
above me and the one of the symbols of European spiritual renewal.163 As is
moral law within me” known, a number of trends from Catholic moral theology
to MARXist ethics thought they could afford an answer to
the question “When am I allowed to kill?”—perhaps
approaching the issue from opposite directions, but with
justifiable basis. SARTRE’s response was more modest and
sceptical but not unfounded, boiling down to saying “I don’t
know!” One of the cardinal points in his argument was that
everything we require to make a decision is available in our
culture: codes of law, moral parables, and so on. All of these
163
Jean-Paul Sartre L’existentialisme est un humanisme (Paris: Nagel
1946) 141 pp. [Collection Pensées]. For the entire range of problems, see
George C. Kerner Three Philosophical Moralists Mill, Kant, and Sartre: An
Introduction to Ethics (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1990) xii + 204 pp.
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 153
are also within us, as we incessantly interiorise them through

our cultural socialisation. Thus, apparently, everything that
might be required is at hand and we would no longer need to
make a creative, personal decision.Yet, when we truly have
to identify what is obvious and reach a decision, we are
bound to realise that the only thing we know is that we
cannot make a decision. As SARTRE expressed it, following
IMMANUEL KANT,164 the stars may be above us and the moral
law inside of us, but if the stars (symbolising KANT’s cate-
gorical imperative) are so high and the moral order silent
when we actually need them, well, in such a case we cannot
make a decision either with or without them, while, natu-
rally, nobody can exempt us from the necessity of making it
and from the responsibility we must bear for it.
A x i o m a t i s m leaves the faith (or at least hope) with
us that there must be a world of concepts somewhere which Axiomatism: hope of
gives us safe refuge. After all, it does provide some help a safe refuge
because it makes the decision on behalf of us—only leaving
the job of concrete application and refining conclusion
arising therefrom behind. It would be too simplistic to ask
whether this is good or bad for us.What we can say, however,
is that both types of thinking embody some sort of tradition,
continuously fighting their battle inside of us.165
164
“[T]he starry heavens above me and the moral law within me”.
Immanuel Kant Critique of Practical Reason 3rd ed., trans. Lewis White Back
(New York: Macmillan 1993), p. 169.
165
Sándor Márai—Egy polgár vallomásai II [Confessions of a citizen] 3rd [systems will not
ed. (Budapest: Révai n.y.), p. 103—characterises one of his one-time friends generate order in
by describing that “His life, his oeuvre was one single effort at realising his real life]
great clear ideal, the longing for order. But wherever he went all he found
was only system and not order. His mind was preoccupied all the time with
the most sublime ideals: monumental systems, perfect forms of life. He
used to glorify everything that was »great«, he used to live in the spell of
quantity. But in small things where decisions have to be made at once, on
the surface where the whole man still reveals himself with all its conse-
quences, he was just problematising and hesitant. He wanted a »form« for
everything and was desperate to realise that life does not tolerate forms: it
overflows everything as one single formless chaos, enframed by some indef-
inite mourning border, only by death.”
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 154
Henceforth: We may even add that due to our founded doubts, the
the promise of a refuge provided by axiomatic construction is merely a fata
synoptic unity morgana as it only seeks points of reference projected merely
by us, extrapolated out of us, to conceal our uncertainty.
This ambiguity appears already in the earliest applications of
axiomatism. Just to present one or another thought-
provoking (but affecting) example: the oeuvre of SAINT
THOMAS AQUINAS—who lived his entire life in a special state
of grace, continuously polishing and building his oeuvre—
ends with the visions subsiding him into silence.166 Also the
reading of SPINOZA’s Ethica becomes ambiguous due exactly
to being geometrically expounded.167 Therefore, we can only
conclude that theoretical construction based on the ideal of
geometry—as the most methodical way of organisation and
expression i n a b s e n c e o f a n y t h i n g b e t t e r —
bears its initial ambiguity in itself. For this very reason, it is
not by mere chance that the major cultures of mankind, both
in the East and in the West, in their myths and under the spell
of some synoptic visions, all have formulated with some
similarity the desire of integrating the Great Resolution, that
166
[THOMAS AQUINAS’ “[W]hile brother THOMAS was saying his Mass one morning, in the
envisioned chapel of St. Nicholas at Naples, something happened which profoundly
sudden silence] affected and altered him. After Mass he refused to write or dictate; indeed
he put away his writing materials. He was in the third part of the Summa
theologiae.”To the repeated questioning by brother REGINALD, his secretary,
he finally responded: “All that I have written seems to me like a straw
compared with what has now been revealed to me.” First Canonisation
Inquiry [Naples, 1319], para. LXXIX. “Reginald, my son, I will tell you a
secret which you must not repeat to anyone while I remain alive. All my
writing is now at an end; for such things have been revealed to me that all I
have taught and written seems quite trivial to me now.The only thing I want
now is that as God has put an end to my writing, He may quickly end my
life also.” Bernard Gui Life of St. Thomas Aquinas [1318–1330], para. 27.
Both quotes by Foster, pp. 46 and 109–110, as well as note 63 on p. 73.
167
[SPINOZA’s thoughts For instance, according to the definitive opinion of Edwin M. Curley
concealed by his Behind the Geometrical Method A Reading of Spinoza’s Ethics (Princeton,
systematism] N.J.: Princeton University Press 1988) xii + 175 pp., p. xi, as well as pp.
51–52, all that is about “a dialog the geometric presentation [of which]
served to conceal, and was, perhaps, partly designed to conceal.”
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 155
is, major diverging paths and mutually excluding great alter-

natives, into one common view.168; 169; 170
168
After the death of Saint THOMAS AQUINAS, ALBERT OF BRESCIA had [a vision that
a vision—according to the testimony of the Dominican brother ANTHONY represented
from Brescia—and he saw SS. THOMAS and AUGUSTINE together in glory,
AUGUSTINE and
and the appearing person told him the following: “I am AUGUSTINE, Doctor
of the Church; I am sent to declare to you the doctrine and glory of THOMAS THOMAS AQUINAS to be
OF AQUINO, here at my side. For he is my son indeed, who faithfully followed complementary]
the apostolic teaching and my own, and so illuminated the Church […]. He
is my equal in glory, except that in the splendour of virginity he is greater
than I.” First Canonisation Inquiry, para. LXVI, in Foster, p. 104, as well as
note 95 on p. 79. Moral theology shares this conviction in as much as it
considers the two great fundamental oeuvres to be the two great expressions
of CHRIST’s inexhaustibly rich mystery. Pinckaers, ch. ix.
169
“Rabbi ABBA stated in the name of SAMUEL: For three years there was [“liveable” law as the
a dispute between BETH SHAMMAI and BETH HILLEL, the former asserting: unified truth of a
»The halachah is in agreement with our views« and the latter contending:
dispute between
»The halachah is in agreement with our views«. Then a bath kol [(Lit.
‘daughter of a voice’) a voice descending from heaven to offer guidance in SHAMMAI and HILLEL]
human affairs, and regarded as a lower grade of prophecy] issues
announcing: »[The utterance of] both are the words of the living God, but
the halachah is in agreement with the rulings of BETH HILLEL«. Since,
however, »both are the words of the living God« what was it that entitles
BETH HILLEL to have the halachah fixed in agreement with their rulings.
Because they were kindly and modest, they studied their own rulings and
those of BETH SHAMMAI, and were even so [humble] as to mention the
actions of BETH SHAMMAI before theirs. […] This teaches you that him who
humbles himself the Holy One, blessed be He, raises up, and him who exalts
himself the Holy One, blessed be He, humbles; from him who seeks great-
ness, greatness flees but him who flees from greatness greatness follows; he
who forces time is forced back by time but he who yields to time finds time
standing at his side.” The Babylonian Talmud Seder Mo’ed III: ’Erubin,
trans. Israel W. Slotki (London: The Soncino Press 1938), 13b, pp. 85–86,
the explanation of bath kol from the glossary of the appendix, p. 737.
HILLEL, also called the Elder, ‘Zaken’, was a leading authority among
the scribes and Pharisees during the reign of King HEROD (38–34 BC). He
was the head of Sanhedrin with a sound sense of the practical. “HILLEL’s
greatest contribution to the Halakah, however, was his formulation of
broad general rules of interpretation by means of which new halakot could
be developed and deduced logically out of Scripture. These rules put into
the hands of the Rabbis the ‘organon’, the tool by means of which
Scripture might be made to yield new rules and new truths, and by means
of which its commands could be harmonized with the ever changing con-
ditions of Jewish life.” George Horowitz The Spirit of Jewish Law A Brief
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 156
Autopoiesis: How do we think in Europe today? In the last few decades,

self-reproduction macrosociology has renewed social theoretical thought
through self-definition through the so-called autopoietical systems theory. By the
methodological application of autopoiesis, initially formu-
lated on the basis of the description of the self-reproduction
of living cells, it proved that the functioning of society can
eventually be described as a kind of s e l f - r e p r o d u c -
t i o n . For we can only be sure of one thing: reproduction of
any given time will surely be completed, although not within
a previously set framework, but in a way that the actually
working net of reproduction is going in one or another way
to d e t e r m i n e
(a) the framework and timing, as well as
(b) the laws
Account of Biblical and Rabbinic Jurisprudence [1953] (New York:

Central Book Co. 1963) xi + 812 pp. at p. 30.
Their story speaks about the battle between determinant styles:
“[T]here is a story about a Gentile who came to SHAMMAI and said, »You
may convert me if you can teach me the whole Torah while I stand on one
foot«, but he drove him away […]. The Gentile came before HILLEL who
converted him by saying, »Do not to your fellow what you hate to have
done to you. This is the whole Torah entire, the rest is explanation. Go and
learn.«” Sabbath 31a, in ibid., p. 29.
The continuation of the above quote speaks again about the way of
thinking inherent in the Talmud: “Our Rabbis taught: For two and a half
years were BETH SHAMMAI and BETH HILLEL in dispute, the former assert-
ing that it were better for man not to have been created than to have been
created, and the latter maintaining that it is better for man to have been cre-
ated than not to have been created. They finally took a vote and decided
that it were better for man not to have been created than to have been cre-
ated, but now that he has been created, let him investigate his past deeds
or, as others say, let him examine his future actions.” Ibid., 13b, pp. 86–87.
170
[an ultimate wisdom?] A certain ADOLPH TANQUEREY is remembered for having, as a young
man, written a seven-volume Summa which he then, summarising into a
five-volume Digest, abridged to a three-volume Compendium, further
condensing it into one single volume called Manual, ultimately completed
as a thin Medulla Theologiae Moralis.When he was asked in his old age about
the CHRISTian moral teaching, all he quoted from AUGUSTINE was: “Ama,
et fac quod vis” [Love and do whatever you want]. Albert R. Jonsen &
Stephen Toulmin The Abuse of Casuistry A History of Moral Reasoning
(Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: The University of California Press 1988)
ix + 420 pp. at p. 342.
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 157
of self-reproduction during the process of reproduction.171

Well, the gist of the message is hardly more than an apparent
tautology, namely that the self-reproduction of society is
insured inasmuch as society actually reproduces itself. We
know that the devil always hides in the details. Obviously, the
genuine question here is also how this happens, and what
actually goes on in the process.
The essence of a theoretical answer in regard to law lies Law, realised through
exactly in the recognition that the way in which the process judicial acts by the
will proceed depends on all of us, that is, on everyday partic- legal profession:
ipants and on practitioners of the legal profession.172
Returning to the example of law: concerning the method- with responsibility for
ological explanation of its functioning, the thought-pattern our fate
of the legal scholarship in present-day Europe is dominated
by argumentation theory.173 On the American continent,
171
See especially, by Niklas Luhmann, ‘The Unity of the Legal System’
and ‘Closure and Openness: On Reality in the World of Law’ in Autopoietic
Law A New Approach to Law and Society, ed. Gunther Teubner (Berlin
& New York: de Gruyter 1988), pp. 12–35 and 335–348 [European
University Institute, Series A, 8] and ‘The Self-reproduction of Law and Its
Limits’ in Dilemmas of Law in the Welfare State ed. Gunther Teubner (Berlin
& New York: de Gruyter 1986), pp. 110–127 [European University Insti-
tute, Series A, 3]. For a specified context, cf., from the present author, ‘On
Judicial Ascertainment of Facts’ Ratio Juris 4 (1991) 1, pp. 61–71.
172
In a similar sense, the US Chief Justice has once recalled that we
usually build our safety on static blocks of identity—“as an illusion of safety
in a Maginot Line”—whereas security can only be achieved through
constant change and in flexibility that is ready to adapt. Justice William O.
Douglas ‘Foreword’ in Essays on Jurisprudence from the Columbia Law
Review (New York & London 1963), p. 18.
173
By Aulis Aarnio, On Legal Reasoning (Turku:Turkun Yliopisto 1977)
xiii + 355 pp. [Turun Yliopiston Julkaisuja, Sarja B, Osa 144] and The
Rational As Reasonable A Treatise on Legal Justification (Dordrecht, etc.:
Reidel 1987) xix + 276 pp. [Law and Philosophy] as well as Robert Alexy
A Theory of Legal Argumentation The Theory of Rational Discourse as
Theory of Legal Justification [Theorie der justischen Argumentation Die
Theorie des rationalen Diskurses als Theorie der juristischen Begründung
(Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp 1978) 397 pp.] trans. Ruth Adler & Neil
MacCormick (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1989) xv + 323 pp. and Aleksander
Peczenik Grundlagen der juristischen Argumentation (Wien & New York:
Springer 1983) xiii + 266 pp. [Forschungen aus Staat und Recht 64].
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 158
constitutional interpretation174 and the movement of Law

and Literature175 are the ones seeking an actual logic of
quasi-logical conclusion, drawn within the normative
system by the judiciary in decision-making process
and asserted in the judicial decision and its subsequent justi-
fication. This means a search for the a c t u a l
d e t e r m i n a t i o n in the process, for a way more
complex than it officially appears to be, which takes place
behind the facade of professional communication. (For the
task of the legal profession is to filter and then to justify
within the law’s homogeneous medium those practical steps
and measures that we and/or our clients take in result of
heterogeneous inspirations.) All these contemporary theo-
ries are based on the recognition that certain fundamental
v a l u e - c h o i c e s were already made by our ancestors in
our respective culture. On final account, these are to deter-
mine our decisions, at least by setting the framework for
argumentation (reasoning and justification) which actually
leads to these decisions. Accordingly, their theoretical
message is only a warning to us: as we mostly are masters of
174
Ronald Dworkin Taking Rights Seriously New Impression with a
Reply to Critics (London: Duckworth 1978) xv + 371 pp. as well as ‘Inter-
pretation Symposium’ in Southwestern California Law Review 58 (January
1985) 1, ii + 725 pp.
175
See, by James Boyd White, The Legal Imagination Studies in the
Nature of Legal Thought and Expression (Boston & Toronto: Little, Brown
& Co. 1973) xxv + 986 pp., When Words Lose their Meaning Constitutions
and Reconstitutions of Language, Character, and Community (Chicago &
London:The University of Chicago Press 1984) xv + 377 pp. and Heracles’
Bow Essays on the Rhetoric and Poetics of the Law (Madison:The Univer-
sity of Wisconsin Press 1985) xviii + 251 pp. [Rhetoric of the Human
Sciences]; by Stanley Fish, Is There a Text in This Class? The Authority of
Interpretive Communities (Cambridge, Mass. & London: Harvard Univer-
sity Press 1980) viii + 394 pp. and DoingWhat Comes Naturally Change and
Rhetoric of Theory in Literary and Legal Studies (Durham & London:
Duke University Press 1989) x + 613 pp. For a critical treatise, cf. also ‘Law
and Literature Issue’ in Texas Law Review 60 (1982) 3, pp. 371–586 as well
as Robert Weisberg ‘The Law-Literature Enterprise’ and Robin West
‘Communities, Texts, and Law: Reflections on the Law and Literature
Movement’ Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities 1 (1988) 1, pp. 1–77 and
129–156.
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 159
ourselves, we must bear responsibility for our fate.176

Considering the fact that it is mainly our previous decisions
and alternative choices (made by us or by our ancestors)
transformed into tradition that stand behind our senses and
sensibilities, affections and restrictions, we are expected to
learn to handle this tradition in a wise, disciplined, and effec-
tive way.
Human knowledge does not lie in that, for instance, we to arrive by arguing
possess a book which already includes all concepts and at a personal decision
propositions in an adequate number, variety and differenti-
ation, required for the mastering of the world, elaborated to
be used as axioms or theses to actually take the decisions on
behalf of us, telling us definitely what is and what ought
to be. Our historical and moral knowledge suggests the
exact opposite—the one we attempted to formulate when
mentioning the teachings of JESUS CHRIST. That is, nothing
“concludes” from anything. If something still does, it can be
no other than a common sense realisation: insofar as we do
not intend to starve like BURIDAN’s177 donkey (the animal of
the monk in the medieval parable having been unable, in
want of rational justifiability, to choose from two bunches of
hay placed at an equal distance from its nose to the left and
to the right), or to get lost in a way exemplified by SARTRE’s
existentialist dilemma (by waiting in vain for inspiration
from the starry night above all us and from the insecurity of
the moral order inside each of us), that is, to take control of
our own choices on our own fates, we must learn how to
176
This dilemma was already formulated at the dawn of human philo- [resolution vs.
sophising by EPICURUS warning his friend that it is better to follow the subjection to fate]
myths on gods than to fall prisoners to the fate preached by natural philoso-
phers, since the former leaves the hope that gods can be mollified by
manifestations of nature, but the latter declares unquestionable necessity.
‘Epicurus to Menoeceus, greeting’ in Diogenes Laërtius De vitis dogmatibus,
et apophtegmatibus eorum qui in philosophia claruerunt in http://en.wikisource.
org/wiki/Lives_of_the_Eminent_Philosophers/Book_X, book X, 133–134.
177
The example once served for mocking the Parisian philosopher JEAN
BURIDAN (first half of the 14th century).
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 160
argue. We have to learn how to arrive at p e r s o n a l

d e c i s i o n s starting from the considerations in parables
and from moral stimuli, decisions that we can undertake
without being ashamed of them later on: decisions which we
can therefore trust as we have undertaken to walk the road
that eventually takes us to our decisions, by acknowledging
both the result and the normative-argumentative path
leading to it as our own.
in continuous In the field of law, our task is to resolve and settle various
dialogue conflicts (as judges, lawyers, or parties in the trial) by
confronting everything rational in a rational discourse
(embracing also what seems not to be rational), that is, each
relevant point of view with manifest or tacit value-choices. I
believe that only this way can we control our social existence.
Only this way can we ensure prospect and future for our
thinking.178
Behavioural patterns So far we have considered two major blocks of the types of
prescribed from the thinking in the evolution of human thought. They corre-
outside / arising from spond to two styles of decision-making, autonomous and
the inside heteronomous, in a sense developed from the one usual in
moral philosophy . In one of them, patterns of behaviour are
prescribed by an external agent and merely applied exter-
nally for the addressee acknowledging this passively. In the
other, patterns are shaped from within, by a mediation on
and insight into which ways and following what patterns one
should act.
In axiomatism, human THOMAS AQUINAS was the greatest in Europe to promote
participation is the axiomatic ideal for society. In his philosophy he devel-
random and oped a system of thought valid in and by itself. With him,
negligible axiomatism as a self-validating mental creation reached its
178
Cf., e.g., Adolf Schwarz Die Controversen der Schammaiten und
Hilleliten I: Die Erleichterungen der Schammaiten und die Erschwerungen
der Hilleliten: Ein Beitrag zur Entwicklungsgeschichte der Halachah (Karl-
sruhe 1893) 109 pp.
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 161
climax so that with the chance of a personal decision

excluded, the human actor eventually becomes incapable of
doing anything: deprived of an acting capacity because of
being freed from the burden of active choice. The axioms
have acquired validity which is independent of human deter-
mination, so it is rather the existence of man that may
become incidental from the perspective of axioms. With
THOMAS AQUINAS we encounter the potential in human
thinking, according to which the thinker is no more than a
pure recipient, almost an e x t e r n a l o b s e r v e r of his
own i n t e r n a l e v e n t s , thereby becoming a necessary
but random medium in the process of cognition. Human
recognitions acquire validity independently of the subject of
recognition. The logical connections between axioms and
theorems become self-representing and self-validating to the
extent that the creative human contribution gets reduced to
pure abstraction of some quantité négligeable.
It is this type of thinking that became the scientific ideal
and paradigmatic pattern in Europe, and its reign is still
unchallenged to this day. European civilisation has been
constantly shaped by it, and its underlying ideas have for
long prevailed in the philosophies of history and in the realm
of law as well.
Here and now, it is enough for us to know that this type of however, it gives
thinking, although it seems to be paradigmatically prevalent account of the world
and unquestionable since long, has its strict boundaries. It is only to a limited
enough to be aware that it speaks of reality in a modelling extent
manner, that is, as a r e p r e s e n t a t i o n constructing
its o w n “reality” by “copying”—and thereby adjusting to
the frameworks and demands of—the outside world. It is
enough to keep in mind that actual states and motions are
always more complex, and we are to select from among their
truly prevalent (inter)connections only the ones about
which we can intelligibly speak.179 What exists and happens
179
It is no mere chance that a neurologist may remind us that even what [complex
is mere empirical generalisation based on vague foundations (perhaps also interconnections
coloured by independent motives) may nowadays appear under the cover of
simplified]
scholarship, and disciples are mostly offered the vision of causal deduction
Old020-162 11/12/19 9:20 Page 162
is always deeper, richer in context and more inexhaustible

regarding its potentialities, than of what we can ever give
account by recoursing to the limited means of expression of
our finite language.180
even where they could learn the reasoning resulting in diagnosis and
therapy, optimal for the patient, by following the way of thinking of a master
scarcely delimited by rules, i.e., by recognising some correlations among
unknown variables of an endless number. Imre Szirmai Valami ideg [Some-
thing of a nerve] (N. p.: Lift Coeur n.y.) 192 pp.
180
[while rendering The recently deceased Russian science-philosopher warns us: “A
the world itself single minor fact, unimportant to the statistical conception of reality,
incidental] macroscopically indetectable and therefore apparently lacking physical
existence, alters the world like of the whole; it becomes definable by virtue
of the alteration, and therefore appears as real and essential for the whole.”
Boris Kuznetsov Einstein and Dostoyevsky trans. Vladimir Talmy (London:
Hutchinson Educational 1972), p. 97.
Old163-174 11/12/19 9:21 Page 163
163
3. SCIENCE-THEORETICAL QUESTIONS RAISED

BY THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY
What we usually term as philosophy of history is by no Freedom = necessity

means a natural formation, although it may seem so at the understood
first glance.1 We ought merely to recall the degree to which,
during the times of regurgitating the parlance of MARXism,
we became accustomed to the thesis formulated by
FRIEDRICH ENGELS in Anti-Dühring, claiming that freedom
is nothing but recognised necessity.2 As is known, this state-
1
For a general overview of the topic of the philosophy of history, see
Georg G. Iggers The German Conception of History The National Tradition
of Historical Thought from Herder to the Present (Middletown, Conn.:
Wesleyan University Press 1968) xvi + 388 pp.; Deutsche Geschichtsphiloso-
phie in dem kurzen 20. Jahrhundert Ausgewählte Abhandlungen hrsg. Zoltán
Kalmár (Veszprém: Veszprémi Egyetem Társadalomtudományi Tanszéke
1996) 604 pp.; Philosophy of History and Action ed. Yirmiahu Yovel
(Dordrecht: Reidel & Jerusalem: The Magness Press [of the] Hebrew
University 1978) xi + 243 pp. [Philosophical Studies Series in Philosophy
11], especially part II dedicated to the philosophy of history and part IV
dedicated to the debate launched by Raymond Polin’s ‘Farewell to the
Philosophy of History?’; as well as—for a partial treatise—Robert Vincent
Daniels ‘Fate and Will in the Marxian Philosophy of History’ Journal of the
History of Ideas XX (1960), pp. 538–552 and Bernard Moss ‘Marx and
Engels on French Social Democracy: Historians or Revolutionaries?’
Journal of the History of Ideas XLVI (1985) 4, pp. 539–557.
2
Quoting HEGEL on that “Necessity is blind only in so far as it is not
understood.” (Encyclopedia of Philosophical Sciences, para. 147, addendum),
he concluded by stating that “Freedom therefore consists in the control of
ourselves and over external nature, a control founded on knowledge of
natural necessity; it is therefore necessarily a product of historical develop-
ment.” (Engels Anti-Dühring, pp. 140–141.) Cf. Andrzej Walicki Marxism
and the Leap to the Kingdom of Freedom The Rise and Fall of the Communist
Utopia (Stanford: Stanford University Press 1995) xii + 641 pp., para. 2.5.
»Freedom as ‘Necessity Understood’«, pp. 167–179, quotes on p. 172.
Old163-174 11/12/19 9:21 Page 164
164 3. SCIENCE-THEORETICAL QUESTIONS RAISED…
ment leads us back through historico-philosophical tradi-

tions to BARUCH SPINOZA, famous for, among other things,
having been one of the characteristic representatives of the
more geometrico type of axiomatic thinking.
History forges its own There is something peculiar about the fact that all across
trans-historicity in the Europe, philosophising on history became fashionable in the
history of philosophy: 18th century along the waves of Enlightenment, formulating
freeing the humans theses on human evolution and the secluded reason thereof,
results in their the significance of history, its beginning and ending; and
subjection to laws what it messaged it formulated as absolutely valid.Thereby,
eventually, history itself has forged its own t r a n s -
h i s t o r i c i t y . In the same way, THOMAS AQUINAS raised
his theorising to ontological heights by the force of his God-
proofs, thereby elevating theory to a position of a subject to
and part of human existence itself. AQUINAS’ axioms, as
known, are valid and they perform their function in and of
themselves; and behind the eschatological history they
summon our real history is breathing—while, strangely
enough, we are barely expected to do anything else than
listen to its messages.Thus, among other events, the story of
our salvation with the strenuous development of parting
good from bad simply happens to us, our only job in this
dramatic course of events being to opt for a role. The brave
baron Münchausen’s deed is repeated in the history of
thought—the baron’s who lifted himself up by his hair in
want of anything better.Yet we face a paradoxical situation
in the philosophy of history, for the Enlightenment which
intended to free humans from the oppressive effects of
feudalism, actually resulted in the subordination of man by
subjecting him to pre-selected abstract and speculative
schemes, called laws of history.
History conceived in Since no theory based on the recognition of predetermi-
abstract collectivity nations drawn from historico-philosophical presumptions
leaves humans can appreciate, in adequate depth, actual human achieve-
passive and ment and its formative role, let me recall that with MARXism,
irresponsive the basic feeling of complete human helplessness has re-
surfaced again, claiming that it is solely history that has
meaning, evolution and purpose—although h i s t o r y as
such is always something of an abstract collectivity, and we,
Old163-174 11/12/19 9:21 Page 165
3. SCIENCE-THEORETICAL QUESTIONS RAISED… 165
fallible humans, are just individuals. And personally, by

having entered the earthly scene by chance from the
perspective of history, we either fit into such an overall plan
that history is itself, or not. As we could see: freedom for
MARXism is nothing but recognised necessity.Therefore, the
more we learn about reality and the more we control it, the
more obvious it becomes that reality is something to which
we, as random actors on the stage of history, may adjust at
most, but still cannot interfere with the performance on the
stage.We are thus left with nothing to do at all.
The idea that d e v e l o p m e n t and p r o g r e s s Idea of development
allow no alternatives for human decision, as it evolved in the and progess in the
rationalising movement of the Enlightenment, is especially Enlightenment:
interesting in the context of the methodology of thinking
as there is another component playing a part in it, and
of this we have yet to speak. It is the influence of RENÉ
DESCARTES and so-called CARTESianism. By analysing
thought-processes, human observation, as well as laws and
regularities deducible from observation, DESCARTES
contributed to laying the methodological foundations of
empirical sciences, thereby also offering a framework for
thinking that can already be characterised by m e t h o d -
o l o g i c a l c e r t a i n t y . He concluded that humanity
might have developed certain methods and by adhering to
those we ought to arrive at certainties, independently of the
inherent incidentalities.
DESCARTES’ achievement is particularly landmarking for rule of logic, of
the European culture since the entirety of our modern reason and rationality
understanding of science and our trust in the methodolog-
ical certainty of what can be acquired by cognition are built
upon his magisterial views. The concept of reason also took
definite shape with him. The modern ideals of l o g i c ,
r e a s o n and r a t i o n a l i t y also entered Western civili-
sation with DESCARTES’ discourses. Logic, reason and
rationality: these are factors, considerations and disciplinary
filters that henceforth rule human intellectual activity.
Thereby DESCARTES was also a precursor to the ideal of
Calculemus!, expressly formulated later by GOTTFRIED
WILHELM LEIBNIZ, who claimed that even disputes on
Old163-174 11/12/19 9:21 Page 166
humane matters could be resolved by reducing them to

logico-mathematical calculations, whereby we would arrive
at certainties.
Is every decision that For example, even four decades ago—until CHAÏM
cannot convince PERELMAN’s relevant work was published3—the simple
others, an error? question of how to interpret the activity of a collegial body
like the Supreme Court of the United States was still
theoretically unanswered. A corporate decision is either
unanimous or not. The unanimous decision does not raise
any particular problems. But, what happens when the deci-
sion is reached in the ratio of 6:3, or even 5:4, which happens
in most cases? For example, if the majority vote is provided
by five and four others stand for a dissenting counter-
opinion, how will all of this be relevant from the perspective
of the CARTESian methodological certainty? May we state
that at least one part of the justices was surely wrong—either
when choosing the premise, or when drawing the conclu-
sion? Or, should we rather follow LEIBNIZ’s inspiration
and claim that all of them were necessarily wrong? Were
they wrong collectively, even when some—majority or
minority—happened to be right? Since, LEIBNIZ would add,
if they had been truly right, they themselves should have
realised it and convinced all the others as well.
Does our CHAÏM PERELMAN was the philosopher who searched for
methodological the resolution of disputes and conflicts by methodologically
certainty bear any analysing the possible ways of solving the case. He won his
relevance only within fame by re-discovering rhetoric through describing the role
a limited terrain
from the outset?
3
Chaïm Perelman’s first work, Justice et raison (Bruxelles: Presses
Universités de Bruxelles 1963) 256 pp. [Université Libre de Bruxelles:
Travaux de la Faculté de Philosophie et Lettres XXV], was reviewed by the
present author in Állam- és Jogtudomány X (1967) 3, and his collection dedi-
cated to the above dilemma, Droit, morale et philosophie (Paris: Librairie
Générale de Droit et de Jurisprudence 1968) 149 pp. [Bibliothèque de
Philosophie du Droit VIII], in Állam- és Jogtudomány XIII (1970) 3. For a
reprint, cf. Csaba Varga Jogi elméletek, jogi kultúrák Kritikák, ismertetések a
jogfilozófia és az összehasonlító jog körébôl [Theories of law and legal
cultures: Critical essays and reviews in legal philosophy and comparative
law] (Budapest: ELTE “Comparative Legal Cultures” Project 1994) xix +
503 pp. [Jogfilozófiák], on pp. 7–70.
Old163-174 11/12/19 9:21 Page 167
reasoning and argumentation played in founding any kind of

theorising, exactly by recognising how much our theoretical
models, logics and certainties in cognition became detached
from our everyday practice, and how uncertain is the basis in
itself onto which (with reassuring confirmation in collective
discourses) we place our crucial choices in our real lives. For
exactly this reason, he saw law as an area in which these
problems emerge in a most condensed way, so, as an exper-
iment, he elaborated the various domains and aspects of
legal reasoning and argumentation in a series of case-
studies, with a possible clarification in view. He raised a
question rather startling for the time: how far does the
validity of DESCARTES’ claim extend? How far is it feasible
and conceivable for us to reason within the range of
methodological certainties? Where are the limits beyond
which we can already state that the CARTESian formulation
of methodological certainty no longer bears any relevance?
Or, more precisely: if we had not drawn the limits for rele-
vance initially, would we be the ones to unjustifiably expand
the area of relevance to terrains where there are no such
certainties, or moreover, where they cannot be expected to
be at all?4 Before PERELMAN’s methodological question was
raised, it had been the axiomatic way of thinking to provide
the exclusive and incontestable ideal and pattern for human
thinking.
It was the same axiomatic way of thinking that assisted,
mainly in the age of Enlightenment, the formation of the
ideological current later called ‘philosophy of history’.
The tradition of the philosophy of history is by and large The tradition of the
made up from such and similar theses: philosophy of history
(1) there is human progress, and
(2) it has meaning. This deeper meaning draws a pro-
gressive line which
(3) delimits certain sections, and the individual sec-
tions
4
For a general overview of his oeuvre, cf. Practical Reasoning in Human
Affairs Studies in Honor of Chaïm Perelman, ed. James L. Golden & Joseph
F. Pilotta (Dordrecht, etc.: Reidel 1986) x + 404 pp. [Synthese Library
183].
Old163-174 11/12/19 9:21 Page 168
(4) follow one another forming unelusive steps, accord-

ing to
(5) a linear progression.
Consequently,
(6) all phases of development must necessarily be
traversed
(7) in and exclusively within a given sequence.
The MARXism’ Some five to six decades ago we might have sensed it
determinism: strange or thought it to have been sheer fatalism that, for
instance, JOSSIF VISSARIONOVICH STALIN—in relation to the
modes of production—reduced human history to a set of
eras, the Asian, slave-holder, feudal and capitalist forma-
tions, all of which must be traversed in order to arrive at the
ultimate era: communism; without the possibility of skip-
ping any of these formations (which have to be artificially
erected first, hadn’t they existed in the given—e.g.,
Afro–Asian—history). Today we are aware of that basically
the so-called Enlightened ideas, dating back mainly to the
18th century, were to stand behind such re-activated revolu-
tionising thoughts. Figuratively speaking, we may even add
that the deviant was not STALIN himself but the fertilising
inspiration drawn from the Enlightenment. STALIN’s share
was only to proclaim outworn ideas and ways of thinking to
enforce their implementation with a cruel Asiatic impa-
tience, professing them as dogmas of modernisation with a
vehemence almost in substitution to a state religion.
(historical It is a similar atavism and intellectual retard that may explain why
periodisation) western scholarship simply cannot react to numerous presuppositions to
which MARXism in Central and Eastern Europe has got used to living
with intellectually.Thus, ‘slavery’, for instance, does not say much for the
West, or says something basically different. They may sound to it as
familiar from literature, from the history of society and economy, and
from MARXism itself, of course, but such and similar categories are not
applied for basic periodisation in historical sciences—all the more since
Western humanities hold a devastating opinion of the MARXist concept
on socio-economic formations, considering it more as an activist’s inven-
tion, a simplifying thought-jacket projected back onto the past, than a
descriptive tool, helping cognition. The same stands for ‘feudalism’ as
Old163-174 11/12/19 9:21 Page 169
well. It is either not used, or used in plural, not pondering about the
desire to use it for periodisation. SPINOZA already knew that definition—
and periodisation is a kind of generalising definition—is dangerous from
the beginning [definitio periculosa est]. And we must see the survival of
axiomatism in how MARXism has formulated the need to firstly peri-
odise, then afterwards to take its own p e r i o d i s a t i o n seriously so
much as—just as if it were the fate of history to manifest itself by leaving
further abstract speculations to us concluded therefrom in legacy—to
actually adapt its investigations in practice to predefined schemes of such
a periodisation by breaking the results into them subsequently.
The philosophy of history’s distinct way of thinking may HEGEL +

be of interest not only because for a considerable part of the eschatology = MARX
20th century it represented the official basis for contempla-
tion on social affairs through repeating KARL MARX’ and
FRIEDRICH ENGELS’ theses, but also because its foundations
had been laid by the most outstanding traditions and clas-
sical minds of German philosophy. For tradition led from
the Enlightenment to GEORG WILHELM FRIEDRICH HEGEL
who, by adding an eschatological dimension (with roots in
the Old Testament that might be freely adapted later on),
provided inspiration for MARX.The enlightened tradition of
the 18th century could thus be transmitted to and perpetu-
ated in posterity over many centuries.
In the development of human civilisation, each new Teleology
insight had the scope to free the human intellect in order hypostasised
to comprehend increasingly wider spheres of human in history
knowledge by finding explanation with accentuating force
to various correlations through the use of the indispensable
minimum of the principles of explanation. In the given
historical moment, the movement of Enlightenment has
surely contributed actively and successfully to the freeing of
human intellect. Certain tacit presuppositions have firmly
built into our thinking, suggesting that
(1) something called ‘philosophy of history’ exists, and
(2) mankind has some kind of mission, reason and
purpose in history. We have thereby necessarily
admitted that
(3) some sort of teleology is also inherent in history.
Old163-174 11/12/19 9:21 Page 170
This is a primary goal towards the fulfilment of which we

constantly advance. Well, in the secularised theology of the
philosophy of history all such similar presuppositions have
their roots in the 18th century. By the end of the 20th century,
the English, American and Western European social sciences
have mostly taken off their similar garments and thinking-
crutches, and the ‘philosophy of history’, with an earthly
theological devotion and rigour and with a hint of predes-
tination, has become preponderantly a name for a past
discipline.5
Subordination of If we presume that humanity as such has both a g o a l
instruments to and a particular and exclusive p a t h upon which it
predestined goals traverses within its era, awaiting realisation, then we
may lead to obviously must by all means develop the i n s t r u m e n -
totalitarianism t a l i t y that would help its realisation. Therefore, we need
an instrumentality that stands above all, and its use ought to
be assured under any conditions, so that mankind can arrive
at the point where history-philosophical speculations say it
should arrive. By setting such a goal and by subordinating all
other considerations and instrumentalities to it, we have
5
[neoliberalism as a Mainly in the United States, but also spreading quickly on the Euro-
historico-philosophical pean continent, the universalisation and expansion of the neoliberal credo
Utopia] as a trans-historically valid idea may have originally aimed at some gener-
ally conceived historico-philosophical negation but arrived ultimately at a
particular restoration of the philosophy of history. For a juristic and legal
philosophical perspective, see, by the author, ‘Radical Change and Unbal-
ance in Law in a Central Europe under the Rule of Myths, not of Law’ in
his Transition? To Rule of Law? Constitutionalism and Transitional Justice
Challenged in Central & Eastern Europe (Pomáz: Kráter 2008), pp. 9–25
[PoLíSz Series 7] & ‘Post-modernity in Politico-legal Transitions:Tempted
for Radical Changes with Tradition Left Behind’ Central European Political
Science Review 9 (2008), No. 33, pp. 87–103 and ‘Legal Scholarship at the
Threshold of a New Millennium (For Transition to Rule of Law in the
Central and Eastern European Region)’ Acta Juridica Hungarica 42 (2001)
3–4, pp. 181–201 & <http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/ajuh/
2001/00000042/F0020003/00400027> & in On Different Legal Cultures,
Pre-Modern and Modern States, and the Transition to the Rule of Law inWestern
and Eastern Europe ed.Werner Krawietz & Csaba Varga (Berlin: Duncker &
Humblot) = Rechtstheorie 33 (2002) 2–4: II. Sonderheft Ungarn, pp.
515–531.
Old163-174 11/12/19 9:21 Page 171
already come to one of the intellectual roots of modern total-

itarianisms.6
It is still extremely difficult to draw conclusions at this point.We may with a missionary
know from various faulty explanations of history that conceptual recon- obsession
structions or social distinctions built upon the moral dichotomy of indulging itself
“good” and “bad” are seldom sufficient. As one conclusion from this in some alien subject
panorama of the philosophy of history, we may realise that communist
existence still has one meaning—making it pathologic, non-viable and
not only depressing but also embittering others’ lives—what THOMAS
MANN already described when characterising FREDERICK THE GREAT’s
6
May I mention my discussions in 1987, somewhere around the Arctic [self-organisation
Circle, on the way to Japan through Alaska. On grounds of old friendship, being suspicious in
I took the liberty of talking to one of the country’s eminent men, an influ- both JACOBinism and
ential representative of science-policy, as though to one sharing the same socialism]
tasks, since we were rowing in the same boat. I desperately tried to convince
him that the then reformist government in Hungary lacked not so much
good will, as the admission that all of them were communists in mentality.
It may be true that beginning with the modern ages, parts of Europe fell
behind the development of the Western hemisphere and therefore wanted
to find and use ways to pick up the pace. KÁLMÁN KULCSÁR, Deputy Secre-
tary General of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences at the time, responded
by sketching a dramatic picture of how the reforms have slowed down and
how many obstacles the curing intentions have to face, including the chance
of having everything turn backwards. As to my reaction, I attacked the ethos
of socialist reformism, trying to convince my partner of this never-ending
night that had we a moral court for indicting human deviances and destruc-
tive behaviours, the communist approach would occupy a distinguished
place among them. Of course, not because it eventually does evil or too little
good—in short, not because of evil deeds—but because of its Weltan-
schauung. As it assumes visions on the meaning and necessary progress of
human existence, it constantly drives to recurrently and authoritatively
foreseeing the future of mankind, and in order to direct ‘progress’—i.e., the
lives of others—towards the “right” path, it suggests the recourse to inter-
vention. For its enthusiasm makes it so blindly self-confident that as soon
as a communist discovers any force in society capable of self-organisation
(i.e., success without external—ideological—help), he interferes with it
suddenly, as if getting the wind. Since for a communist anything on earth
not taken from or through the ideas and ultimate goal-projections of
MARXism can only be suspicious from the beginning. This is why the
communist movement is by definition of a JACOBine nature. Therefore it is
historically doomed to fail, unless behaviours more patient, dignified, and
trusting in the self-regulation of social processes can replace it.
Old163-174 11/12/19 9:21 Page 172
personality and style of reign as pathological, as an obsession indulging

itself in some alien subject—by constantly interfering with others’ busi-
ness.
(The roots of From a historical perspective, MARXism is a school of social sciences
MARXism) which, as to its roots, can not have had anything to do (especially because
its formation was completed by mid-19th-century, a key era for the
development of modern scholarship) with those new approaches and
methodologies helping around the birth of contemporary social thought,
such as anthropology, psychology, and sociology. It is worthy of our
attention that FRIEDRICH ENGELS’ sole cultural anthropological work
(The Origin of the Family, the Private Property and the State) relies on and
makes exclusive reference to LEWIS HENRY MORGAN who, on his turn,
was the last player of merits in the history of anthropology before anthro-
pology proper was actually born. (So, it is again not by mere chance
perhaps that today MORGAN is respected less for his scholarly views
than for having been a pioneering humanist dilettante, one of the first
Americans who took the civilisations of coloured peoples—notably, of
Indians—seriously.) Psychology just started to develop by the time
MARXism had already taken its final shape. In France, AUGUSTE
COMTE’s positivism was the heroic era for sociology, taking shape around
the 1840s, one step ahead in time of MARXism—although not dialogising
with one another, but rather existing side by side in a division-of-labour
type rivalisation.
Evolutionism / As is known, the last great representatives of e v o l u -

linearity t i o n i s m 7 were LAMARCK8 and CHARLES DARWIN9. In
exact sciences only the rear-guards10 were to come, but in
biological anthropology no one could really take seriously
that their presuppositions might be right. Actually, DARWIN
7
For an overview of the evolutionist theory, cf. Jules Delvaille Essais sur
l’histoire de l’idée de progrès jusqu’à la fin du XVIIIe siècle (Paris: Alcan 1910)
xii + 761 pp; J[ohn] B[aguell] Bury The Idea of Progress An Inquiry into its
Origin and Growth [1920] [New York: Macmillan 1932 {reprint}] introd.
Charles A. Beard (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood 1982) xl + 357 pp.;Verne
Grant The Evolutionary Process A Critical Review of Evolutionary Thought
(New York: Columbia University Press 1985) xii + 499 pp.; Roger West
Philosophy and EvolutionThe Evolution of Philosophy and the Philosophy of
Evolution (Chalfont St. Giles: Summerhouse Press 1986) 390 pp.; Andreas
Cesana Geschichte als Entwicklung? Zur Kritik des geschichtsphilosophis-
chen Entwicklungsdenkens (Berlin & New York: de Gruyter 1988) xi + 405
Old163-174 11/12/19 9:21 Page 173
was rather appreciated as a genius forerunner.11 Beginning

with DARWIN’s times, the evolution of living creatures was
seen considerably more complex and, accordingly, more
complex explanations began to be formulated on it. These
unambiguously excluded the hypothesis that the human
race has developed along a l i n e a r line of evolution.
Thus, we are again back to our basic question: what can Danger for theoretical
axiomatism truly offer when it does not summarise but considerations getting
rigidify; when it does not systematise prolific ideas any sheerly “applied” onto
philosophies of
history
pp. [Quellen und Studien zur Philosophie 22], as well as David L. Hull
Science as a Process An Evolutionary Account of the Social and Conceptual
Development of Science (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1991) xiii
+ 586 pp. [Science and Its Conceptual Foundations]. Cf. also Georges
Sorel Les illusions du progrès 4th ed. (Paris: Rivière 1927) 390 pp. [Etudes sur
le devenir social I] and André Lalande Les illusions évolutionnistes (Paris:
Alcan 1930) xi + 464 pp. [Bibliothèque de philosophie contemporaine].
For the beginnings of the evolutionist idea, see Eric R[obertson] Dodds The
Ancient Concept of Progress And Other Essays in Greek Literature and Belief
(Oxford: Clarendon Press 1973) vi + 218 pp., especially at pp. 1–25.
18
Primarily for the various off-springs of LAMARCKism, see Peter J.
Bowler Evolution The History of an Idea (Berkeley, etc.: University of Cali-
fornia Press 1989) xvi + 432 pp., passim, and focusing upon the idea of
“planning” and “education controlled by the state”, on pp. 222–228.
19
On DARWIN and DARWINism from a historical approach, cf. Founda-
tions of Scientific Method The Nineteenth Century, ed. Ronald D. Giere &
Richards S. Westfall (Bloomington & London: Indiana University Press
1973) ix + 306 pp., especially para. 5, pp. 115–132; in a contemporary
context, Darwin, Marx, and Freud Their Influence on Moral Theory, ed.
Arthur L. Caplan & Bruce Jennings (New York & London: Plenum Press
1984) xxvii + 230 pp. [The Hastings Center Series in Ethics], particularly
part I, as well as John C. Green Science, Ideology, andWorldView Essays in the
History of Evolutionary Ideal (Berkeley: University of California Press
1981) x + 202 pp., primarily chs. 5–6.
10
Involving HAECKEL as well, cf. Jürgen Sandmann Das Bruch mit der
humanitären Tradition Die Biologisierung der Ethik bei Ernst Haeckel und
anderen Darwinisten seiner Zeit (Stuttgart: Fischer 1990) 218 pp.
11
For the DARWINist roots of MARXism, see Ralph Colp [Jr.] ‘The
Contacts between Karl Marx and Charles Darwin’ Journal of the History of
Ideas XXXV (1974) 2, pp. 329–338 and Margaret A. Jay ‘Did Marx Offer
to Dedicate Capital to Darwin? A Reassessment’ Journal of the History of
Ideas XXXIX (1978) 1, pp. 133–146.
Old163-174 11/12/19 9:21 Page 174
longer but—being primarily concerned with its further self-

extension—only tether? For as soon as the frenzy of “I have
created another, new world out of nothing”-type of ethos
disappears and the emphasis falls upon the further develop-
ment of the intellectual revolution generated by the original
creative thought, the system of thoughts, which once helped
to break through old dogmas, might easily prove to be the
strait-jacket for and barrier of any further development
of ideas and generate the danger of a destructive and
doctrinaire “application”—instead of the initially creative
inspiration of ideas.
(MARXism as So, do we have to doom MARXism only for being
an example) outdated? Or, was it perhaps just that its propositions could
not stand the trial by today’s scholarly verification? Well,
most probably, such questions cannot be answered nega-
tively. It would be highly misleading, however, if our
responses were formulated as simplifications reminiscent of
the original formulation of questions.Therefore, we can only
state: philosophy of history, and especially its MARXist
variant, became problematic and uncontinuable primarily
because it was built upon presuppositions preceding the
formation of modern scholarship, on the one hand, and
unjustifiable, lacking any established scientific background,
on the other, furthermore, because—and this is in continu-
ation of our line of arguments—the conditions of “applying”
MARXism as a coherent system of thoughts has been
exhausted without generating further relevance for now.
Old175-236 11/12/19 9:21 Page 175
175
4. PARADIGMS OF THINKING
4.1. THE PARADIGM OF PARADIGMS
Before discussing problems related to facts, concepts, logic

and thinking, we will clarify three basic notions.
4.1.1. Conventionality
What do we consider a convention? To put it simply, we can Convention
approach social matters in two ways. We either take every-
thing that surrounds us in our social existence as naturally
given and perfect, or start searching for explanatory prin-
ciples which allow us to expound what (and how it)
composes social existence. C o n v e n t i o n is one to offer
a resolution—perhaps most appropriate at the present level
of the development of science—to this issue.
All of this is reminiscent of how contractual theories have (example:
explained the origins of the state and constitutional arrange- social contract /
ments. Assuming the factuality of social contracts is obvi- JESUS CHRIST,
ously an ahistorical approach, since it lacks any realistic as basic to our
foundations whatsoever.Yet, the circumstance that we only socialisation)
presume their past conclusion—without identifying, for
example, the historical fact to which JEAN-JACQUES ROUS-
1
SEAU’s contrat social may have referred —is just as irrelevant
1
Franz Oppenheimer, for example, argues in the supplementary [historical certainty as
comments to his classical work Der Staat (1908) of 1929—The State (New achieveable
York: Free Life Editions 1957), Introduction, para. a: »Theories of the exclusively through
State«, p. 8—that “As there is no method of obtaining historical proof to the
some conceivable
contrary, since the beginnings of human history are unknown, we should
arrive at a verdict of »not proven,« were it not that, deductively, there is the hypothesis]
absolute certainty that the State, as history shows it […], could not have
come about except through […].”
Old175-236 11/12/19 9:21 Page 176
176 4. PARADIGMS OF THINKING
from the perspective of whether we can accept the validity of

such contracts as an explanatory principle to consecutive
historical developments, as it would certainly not alter our
faith and knowledge if we eventually found out that there are
no historically conclusive archaeological proofs available for
the life and deeds of a person named JESUS CHRIST. Our
response here could again be only that faith in JESUS CHRIST
and therewith in the entire European and universal culture
built on it is not in the least the function of historical
evidence concerning His life in terms of what archaeology
may currently accept as proven. For once we are convinced
of the moral credibility of His teachings, we can transmit His
testimony also by narrating the teachings as put in a histor-
ical scheme, as the story of the life of a young man who grew
up in Galilee and was named such and such. Similarly to
those fixed points in the case of social contract, as regards
our belief or moral world order, after a certain point, it is no
longer the historical wells of the original thought that
matter. The transmitted narrations of the story of origins
with a strong envisioning force can make it self-evident for
generations that man can become worthy of being called a
human being only if living in a society built upon moral
grounds and capable of resolving the arisen disputes, other-
wise he becomes the cannibal of himself. In the same
way construct conventions the tacit grounds and presuppo-
sitions that provide the indispensable framework for
everyday communication and theoretical explanation. We
p r e s u m e these grounds and presuppositions and also
s o c i a l i s e them through communication—yet most of
the time we do not strive to identify or describe their actual
story or factual occurrence.2
Institution as As AESOP’s fables present the moral lesson for humans
conventionalised within an allegoric setting, in the same way do narration,
tradition fiction, and exemplifying recollection of the past convince
us, usually by referring to shareable elements born in lessons
of common tradition. When explaining profoundly humane
2
This is the reason why in theology, for example, biblical archaeology is
treated as an auxiliary discipline.
Old175-236 11/12/19 9:21 Page 177
4.1. THE PARADIGM OF PARADIGMS 177
matters, convention and conventional reference are the most

common tools we use.3 For we know that what we sense in
society is of interest not simply because of their physical exis-
tence. It is neither their objectivity nor their reified aspects,
embodiments or appearances that make them societal but
the fact that they establish an i n s t i t u t i o n . Evidently,
at this point we could start raising questions traceable to
previous questions, as is common with obstinate children.
For example, if the objectivity of physically tangible things in
society is not of interest but their institutional nature, then
what is an institution? We may respond: the institution is a
conventionalised human product. But, what does the
conventionalised human product mean? We may reply: when
two persons form an alliance within society, they may agree,
for instance, that if one of them utters “I promise”, then they
will understand an actual promise as defined in dictionaries.
Thus, the utterance of “I promise” means that when one of
them claims it, he does not simply say it, but takes it seriously
enough that the consequence ascribed to the realisation of
the institution concerned will derive from this promise for
their entire future relationship. Therefore, in a physically
described micro-situation one may perhaps utter “Yes!” in a
somewhat articulated way, while in its social sense one has
agreed thereby to ‘contract a marriage’, confirming one’s
resolution for a lifetime.
Conventionality is one of the key components of societal Conventionality as
existence, to an extent that the most personal and vital mani- the basis for social
festations would not be interpretable without it. Our community + social
thinking process implies applying, making and re-making thought
notions. Yet, where can we find these notions? Are they
present as are rocks in a mountain which have weight and
physical volume? Are they present as something we can
simply kick into, hurting our feet at most? Will they remain
in the same place they have been even if we humans will no
longer exist?
3
See, e.g., Eerik Lagerspetz A Conventionalist Theory of Institutions
(Helsinki: Societas Philosophica Fennica 1989) 166 pp. [Acta Philosophica
Fennica 44].
Old175-236 11/12/19 9:21 Page 178
4.1.2. Cultural dependence

Dependence on The above questions are connected to our intellectual acti-
linguistic vities and can be raised reasonably only within such a
communication medium. But, what does intellectual activity mean? Could it
be performed in the middle of the desert or in the jungle
without having ever been socialised by any (other) civilisa-
tion? Our answer is rather exploratory: it seems that intel-
lectual activity cannot result from an isolated Robinsonian
life. It is more the outcome of some sort of communication
and of the exchange of meanings within communication, in
other words, it is the result of cognitive and comprehensive
processes tested and re-tested in an endless feedback by
communitarian practice. Hence, what we come to be is
largely due to our ability of linguistic c o m m u n i c a -
t i o n . But a further question arises: what is language? Does
it have physical existence, and if it does, what does that
consist of? Is it language if we produce paper from fibres of
wood and then spot it with lead through a procedure called
printing?
Cognition does In the development of natural sciences, the recognition
involve the reflexion that the possibilities of further development are not infinite
of the own and natural sciences cannot step beyond their own internal
relationship onto the limits came to maturity around the end of the 19th century.
subject Mathematics was the first to realise that it is impossible to
build even its own system entirely on axiomatic grounds. As
against earlier presuppositions, beliefs and convictions, it
was proven that building merely on axioms would neces-
sarily lead to sheer redundancy and/or contradictions. Step
by step, other areas of science—with the lead of thermody-
namics and nuclear physics—have also come to the recogni-
tion of their own boundaries. This is the realisation which
VLADIMIR ILYICH LENIN greatly misunderstood when criti-
cising it as the subjectivisation of human cognition, as its
arbitrariness blocking cognitive access to the world, in his
Materialism and Empiriocriticism. LENIN overlooked the
genuine message with the sharp indifference of semi-
cultured doctrinaires, declaring the intuition scandalous
according to which the observer himself plays an active role
in the observation, eventually shaping the very subject of
Old175-236 11/12/19 9:21 Page 179
observation by his act of observation. LENIN was frightened

by the conclusion—hesitatingly drawn by some as a
pioneering realisation—that thinking cannot be indepen-
dent of the actual thinker. Our ultimate conclusion never-
theless holds that cognition reflects both its alleged subject
and also our relationship to the respective subject.
In a more general reformulation, whatever we may speak in dependence of own
of—be it legal or moral philosophy, or the explanation of cultural
human matters—, the propositions and theses that science presuppositions
departs from and arrives at are insufficient for explanation
by themselves. However large a logical apparatus we may use
to elaborate what the law is and why the court decides in a
given way (whatever we intend to process through logic, that
is, expound with the utmost consistency), we must still
realise that the formalised propositions serving logical
deduction, which we have posited as premises of conclusion,
are insufficient. As advancing within the logical reconstruc-
tion of thinking, it will be revealed step by step, slowly
diminishing our doubts, that all of our presuppositions are
furnished by the underlying c u l t u r e . Since if it were not
so, we would have to recognise as necessary that, for
example, from the currently known legal premises we ought
to arrive at currently known conclusions—but not only in
the present but anywhere and at any time in the past as well
(even in Atlantis millennia ago), that is, independently of the
boundaries set by space and time, independently of cultural
conditions, socialisations, sensibilities and skills.
This is obviously an absurd requirement. In every process PERELMAN: nothing but
of human deduction, beside the consciously formulated and discontinuation and
undertaken premises, an often neglected (although fun- novation may need
damentally determinant and setting our path from the justification
beginning) c u l t u r a l d e p e n d e n c e prevails as well.
For our culture is built upon p r e s u p p o s i t i o n s which
we do not even name, moreover, which are not needed to be
made conscious either, due to the fact that moral considera-
tions and intellectual dilemmas are always shaped within
and as part of a given culture. CHAÏM PERELMAN once
explained it when responding to the question of why a hypo-
thetical auditoire universel (standing for humanity conceived
Old175-236 11/12/19 9:21 Page 180
as an abstract entity) is the sole and ultimate controller of

our argumentation and tacit agreements.4 Well, he claimed
that only novel initiatives, that is, divergence from tradition
and not its continuation, are the ones that require justifica-
tion. Accordingly, what we all share (uncontested because of
being involved ourselves), that is, what we ourselves are,
needs not to be named as this would make no sense at all.
Rebuilding and However natural it may seem to think in one way or
reception are another, it is still not self-evident. Despite it possibly being
not possible without evident to us, it is only so because we are already within the
some community of range of a given culture, hence we do not contest its presup-
cultural positions. As soon as we have to build a culture anew in
presuppositions absence of any antecedents whatsoever (rebuild it under
some distant constellation, transplant it into Ethiopia, or re-
erect it after the Flood of the myth is over), we must instantly
realise that the genuine issue is not so much the transfer of
knowledge incorporated in textbooks but the acculturation
of the cultural presuppositions underlying it. For the trans-
plantation of culture in all cases presumes a cultural unity: it
can only be transplanted as a whole (or in large segments,
through consistent borrowing) to have, for instance, a
successful legal transplant.
(transfer of For this reason, it would be extremely hard to answer the question of
law / rejection how much we should rely on the transfer of laws in programmes and
if inorganic) processes of social modernisation by means of law—i.e., social reform
through the enactment of laws. Although reception (or octroi, when
constraint is involved) promises radical change free of compromises, but
it still builds on previous practices, skills and traditions without ever
becoming an organic component of them.Their organicity can be hoped
for at most, but the potential risks of failure cannot fully be eliminated.
For example, where foreign institutions are forced to recourse to the
transplantation of laws, its effects cannot reach any farther than the force
4
Chaïm Perelman ‘Cinq leçons sur la justice’ [1966] in his Droit, morale
et philosophie (Paris: Librairie Générale de Droit et de Jurisprudence 1968),
vii + 147 pp. [Bibliothèque de Philosophie du Droit VIII], especially at pp.
52–57. I am to note self-critically that I missed indeed the point when in my
contemporary review—Állam- és Jogtudomány XIII (1970) 3, pp. 621–
622—I saw nothing but sheerly “utopianistic false objectivity” in it.
Old175-236 11/12/19 9:21 Page 181
does regardless of how much of a nation-wide programme is made out

of it.5 When one merely attempts to export texts (under the guise of an
all-curing panacea) within the framework of a so-called enlightened
civilising programme, texts which are completely unknown in the given
area and which require an organic medium that could otherwise be
formed as a result of centuries-long consolidating practice following a
successful change of laws, well, the failure is practically unavoidable, and
these “fantasy laws” will sooner or later be doomed to expulsion from
actual legal life.6 If society is exposed for long to such effects extin-
guishing its capabilities of defence but still not interiorising the new
pattern, the ensuing social disorganicity may lead to various dysfunc-
tions, easily aggravating, or even degenerating the underlying conditions.
Moreover, it may even turn into anarchistic and self-destructive bran-
5
See, e.g., as the most evident example, the long-run failures of the [American export of
American attempts at legal transplantation after WWII in Germany and laws after WWII]
Japan. Cf., for a less succesful part, Armin Höland ‘Évolution du droit en
Europe Centrale et Orientale: Assiste-t-on à une renaissance du »Law and
Development«?’ Droit et Société (1993), No. 25, pp. 467–488.
6
For a complex yet convincing example, see the successful establish- [Turkey / Ethiopia]
ment, primarily in urban grounds, of the reception of the Swiss codes of law
in Turkey. Cf. June Starr Dispute and Settlement in Rural Turkey An Ethnog-
raphy of Law (Leiden: Brill 1978) xvi + 304 pp. [Social, Economic and
Political Studies of the Middle East XXIII]. Islam still remained dominant
in the rural areas, especially concerning the family status: half of the
marriages are still not contracted according to formal law [H.Timur ‘Civil
Marriage in Turkey: Difficulties, Causes and Remedies’ International Social
Science Bulletin IX (1957), pp. 34–36], and the exceptional divorce cases
undoubtedly reveal the unaltered binding force of tradition [Paul Stirling
TurkishVillage (London:Weidenfeld and Nicolson 1965) 316 pp. and partic-
ularly at pp. 210–220 {Nature of Human Societies}]. In other regions
where the determination was rather one-sided, that is, taken politically but
unprepared socially—for instance, in Ethiopia or Iran—, the outrage of the
society may even render the attempt at introducing foreign or invented law
impossible. Cf. Jacques Vanderlinden Introduction au droit de l’Éthiopie
moderne (Paris: Librairie Générale de Droit et de Jurisprudence 1971) 386
pp. [Bibliothèque africaine et malgache 10], especially on pp. 212ff; Hein-
rich Scholler & Paul Brietzke Ethiopia Revolution, Law and Politics
(München:Weltforum-Verlag 1976) 216 pp. [Afrika-Studien 92], especially
on pp. 80ff; Transplants Innovation and Legal Tradition in the Horn of Africa
Modelli autoctoni e modelli d’importazione nei sistemi giuridici del Corno
d’Africa, ed. Elisabetta Grande (Torino: L’Harmattan Italia 1995) 403 pp.
[Non Solo Occidente – Studies on Legal Pluralism 1].
Old175-236 11/12/19 9:21 Page 182
dishing.7 Partial legal innovations reforming subtle details delude with

some success only when long-lasting and consistent conditioning and
conventionalisation—with a growing ethos of change in society accom-
panied by a wide social and professional consensus concerning the
procedural ways to follow—lead to actual reception of legal patterns.8
4.1.3. The nature of paradigms

The role of paradigms THOMAS KUHN, in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions,
in preserving investigated the issue of what the actual reasons could have
old frameworks been for turns in the development of thought that have even-
and the boom into tually befallen, as, for example, in case of COPERNICUS. How
new paradigms necessary were they? What effects did they generate? As a
response we may learn from him that our thinking follows
certain p a t t e r n s given in a f r a m e w o r k recognised
as self-evident by the community.9 Hence, our disputes in a
given community take place within this very framework,
trying its boundaries, since all questions and answers, and
even unresolved contradictions, are necessarily put into it
(as conceptualised, contextualised, and even lacks of under-
7
[Egypt] It is an open question what deeper explanation there may be to the
terroristic rebellion against aliens in Egypt which arose after the allegedly
successful French-type modernisation of local law, and which does not
decrease despite strong repercussions. For the background, cf., e.g., Marc
David Turetzky ‘Egypt, Mubarak, and the Rise of Islamic Fundamentalist
Terrorism, 1981–1994: An Empirical Analysis of the Mubarak Regime’s
Punitive Counter-terrorist Policy’ Michigan Journal of Policial Science
(2002), Nr. 24 in <www.umich.edu/~mjps/archives/issue24/turetzky24.
html>.
8
As a summary, see, by the author, ‘The Law and its Limits’ Acta
Juridica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 34 (1992) 1–2, pp. 49–56 & in
Csaba Varga Law and Philosophy Selected Papers in Legal Theory
(Budapest: ELTE Project on “Comparative Legal Cultures” 1994), pp.
91–96 [Philosophiae Iuris].
9
[paradigm] Thomas Samuel Kuhn The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press 1962) xv + 172 pp. [International Encyclo-
pedia of Unified Science II:2] “divides scientific history into periods of
steady development within one set of accepted concepts, called a paradigm,
and periods of revolutionary change when the reigning paradigm is
replaced by another in a way that he likens to a gestalt switch. In these
periods the paradigms compete with each other […]. KUHN denies that
Old175-236 11/12/19 9:21 Page 183
standing expressed within it). If for whatever reason this is

no longer feasible, a boom will follow and a new paradigm
will be born.Well, KUHN’s efforts were aimed at the inspec-
tion of such developments, to trace down their causes and
courses. According to his conclusion, even fame, prestige
and the kind—in fact completely secondary circumstances
(as we shall see later on, resuming the consideration of ALAN
WATSON, how sometimes quite trivial ways or courses legal
development was to take when, for example, in a given
moment only the text of the Dutch or Portuguese law on
land-estate was available in the library of the ministry of
justice of New-Zealand for a bill to draft10)—can be decisive
in the acclimatisation of a new world-view. So, it is by far not
the truth and the merits of a new realisation (underlying,
e.g., COPERNICUS’ thesis) that may have played the sole and
key role in the process, since all of them notwithstanding, the
old truth could have still happily outlived the new one. (For,
after all, the turn itself generated by COPERNICUS was just
the consummation of a development of several centuries. At
the same time, the scientific turn was also uneven as the old
world-view prevailed for long after it, incorporating and even
adapting the paradigms of the new one.)
Interestingly, when we speak of MARXism in Central and Eastern (MARXism ←

Europe it shortly comes to light that we actually mean the HEGELian HEGELianism ←
tradition. A closer look at the HEGELian tradition, however, soon reveals Enlightenment)
that it is eventually not the HEGELian tradition that we have in mind but
some of its achievements surrounded by nostalgia, dating back to the
time of the Enlightenment, which have survived in the region, despite
being questioned and apparently abandoned long ago in the European
and especially Anglo–American civilisation.
science progresses cumulatively, on the ground that successive paradigms

are irreconcilable, and yet claims that their periodical replacement consti-
tutes a developing process of increasing sophistication.” The Fontana Dictio-
nary of Modern Thinkers ed. Alan Bullock & R. B. Woodings (London:
Fontana Paperback 1983), p. 413.
10
Cf., in depth, para. 4.2.
Old175-236 11/12/19 9:21 Page 184
(historicity vs. “Progress”?—this notion is meaningless overseas, as if being some

ahistoricity) incorrigible nonsense. If only recalling some personal memories, in
1989, top political scientists at Yale workshops in law received the freshly
made reform-plans from Moscow and Kabul as if they were elaborated
in the neighbourly New England or California.They had them translated
into their own language, read and discussed them by drawing compar-
isons with their own end-of-century ideals. When the conventionalised
American version met their refined tastes, they burst out in enthusiastic
hoorays.They saw the triumph of universalism in it, while they could not
comprehend why I was still concerned with the differences in historical
past, legacy, inclinations and experience, i.e., with the differing Eastern-
European or Byzantine hermeneutical contextualisation with own roots.
They were offended by my reasoning that on Russian soil the formation
of the institutional network characteristic of 19th-century Western
Europe was still not completed. For the Russians neither the commit-
ment of the law into writing, nor the respect for its autonomy and
genuinely mediating role is yet a self-evident need arising organically
from within, moreover, this legacy is not troubling them either. It was not
even noticed overseas that the culture of modern formal law has not yet
penetrated the territories once belonging to the Tsar and the actual
Byzantine region in general.11 Consequently, possible verbal parallelism,
captivating exclusively naive American minds, is not necessarily of a
message value, since weak good will and sheer rhetoric can equally stand
in its background.The fate of reformist legal enactments, bound by local
traditions and ordinary conditions, is known not to be so much depen-
dent on textual subtleties.Well, as soon as I referred to the living experi-
ence in the proper East-European region by pointing out some
particular and distinctive features of the development (as described by
comparative studies on European history in the region),12 their reaction
11
For an overall assessment based on its Hungarian implementation
following its Muscovite imposition, cf., by the author, ‘Liberty, Equality,
and the Conceptual Minimum of Legal Mediation’ in Enlightenment, Rights
and Revolution Essays in Legal and Social Philosophy, ed. Neil MacCormick
& Zenon Bankowski (Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press 1989), pp.
229–251.
12
On the civilisational divides known as millenium-old historical
regions of Europe—Western, Eastern and, in-between, Central—, cf. István
Bibó Democracy, Revolution, Self-determination Selected Writings, ed. Károly
Nagy, trans. András Boros-Kazai (Highland Lakes: Atlantic Research and
Old175-236 11/12/19 9:21 Page 185
was merely disconcertment. A professor of law terminated my objections

in a short way by asking with a crushing overtone whether I was a histor-
ical determinist. In their enlightened intellectual circles this label stands
for pathologically deviant atavism, as well as for an attitude rejecting the
liberal legacy, running against as an express violation of the very
minimum of political correctness.
It is our paradigms that pre-select what issues we debate while (Unproved/improvable
defining the foundations we may start thinking from. For instance, presuppositions
presuming the existence of God used to be a criterion in determining the dominating scholarly
framework for scientific realisations in Europe at an earlier epoch. Para- & practical debates)
digms may have changed since then but we still rely on presuppositions
without making them conscious. For instance, following THOMAS
HOBBES, BERNARD MANDEVILLE, JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU and others,
when laying the foundations of political philosophy, social policy, health-
care, national defence, criminal policy and so on, we all presuppose in
the modern European and Atlantic world now that humans are equal by
birth, shapeable through education and susceptible to democracy, thus
being subjects to rights. This is to say that individuality and freedom
provide enough grounds for shaping their future. Under extreme condi-
tions we may also sense how far cultural presuppositions rule our
thinking.The demand for proof or the raise of doubts can be regarded as
Publications 1991) xiii + 570 p. [East European Monographs CCCXVII /

Atlantic Studies on Society in Change 69] and Jenô Szûcs ‘The Three
Historical Regions of Europe: An Outline’ Acta Historica Academiae Scien-
tiarum Hungaricae 29 (1983) 2–4, pp. 131–184. For its reconsideration
from a timely legal point of view, cf., by the author, ‘On Vitality in the
Region’ in Csaba Varga Transition to Rule of Law On the Democratic Trans-
formation in Hungary (Budapest: Budapest: ELTE “Comparative Legal
Cultures” Project 1995) 190 pp. [Philosophiae Iuris] on pp. 10–18. Of
course, this bewilderment and naivety had lasted only until their own schol-
arly authority arrived at the same realisation. Cf. Samuel P. Huntington
‘The Clash of Civilizations?’ Foreign Affairs 72 (Summer 1993) 3, pp.
22–49. However, again, they did not recognise in this overall legacy the
cohesive force of solidification, the mutual influence by and whirling of the
variety of cultural traditions (in due course of arriving at temporary synthe-
sises and thereby also generating new forms). Instead, they replaced their
so far monolithic worldview by one which considers more factors as given,
only statically amending their previous construction.
Old175-236 11/12/19 9:21 Page 186
open rejection of commonly shared civilisational values because they

violate the tacit conventions of “political correctness”.13
(respecting Indeed, today we meet different sides in the world concerning appar-
traditions vs. ently self-evident considerations, taken on the plane of everyday reason.
self-assertion The adherents to one side paradigmatically believe in the presence of
in denial of reason in human history, in that there are some inherent entities which
traditions) bear meaning, and from which something must evolve.The adherents to
the other side believe in the liberal concept of equal opportunity, ulti-
mately leading to the denial of traditions whereby they exclude the possi-
bility of learning lessons even from events and experiences of their own
past. Accordingly, the ethos is embodied in superiority of church, state,
class, party, or action group in one of them, and in well-intentioned
neutrality or even cynical indifference (on behalf of and toward every
institution) in the other. All in all, one of them accepts historical fate
under any conditions while the other preaches the unvarnishedly self-
revealing and, therefore, unlimited personality (and personalness).14
Change of paradigms Returning to THOMAS KUHN and the issue of paradigms,

if tension can we can hardly say more than that we may eventually think
no longer be either way.We may think in accordance with the philosophy
managed from inside of history, enlarging it to a tradition which may still not
be hopelessly outdated a hundred years from now since
mankind always builds upon and starts from ready-to-take
facilities available there and then. Obviously, even the
perspective provided by the philosophy of history can serve
as a jump-board when one wants to answer the straining
problems of changing times. Even forced paths allow certain
freedom of movement, and if supported by strong
13
Cf., by the author, ‘Önmagát felemelô ember? Korunk racionaliz-
musának dilemmái’ [Man elevating himself? Dilemmas of rationalism in
our age] in Sodródó emberiség Tanulmányok Várkonyi Nándor: Az ötödik
ember címû mûvérôl [Mankind adrift: on the work of Nándor Várkonyi
»The Fifth Man«], ed. Katalin Mezey (Budapest: Széphalom Könyvmûhely
2000), pp. 61–93.
14
For perceiving the loss of balance and roots, and also isolation, as
pathologic symptoms of our age, see Robert A. Nisbet The Quest for Commu-
nity A Study in the Ethics of Order and Freedom (New York: Oxford
University Press 1953) 303 pp.
Old175-236 11/12/19 9:21 Page 187
intentions, there will always be ways to afford sensible

responses. In other words, change is not necessary in and of
itself. KUHN had a further realisation as well. Although we
usually deny that there was a scientific world-view prior to
COPERNICUS, therefore times could not have been lived
well, KUHN proved that, except for exceptional moments
when the change of paradigms becomes imminent, the
important thing is to remain w i t h i n the paradigm,
i.e., the debates and antinomies should not fully break the
frames yet, even if already stressing their boundaries. This
is to say that contemporaries of COPERNICUS—including
the leading minds in natural sciences—could live well with
the old world-view without being disturbed and essentially
limited in reconsideration.What is more, it could have been
some ephemeral, perhaps even trivial incidence owing to
which a thinker named COPERNICUS had the opportunity
to generate a turn right then and right there, and had it
eventually accepted by the scientific community. In prin-
ciple, it may as well have happened that he was born in vain
from such a perspective—regardless of the talents he was
given and of what an outstanding historical personality he
grew to be.
Obviously, there is no paradigm in and of itself. Paradig- Our notion of
matic features emerge when we have presuppositions—for scholarship, too,
instance, that there are things on earth that have weight and depends on
volume, and so forth. Thus, following KUHN’s thoughts to paradigms
their ultimate consequences: nothing will be obvious any
longer. Not even the question of whether or not something
like science exists and if it does what its substance can be.
As the sole actors on the stage of history, we humans are
the ones to form a picture of ‘science’ for ourselves. We call
some of our fellowmen ‘scientists’, these mostly earn their
living from ‘science’ by, so to say, cultivating it, and ‘science’
manifests itself through them. This is an issue of the com-
munity, but also an issue defined by the elite of a narrow
profession, which assumes the job exclusively for itself.Well,
judgements are formed by this profession to become just as
irrevocably established as any human convention.
Old175-236 11/12/19 9:21 Page 188
(paradigms pre-select Such a paradigmatically erected world-view may support incon-

what can at all be testable convictions whether or not a plant breeder can contribute in
raised as an issue for merits to the curing of cancer, and in legal scholarship only certain
scienctific treatment) approaches are appropriate (or “politically correct”, as American intel-
lectual pressure-groups would phrase), while others cannot even be
thought through in practice because they would qualify as inconceivable
from the beginning.These mostly do not even depend on issues of merit,
but simply on paradigmatic stereotypes, namely, on certain views that
comply with the conventionalised criteria of scholarship of a given time
while others do not.15 After all, scholarly opinions are eventually formed
on the basis of similar considerations also within research centres and
academies. It might happen that to certain questions we cannot explain
in a rationally expanded and provable way (from fireballs to the possibil-
ities of telepathy) we provide routine answers, originally specific to by-
gone centuries. For we do not approach phenomena with an innocent
curiosity, but in a manner that results from the discipline of so-called
methodological thinking. In other words, we select—pre-select indeed—
the problems that can at all be raised in science arbitrarily, without
regard to the merits of the issue. Whatever this issue—from the possi-
bility of extra-terrestrial life to the enigma of the Bermuda-triangle—, we
can predict that those for the treatment of which scientific methodology
has not been developed (yet) cannot be subjects to scientific inquiry
either.
Paradigm equals to a In every culture there is a prevailing set of presupposi-

prejudice selecting / tions, called paradigm, which pre-selects the information
rejecting from the feasible to become subject of human thinking, accepting
outset only what is in accordance with it. The restrictive effects of
paradigms assert themselves—as socially conditioned—by
the force of human p r e j u d i c e s . As long as a system of
paradigms prevails, despite that we may stress its frames or
chase it into contradictions, it will always have some effects;
hence it will always resist certain temptations.
15
For the ideology-led aversion to police race-profiling making a
prosecutor declare all results notwithstanding that “If I could push a button
and make this technology disappear, I would.”, see Melba Newsome
‘A New DNA Test can ID a Suspect’s Race, but Police won’t touch it’
[12.20.07] Wired Magazine in <http://www.wired.com/politics/law/maga
zine/16-01/ps_dna>.
Old175-236 11/12/19 9:21 Page 189
4.2. THE BASIC NOTIONS OF “FACT”, “CONCEPT”, “LOGIC” AND… 189
4.2. THE BASIC NOTIONS OF “FACT”, “CONCEPT”, “LOGIC”

AND “THINKING”
4.2.1. The need for a change of paradigms

In the following we will give a short overview of some major Objectivism /
traditions of thinking in relation to given notions. The subjectivism / search
system of co-ordinates which reflects the potentialities of for a compromise
understanding these notions brings up three blocks of
thinking-tradition.The first is called o b j e c t i v i s m , the
second s u b j e c t i v i s m . The third block represents
some rational s e a r c h f o r c o m p r o m i s e some-
where between the extreme values and solutions of the
former two. This is the concept mainly spread on Anglo–
American scientific areas, and is the most justifiable from the
perspective of philosophy of science and of the so-called
cognitive sciences.
The survey of the aforementioned thinking traditions
strengthens and also extends over new territories the picture
we have so far displayed on the methodological foundations
of and potentialities in human thinking.
First and foremost we should think of problems that arise Science-philosophy
from the fact that the ideal of thinking in Europe so far has and linguistic
been embodied almost exclusively by the axiomatic method. philosophy
The official introduction of MARXism as a substitute for reli- predefining
gion contributed to some of the worst initiatives to become scholarship
true for the last half-century, thus, for example, in that heavi-
ly atavistic ways of thinking could survive in the Central and
Eastern European region. This was mainly due to the fact
that for long MARXism (at least in its primitive Muscovite
form) could hinder the break-through in the philosophy of
sciences and language—on the western hemisphere already
accomplished by the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries—and
the challenge (through criticism) of the neo-KANTian philo-
sophy of sciences, which prevailed in Central and Eastern
Europe and especially in Hungary, up to the mid-20th
century.As a result, even leading social scientists in the region
believed that philosophy of sciences, philosophy of language
and cognitive sciences are no more than fields of specialisa-
tion like philosophy of law is. Or, they are specimens maybe
Old175-236 11/12/19 9:21 Page 190
not so useless but still somewhat a superfluous preoccupa-

tion. As if nobody noticed that our entire legal culture,
including its education and scholarly cultivation, is rather
outdated, as still being based on Enlightenment traditions, in
part because the re-consideration of how we actually think
and how we should think in science is yet to be done.
(the results of The drama of Central European destiny was coloured also by the fact
the turn of that the expansionist military power with imperial ambitions which set
the 19th to 20th itself up in the region brought in MARXism—a scholarly movement of
centuries) primarily methodological-critical interests, born and rigidified already
in its primitive German form as a kind of naive realism—as its official
philosophy at a time when the various disciplines, crucial from the
perspective of our new methodological world-view (theory of science,
philosophy of language and methodology of sciences), were in the
making yet. In the debate between politicians and scientists, figures like
FRIEDRICH ENGELS16 and VLADIMIR ILYICH LENIN17 could become giants
of MARXism, while the epoch-making scholarly endeavours of EUGEN
DÜHRING18, ERNST MACH19 and RICHARD AVENARIUS20 were noticed only
16
Friedrich Engels Herrn Eugen Dührings Umwälzung der Wissenschaft
(Anti-Dühring) [1878].
17
V. I. Lenin Materialism and Empiriocriticism [1909].
18
Cf., e.g., John Passmore A Hundred Years of Philosophy (Harmonds-
worth: Penguin 1968) 639 pp., especially at p. 45.
19
[MACH] See, e.g., Robert S. Cohen ‘Ernst Mach: Physics, Perception, and
Philosophy of Science’ Synthèse XVIII (1968) 2–3, pp. 132–170 and Gerald
Holton ‘Mach, Einstein, and the Search for Reality’ Daedalus XCVII
(1968), pp. 636–673. “Seldom has a scientist exerted such an influence
upon his culture as had ERNST MACH. […] In the twenties, the prominent
Austrian social scientist OTTO NEURATH founded the Ernst Mach Verein, a
forerunner of the Vienna Circle. From poetry to philosophy of law, from
physics to social theory, MACH’s influence was all-pervasive in Austria and
elsewhere. […] Above all, ERNST MACH was to be the godfather of logical
positivism, if not its chief progenitor”. Allan Janik & Stephen Toulmin
Wittgenstein’s Vienna (New York: Simon and Schuster 1973) 314 pp.
[Touchstone: Philosophy – History], quotes on pp. 133 & 212. In the light
of an evaluation given in a necrologue, see, e.g., Hugó Szántó ‘Ernst Mach’
Huszadik Század [Twentieth century] XVII [33] (1916) 4, pp. 289–294.
20
See, for example, Friedrich Carstanjen ‘Richard Avenarius and his
General Theory of Knowledge: Empiriocriticism’ Mind VI (1897), pp.
449–475 and Norman Smith ‘Avenarius’ Philosophy of Pure Experience’
Mind XV (1906), pp. 13–31 and 149–160.
Old175-236 11/12/19 9:21 Page 191
as far as the former practised their “ideological annihilation” in

“amateurish effusion” upon them.21
At the same time, on the western hemisphere, non-mechanical (some law
(stochastic and statistic) causality grew into basic knowledge along with in the total whole /
the recognition of necessary consequentiality of the total functioning, as stochastic
when individual components and causal chains of processes are no probability /
longer identifiable by scientific means. In such a case, although the result in a self-describing
is guaranteed, we are still not able to claim more than that achieved by discipline without
the force of the t o t a l w h o l e in its i n t e g r i t y . Quantum- axiomatic
mechanics and microphysics have in the meantime become common re-fundability /
methodological experiences, transmitting (despite all the initial conster- with human model
nation) that when a cogniser cognises, he in part provides nolens volens as a law)
the s e l f - d e s c r i p t i o n of his own observant behaviour. Last but
not least, in mathematics, which is the master example for axiomatic
ideal and methodology, it had to be realised that even allegedly exact
knowledge may be contradictory, moreover, provided that methodology
is taken seriously, it may even resist reconstruction of consistent rigour.
GEORGE EDWARD MOORE’s Principia Ethica (1903), BERTRAND
RUSSELL’s Principia Mathematica (1903–1913) and ALFRED WHITE-
HEAD’s Process and Reality (1929) were published around the same
21
Anthony, Lord Quinton in The Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thinkers, [LENIN’S detachment
p. 469. “As philosophy it is crude an amateurish, based on vulgar »common- from scholarship
sense« arguments eked by quotations from ENGELS (only two sentences by proper]
MARX are quoted in the whole book) and unbridled abuse of LENIN’s oppo-
nents. It shows complete failure to understand their point of view, and
reluctance to make the efforts to do so. It adds hardly anything to what is
contained in the passages quoted from ENGELS and PLEKHANOV, the main
difference being that ENGELS has a sense of humour and LENIN none. He
makes up for it with cheap mockery and invective, decrying his adversaries
as reactionary madmen and lackeys of the clergy. ENGELS’ arguments are
vulgarized and sterned into cut-and-dried cathechetical forms: sensations
are ‘copies’ or ‘mirror-reflections’ of things, philosophical schools become
‘parties’, etc. The exasperation which pervades the book is typical of the
primitive thinker who cannot understand how anyone of sound mind can
seriously maintain (as LENIN supposes) that by the power of his own imag-
ination he has created the earth, the stars, and the whole physical universe,
or that the objects he is looking at are in his head when any child can see
that they are not.” Leszek Kolakowski Main Currents of Marxism II: The
Golden Age (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1978), p. 457. Cf. also Kevin
Anderson Lenin, Hegel, and Western Marxism A Critical Study (Urbana:
University of Illionis Press 1995) xvii + 311 pp.
Old175-236 11/12/19 9:21 Page 192
period of time. They generated the Vienna-school of logical positivism

(RUDOLF CARNAP’s Der logische Aufbau der Welt [Berlin 1928] and
MORITZ SCHLICK’s Allgemeine Erkenntnislehre [Berlin 1918]), the English
analytical science of cognition (ALFRED JULES AYER), and LUDWIG
WITTGENSTEIN’s oeuvre, serving with pioneering realisations for various
fields from physics to the philosophy of language, exposed by repeated
questions suitable to get reduced to basic situations. It has thereby been
revealed that laws in science are nothing but man-made frail models:22
we do not know what speaks in nature through them;23 sometimes we do
project our own lack of understanding onto them;24 yet in each case we
express our own cultural (and deeply ideologically founded) convictions
through them.25
(backwardness of The cultural gap between Western Europe and the Sovietised Central
Socialism) Europe is indeed conspicuous. A visitor of American colleges can
discover in the libraries, syllabi or in hidden bookshops of small
campuses, apparently cut off from the rest of the world, writings that
were re-published in translation over and over as classics indispensable
for the foundation of modern world-view, and these writings might still
not be available in our Central and Eastern European region, perhaps
22
E.g., introduction by Vilmos Csányi to Arthur Koestler Alvajárók
[The Sleepwalkers (London: Hutchinson 1959)] (Budapest: Európa 1996),
p. 15.
23
Since DAVID HUME, it has occurred several times in the 20th century
that again and again, the concept of regularity turned out to be insecure to
the credit of the concept of necessity. E.g., Norman Swartz The Concept
of Physical Law (Cambridge, etc.: Cambridge University Press 1985) xi +
220 pp.
24
According to Nancy Cartwright How the Laws of Physics Lie (Oxford:
Clarendon Press & New York: Oxford University Press 1983) 221 pp. at p.
18, a number of connections (etc.), conceptualised as regularity, merely
play contextualising roles among the laws expressed necessarily imper-
fectly, in the way as, for instance, “many abstract concepts in physics play
merely an organizing role and do not seem to represent genuine properties.”
25
For example, French grand theories are even nowadays expressed in
mathematical formulas of a great depth with a narrow but all-comprehen-
sive elegance, as against the minute English practice of theory formulation
of a meagre demand for abstraction, although formulated broadly. Cf., e.g.,
Pierre Duham The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory trans. Philip P.
Wiener (New York: Atheneum 1962) xxii + 344 pp. [Athenaum Paperbacks
13] on p. 19.
Old175-236 11/12/19 9:21 Page 193
not even in special collections, until the regime as such came to collapse.
Collections of fundamental texts, mandatory for the freshman students,
including hundred-year-old ones born and published in the region, here
in Hungary or some hundred kilometres away in Austria or Moravia,
were nevertheless not available—and not even monographically
treated—in their home-region.26
For a spicy counterpoint, in our region we can come across—espe- (in contrast to
cially in the mind of teachers, from village schools to universities—those western development)
texts in local languages (from ENGELS’ Anti-Dühring to LENIN’s Materi-
alism and Empiriocriticism) which were conceived only to eliminate these
revolutionary achievements even from the professional cultures. It marks
the absurdity of the intellectual conditions in the once Sovietised Central
Europe that EUGEN DÜHRING is usually remembered as one who
provoked ENGELS to write his ingenious treatise full of angry fits. In
Western Europe, on the other hand, at most apostles of the left may have
heard of ENGELS, yet DÜHRING is read by each New England liberal
college freshman, because he made a genuine contribution to the philos-
ophy of science, thought-provoking even today. LENIN’s main philo-
sophical work—Materialism and Empiriocriticism—builds upon MACH’s
theses, elaborated in the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, but still valid to
this day, and upon the oeuvre of AVENARIUS. Well, the late Hungarian
could learn only in a New England library that these two scholars were
the first among methodical thinkers—at a time when in the wave of re-
axiomatisation, mathematics found its own limits and thereby neces-
sarily arrived at paradoxes—who attempted to take the same route in the
field of physics.
All in all, at the beginning of the 20th century the creation Science re-considers
of systems with strict consistency and axiomatic rigour was its subject:
launched also in exact sciences. AVENARIUS was concerned
with what consequence it may have if our suspicion comes
true, namely that in our modern age we reach such a subtlety
of measuring when one can no longer perform an obser-
vation with known devices without interfering with the
26
E.g., Philosophy of Science ed. Arthur Danto & Sidney Morgenbesser
(New York: The New American Library 1960) 477 pp. [Meridian: Philo-
sophy, Science].
Old175-236 11/12/19 9:21 Page 194
observed process. Well, what do we eventually observe? Do

we observe ourselves or the so-called reality? Or, perhaps,
both?
the world is an As a consequence, our initial suspicions came to be
abstraction of confirmed, suggesting that (1) there are no things but
processes, which are p r o c e s s e s ; (2) the ‘thing’ cannot be other than an
modelled through aspect or snapshot a b s t r a c t i o n of the process; hence
their naming (3) cognition is nothing but the function of n a m i n g , and
this holds for self-cognition as well; therefore (4) description
has to be regarded more as intellectual m o d e l l i n g (or
presentation) than ontological reflection or duplication (that
is, reproduction).
4.2.2. The false alternative of objectivism and subjectivism

Naive realism We could characterise o b j e c t i v i s m briefly as n a i v e
r e a l i s m . This understanding largely remained prevalent
in the cultures of Central Europe. Naive realism derives
directly from the form of MARXism cultivated in the Soviet
Union, which did not tolerate any different approaches.
Thus, what fell outside the range of its view was rejected as
subjectivism. Scholarship in Central and Eastern Europe
acknowledged this as the sine qua non of methodical
thinking: a point of reference the acceptance of which
enables us to start thinking in a scholarly manner.
Subjectivism: Its opposite, s u b j e c t i v i s m , is in fact a barely
delimitable scholarly trend. Subjectivism may be often char-
acteristic of the so called subjective idealisms which, on their
turn, are not typical of 20th century thinking. Let us recall
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE who played such a serious role in
shaking the foundations of the ideal of western rationalism,
but nevertheless remained the captive of our common Euro-
pean culture having its roots in ancient Greece and Rome.
Well, what we consider subjectivism in the above context
rather means the negation of objectivism: it is a counter-
trend.
from NIETZSCHE Aside from NIETZSCHE, some further directions of
to modern thinking can also be revoked here, these being known
deconstructionism under the name of modern deconstructionism (MICHEL
Old175-236 11/12/19 9:21 Page 195
FOUCAULT and JACQUES DERRIDA can be considered in this Cognitive sciences

regard).
The so-called modern conception is again not some well-
defined trend but an intermediate consideration, avoiding
the trap of extreme interpretation and attempting to build
itself into a system through generalising provable partial
results. Therefore, it is more based on interdisciplinarity
drawing from experiential/experimental sources, reminis-
cent of natural sciences. Following its line of thoughts, we
can arrive at considerations which, for instance, the cogni-
tive sciences—psychology, linguistics, philosophy and
biology, as applied to the topic—seek to form in the United
States.27 For example, if the question is how neurones (iden-
tifiable by means of neuroanatomy) participate in human
thinking, the model we can find will be a computer, in which
both lack of information and the combination of individual
in-put units of information will eventually be composed of
pieces of information transmitted by individual neurones,
that is, the endless sequence of binary codes of physical-
chemical stimuli or the lacks thereof.
We can summarise the various points of view and the
characteristic stances of the respective trends28 in the table
below (Figure 8).
27
For example, Allen Newell Unified Theories of Cognition (Cambridge,
Mass. & London: Harvard University Press 1990) xvii + 549 pp. [The
William James Lectures 1987].
28
See, e.g., George Lakoff Cognitive Science and the Law [manuscript]
[(New Haven, Conn.): Yale Law School Legal Theory Workshop 1989
(April 27)] 49 pp.
Old175-236 11/12/19 9:21 Page 196
objectivism subjectivism modern conception
fact ‘objective reality’: arbitrary social cognitive relationship

the thing itself construct selected by man and
supported by his
interest
system of reflection of reflection of itself covered by realistic
concepts reality features of reality, but
concomitantly shaped
by man’s interests
towards reality
objectively corre- relies on arbitrary its openness in a given
sponds with social conven- direction can only be
reality tion closed down artificially
neutral and objec- built upon the re- never detachable from
tive, providing conventionalisa- the prevailing world-
true perspec- tion of view, tradition and
tives on reality conventions cultural presupposi-
tions
logic the thing itself: the an external web, the mathematics of
course, inter- applicable or descriptive proposi-
connection and non-applicable tions: claims that
sequence of at discretion insofar as we make
things; aspects propositions within the
and necessity same context and in
thereof the same time, and link
these propositions
conceptually, then,
once a premise or
conclusion is accepted
as true or false, we
thereby establish a
deductive relationship
between their truth or
falsity
thinking builds upon the everything is there is no metaphysics
paradigm of arbitrary of things: only the
distinguishing practical relationship
between the of man to things selects
essence and the and names the things
phenomenon
value-indifferent, builds upon
objective, which personal
relies on rules of conviction
logic
progresses from its direction is
the general to arbitrary
the concrete
(Figure 8)
Old175-236 11/12/19 9:21 Page 197
The elements and various interconnections of all these We can only choose
approaches can be caught in action in case of almost any either of them as an
intellectual endeavour. For instance, if we tried to periodise explanatory principle
human history, we would realise that however we tried to do
it, finally we would still need to opt for a pattern. And we
ought to know, at least in regard to law, that whatever our
choice it will involve direct and definite consequences for all
consecutive operations and for the entire functioning of the
legal profession.
4.2.3. What are facts?

According to our conceptual traditions, we are supposed to Fact = objective
speak about ‘fact’ as congruent with “objective reality”. reality?
This conceptual congruence implies that when speaking NIETZSCHE: fact is the
of “fact” we speak of reality proper. For in this context it is extrapolation of our
presumed that the sole thing out of consideration is that it will aimed at power
happened to be us to establish this fact, thus being somehow
personally involved as part of the process. A NIETZSCHEan
view, on the other hand, would suggest that facts as such are
not to be found in reality at all.What we may still find there,
considering them facts, are purely arbitrary human
constructs at most.They are rather the extrapolations of our
will aimed at power [Willen zur Macht], not more than some
sort of artificial social constructs. From this perspective of
the social process, at first, we invent something, then, as a
result, we so to say populate the world with “facts”.Yet, this
is extrapolation proper, coming from our inner self and spir-
itual resources.
However, contemporary concepts from Western Europe Linguistic philosophy:
and the Anglo–American world are attempting to make the fact is the construct of
scholar believe that “objective reality” is not inherent in our cognitive
facts, and neither is our existence given separately. So, facts approach to selected
are ultimately nothing other than r e l a t i o n a l concepts, aspects of reality
which are recording—in the so-called process of “estab-
lishing facts”—that in our personal existence we relate to
certain aspects of reality in given ways. Thus, the establish-
ment of facts purports that we have selected some part—for
practical reasons, e.g., to serve our so-called “cognition”—
from some relative whole that we call “reality”. By this we
Old175-236 11/12/19 9:21 Page 198
concomitantly give expression to the realisation that we are

somehow personally involved in the process of claiming
something to be a fact. Accordingly, when we say “fact” we
declare our cognitive approach to some aspects of reality
selected from the total whole regarded as reality.29
Naive realism: fact is According to the epistemological view that perceives the
something previously world as an aggregate of facts (this being the so-called naive
given, without human realism), the world around us is composed of nothing but
connection facts. Facts are present in our environment—being parts of
nature—as atoms are in a child’s world-view. They are like
some tiny stones or berries which we may find, if we are
attentive enough, among the grass or gravel when walking in
nature, and then we can pick them up, put them in a bag, and
take them home.Thus, facts simply exist.They are given. In
consequence, we may be blind enough to walk by them.
Although, being inattentive or attentive (picking them up,
starting to ponder about their existence, contexts, origin,
fate and effect) does not alter the bare existence of facts. It is
only our business, luck or misfortune how we proceed in the
given case. Our personal concern related to facts is not more
than to observe what discloses itself as a fact. Still, various
aspects of reality are present, exist and prevail our reaction
notwithstanding. It is also independent of the prevalence of
various aspects of reality whether we do or do not establish
a cognitive relationship with them at any given time. This
depends on our personal interests at most. It is our problem
if the tiny atoms lie in the mould and we do not notice them
or pick them up. This, however, does not challenge the fact
that they are there. We might become somewhat poorer,
since we were in their proximity but still walked by them
ignorantly. Otherwise, it is by no means the precondition of
their existence to be noticed by humans.
FRANK: fact is a JEROME FRANK—who disseminated SIGMUND FREUD’s
function, and product, ideas overseas and laid the foundations of the psycho-analyt-
of human initiative
29
Cf., by the author, Theory of the Judicial Process The Establishment of
Facts (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó 1995) vii + 249 pp., especially ch. 2, pp.
25–55.
Old175-236 11/12/19 9:21 Page 199
ical trend of so called legal realism, relying on his experience

as a justice of the Federal Appellate Court (deriving from the
factual positions taken by the jury)—once made a startling
yet straight-forward remark: “For court purposes, what the
court thinks about the facts is all that matters. For actual
events […] happened in the past. They do not walk into the
court.”30 What does this mean? Well, it may mean that we can
speak of law and human cognition alike, although they still
do not enable us to establish a living relationship with the
facts themselves. In order to truly cognise, the initiative must
always come from our inner selves. Only an i n i t i a t i v e
to cognition can result in the establishment of some rela-
tionship with the facts themselves. This is the only initiative
that can conclude with the establishment of facts. So, the
“world of facts” stands in vain by itself, because it does not
constitute a part of cognition, moreover, it never will, unless
we intentionally link the two. It would again be in vain to cry
out: “Hey, people! Some fellows are killing each other here!”
What could underlie such a cry can become a fact only
through the process of cognition and through the naming
done within cognition. That is, we commit ourselves to
action insofar as we take the aspects of reality out of the
world, blind and mute in itself, and we, so to say, “establish”
that they are, so to say, “facts”, but of course at the proper
time, in the proper form and way (for instance, by taking
them to court) in due procedure. Thus, “facts” in and of
themselves are not parts of any trial, unless we—only
provided that we are parties to a trial at all—take them there
in the proper way and form.
Needless to say, FRANK’s expression also involves that Facts do not “exist”
facts do not “exist” in the sense that we might ascertain but we may make
whether they prevail or not by simply observing their exis- statements about
tence. Hence, facts do not “exist”. However, we can make their prevalence,
s t a t e m e n t s about facts, in relation to facts, on their in a cognitive
prevalence as facts, and so on. Therefore, from statements relationship, by
establishing them as
facts
30
Jerome Frank Courts on Trial Myth and Reality in American Justice
(Princeton: Princeton University Press 1949) xii + 441 pp. on p. 15.
Old175-236 11/12/19 9:21 Page 200
like “it has been established as a fact that […]” we can defi-
nitely learn that (1) there is something with which we have
entered a cognitive relationship, and (2) we have posited it as
an element of cognition. For instance, we can establish it as
a fact that “atoms exist”; “Jack the Ripper has murdered his
victim”, and so on. In the meantime we must also notice that
the facts here are not that atoms exist, or Jack has committed
a murder.The mere fact in it is that we make (or made) state-
ments about them. More precisely, the fact lies exclusively in
the way and by the force of which we establish this.
What is ‘fact’ So, the factuality of a fact does not lie in the reality of the
in all this at all? thing stated as existent, or in the actual accomplishment of
an event stated to have been accomplished. Obviously, we
must also add that neither is it us who are the facts, when
establishing the existence of a thing or the accomplishment
of an event as a fact. Facts are a r e s u l t by the force of
which we can establish that we have entered into a (e.g.,
cognitive) relationship with the existence of a thing, or with
the accomplishment of an event—that is, with something the
accomplishment of which is not in the least necessary. For
the thing or an event in question still exists, occurs, prevails
or had happened without regard to whether such a (or other)
relationship has ever been established. In our case, this has
eventually been established. Furthermore, it was done in a
way that as a consequence we can establish its existence or
occurrence as a fact. We may realise that the case here
involves something more than the usual communication-
chain, according to which: someone has heard something; I
have heard that he has heard; others have heard that I have
heard; and so on. In the situation concerned here we have
entered a relationship with an otherwise prevailing thing or
event having taken place, owing to which we can declare
about its prevalence or its having taken place to be a “fact”.
This is c o g n i t i v e r e l a t i o n s h i p proper. It is so
much present in our social commerce, and our awareness of
its occurrence is so reliable, that we can start communicating
about it by claiming that “its prevalence (having taken place)
is a fact”.
Old175-236 11/12/19 9:21 Page 201
What are facts anyway? That what is established? Or the

way it is established? Or is it simply the everyday contact of
humans with things and events?
Let me remark at this point that in philosophical thinking Searching for beauty:
similar questions have already been raised with regard to in things &
aesthetic quality. Some old views insisted that beauty as configurations thereof
aesthetic quality is inherent in the thing itself. STENDHAL
taught us that theories of natural sciences have also dealt
with what kind of crystals and what arrangements thereof
can lead to an aesthetic experience.31 Structuralism made a
fashion out of the linguistic-statistic analyses aimed at exam-
ining that, for example, in the literary accomplishments of
geniuses like WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE or the Hungarian poet
SÁNDOR PETÔFI, what vocabulary and with what frequency
of occurrence of words organises into or characterises what
we otherwise know as SHAKESPEARE’s or PETÔFI’s oeuvre. All
in all, according to some aesthetic theories, what we can later
discover as aesthetic quality is already inherent in the thing
itself.
Each presupposition predefines certain consequences as regardless of having
well. In our case, we have to accept for now that material encountered
carriers bear aesthetic quality regardless of the fact that they experience by
might not have encountered human perception or evalua- humans or not
tion. For example, crystals in the womb of the earth do not
come near to humans until they are mined or their “beauty”
is noticed. Or, a pioneering exhibition—I encountered when
I arrived at the other half of the world, in the meringue-like
edifice of the Australian Academy of Science—also included
in their collection of the “images” of the natural archetypes
of our human culture, photographs of nature taken by both
electron-microscopic and astronomic devices. As a result,
“artistic” forms were presented to the viewers, forms that
have been inherent in nature since the act of Creation, but
which were somehow reminiscent of the forms and styles
representative of the late 18th century taste of the transition
31
Stendhal De l’amour (Paris: Calman-Lévy 1887) xxiii + 371 pp.
Old175-236 11/12/19 9:21 Page 202
to secession.32 Such configurations were revealed and

became perceptible to humans only after magnification by a
hundred-thousand times or after the first galactic obser-
vation was possible. No one could imagine or experience
anything of the kind before except when dreaming about it.
standing on its own Thus, according to the opinion above, aesthetic quality is
initially inherent in its carrier, independently of whether it
had been subjected to human judgement or not.
Searching for beauty: There is another view which holds that only human
in ourselves, as the perception and experience are relevant. That is, aesthetic
source of catharsis, quality is a cathartic experience for humans. But, insofar as
that is, in what can the source of beauty is an exclusively emotional event, we
psychically lead to it must arrive at the conclusion (shared by all subjectivisms)
that sees the “cause” of the experience not so much in what
leads us to it but merely in our own selves. This actually
demeans aesthetic quality to next to nothing, while granting
it unlimited dimensions. For we cannot provide any pre-
liminary or general definition for what will eventually be
capable of generating such an experience in every one of us.
Conversely, our answer to the above question can be ab-
solutely random: sometimes anything, sometimes nothing.
Σ: aesthetic quality = Nevertheless, we may also regard aesthetic quality as a
aspect of some special relation. In such a case, aesthetic quality will be
objectivity + suitability something pertaining to an object (e.g., SHAKESPEARE’s
to invoke it while manner of text-composition, crystalline structures and
perceiving it: configurations, etc.) but not inherent in it. Its source lies
precisely in the relationship between a particular aspect of
reality and its perceiver, brought to being by the contact we
have established with it. This c o n t a c t proper is to
generate an experience in us, while the contact itself is obvi-
ously underlain by the respective object (SHAKESPEARE’s way
of composing, crystalline structure or configuration, etc.)
that bears some special characteristics. Aesthetic quality as
such is still not this characteristic, nor our experience related
32
See, e.g., Bede Morris Images Illusion and Reality (Canberra:
Australian Academy of Science 1986) 184 pp., particularly ‘Photomi-
croscopy and the Universe of the Living Cell’, pp. 134–161 and ‘Photogra-
phying the Stars and the Science and Art of Astronomical Photography’, pp.
162–175.
Old175-236 11/12/19 9:21 Page 203
to it. Aesthetic quality covers the full process of establishing

the contact—namely that the characteristic in question has
i n v o k e d the given experience in us.
This is a relational concept similar to what we have called a relationship
fact above. Hence, to be able to talk about facts presupposes between object +
the existence and prevalence of our establishing a cognitive subject
relationship with them. One of the further preconditions is
to posit them as the subject of our cognition.Thus, when we
speak of facts, we speak of something purely o b j e c t i v e
as well as of our s u b j e c t i v e r e l a t i o n s h i p to it.
Properly speaking, establishing a relationship between the
two actually leads to the stating of its prevalence as a fact.
What is the meaning of the extensive and intensive infinity Existence of the world
of the world as termed by the philosophy of nature? The idea ➝ naming aspects of it
surveyed above suggests the following option: the totality is ➝ by creating
one total entity.That is, the totality is totally interrelated and analogies
the separation of ‘construction’ from ‘operation’ within this ➝ according to our
totality can only be artificial, a purposefully invented purely practical interests
mental construct. No such duality exists in “reality”, their
discretely distinct qualities being merely human hypostases.
Such a distinction can be made only on analytical grounds,
for the sake and within the framework of our own explana-
tion.33 In reality conceived like this—be it natural or artifi-
cial—, the number and configurations of aspects, relations
and potentialities (etc.) are infinite. Well, insofar as we
provide this very answer, it will seem true in this particular
form, yet wrong according to its formulation.This response
will neither be complete nor exhaustive, since its approach is
made from a purely human (thus artificial) perspective,
operating exclusively with mentally constructed categories.
For the underlying fundamental fact is precisely that mate-
rial reality does not have any “aspects” whatsoever. “Things”
of the world, that is, objects, simply exist and prevail. They
do not depend on any of us, because human existence is not
a precondition to their existence. Accordingly, it is merely an
additional aspect, external and contingent on their exis-
tence, that we humans eventually exist and occasionally
33
Cf., by the author,Theory of the Judicial Process…, pp. 93, 113 and 152.
Old175-236 11/12/19 9:21 Page 204
establish some relationship with certain things. However, in

order to establish a cognitive relationship with things—i.e.,
in order to be able to name them and speak about them—,
we must endow them with certain characteristics and
aspects. That is, we must pick out a characteristic only
selected by us from the total context of the total whole,
isolate it as an independent bearer of some feature(s), and
then name it as such. For two things (like two stones) in
themselves—thus, without our interest extended to them,
consequently, without “naming” some of their “aspects” by
tearing them artificially out from the total whole—do not
(and cannot) “resemble” each other. In order to be able to
“reasonably” relate to two stones we must create some kind
of “analogy” between them by means of abstraction. Seeking
such analogies is not fictitious in the sense that the charac-
teristics or aspects serving as bases to an analogy are indeed
to be prevalent regardless of our actions. But it is man-made
and artificial in the sense that the characteristic concerned is
identified by a creative human initiative through isolating
those objects from the total whole, shedding light on and
naming them. The number of feasible relations between
the two stones in the world is infinite, and so is the number
of possibly relevant aspects. And as is known, humans
approach things—their own selves, things, relationships,
partners—exclusively in practical situations as led by prac-
tical interests. Sometimes because they want to learn about
these. Other times because they want to do something with
them. In general: what humans establish a relationship with,
they thereby also posit something—by “seeing” it in the
thing—that conforms to their p r a c t i c a l relationship to
it. All in all, what we select from among the real aspects of
reality is entirely a function of our practical interests and
relations to it—while keeping all other equally real aspects in
obscurity and unnamed.
(example: cultural Social conventions, presuppositions and paradigms
presuppositions in undoubtedly play a role in the processes of appropriating
how to understand reality. For example, let us take an elementary situation:
sexual reproduction what can a human do to his partner? Within the European
or homicide) civilisation we deal with such questions on the grounds of
Old175-236 11/12/19 9:21 Page 205
the world-view offered by natural sciences—as we were and

are socialised within and into it, and the entire process of
interpretation, classification and establishment of relation
manifest in the elementary acts of perception are deter-
mined by it. We believe that there is no magic in this any
more, and even the description of nature can be achieved, to
the extent possible, through its “own” terms (not presuming
the existence and intervention of God and the act of world-
creation, at least in the case of primary and direct explana-
tions). Thus, for instance, we understand sexual
reproduction as the issue of the contact between certain
bodily organs in the form of chemical reactions provoked.
The world becomes “reasonable” due to these—and not
other—presuppositions and paradigms. Hence, possibilities
are also limited when attempting to answer, for instance,
what one person can do to another when they meet in order
to extinguish his life.What can he/she do to invoke a change
in the other? Already our cultural presuppositions define the
feasible alternatives of whether one can kill his/her partner
exclusively in a barbarian manner by shooting him/her with
a poisoned arrow, or can one perhaps do it with a stab into
his/her object-representation of magical-symbolic impor-
tance? Can it be done with sheer physical penetration, or
eventually also with chemical impacts or nuclear radiation?
The Hungarian culture has encountered some paradigmatic
situations—the dramatic history between the two World
Wars and after World War II provided quite an exuberant
number of tragic examples of this—when sensitive fellows
were thrust into suicide, with their moral self broken, or their
psychological balance crushed.34 Yet, there are an immense
In the vacuum of morality and normative guidance left behind the [anomy]
34
Soviet-type socialism, we must also face the issue of a n o m y . Under

present circumstances, the fulfilment of momentary needs does not by far
bring forth satisfaction and resignation but increases the otherwise
prevailing frustration. This is due to the fact that for wide social strata the
only value is the growth of their own wealth which they usually achieve by
cleverly evading the rules, while their advance remains unmeasurable and
unassessable even for themselves, because they cannot be praised, nor can
Old175-236 11/12/19 9:21 Page 206
number of things we simply cannot do. Not because we are

not “allowed” to do this or that, but because, due to para-
digmatic bounds, doing certain things is simply out of
consideration in our culture.
(example: the The primary consequence of this is that we at least feel
rightfulness of comfortable somewhere and this is in our own culture.When
protection against in contact with another culture (for instance, with one in the
evil eye conception of sexuality of which reproduction is linked to
in tribal cultures) certain events which are entirely unknown to us in such a
context), we necessarily lose the thread of interpretation and
their achievement be satisfactory as there are always others, more

unscrupulous and thus more successful. The circle closes here and the
social disintegration turns into self-destructive action. The concept of ‘a-
nomy’ [‘lack of order’] was first used by ÉMILE DURKHEIM in the early 20th
century—see by him, collected, ‘On Anomie’ in Images of Man ed. C. W.
Mills (New York: Braziller 1961), pp. 449–485—as one of the main factors
of social pathology: “one does not advance when one proceeds toward no
goal, or—which is the same thing—when the goal is infinity. To pursue a
goal which is by definition unattainable is to condemn oneself to a state of
perpetual unhappiness”. “Man is the more vulnerable to self-destruction
the more he is detached from any collectivity, that is to say, the more he lives
as an egoist.” [Suicide resp. Moral Education, p. 113 in Emile Durkheim
Selected Writings ed. Anthony Giddens (London: Cambridge University
Press 1972). Cf. also Snell Putney & Russel Middleton ‘Ethical Relativism
and Anomia’ The American Journal of Sociology 62 (1962) 4, pp. 430–438.
All this can indicate the level of the viability of a society, as “depression and
loss of control lead, provably even in animal experiments, to cardiac arrest,
ulcers and the most diverse kinds of health problems. We have therefore
examined what is in the background of depression, and we found first of all
the characteristics of anomy”—Mária Kopp writes in her ‘A magyar
társadalom egészségi állapota’ [The state of health of Hungarian society]
Magyar Szemle VIII (October, 1999) 9–10. Cf., also by her, ‘Public Health
Burden of Chronic Stress in a Transforming Society’ Psychological Topics
2007/2, pp. 297–310 and [with Csilla T. Csoboth & János Réthelyi]
‘Psycho-social Determinants of Premature Health Deterioration in a
Changing Society: The Case of Hungary’ Journal of Health Psychology 9
(2004) 1, pp. 99–109. – Of course, once the suspicion arises that anything
may stand above the momentary personal tastes, American scholarship—
e.g., Dictionary of Critical Sociology in <www.public.iastate.edu/~rmazur/
dictionary/a.html>—blows the alarm at once as if DURKHEIM denied that
prevailing social norms and community interaction correlate with one
another.
Old175-236 11/12/19 9:21 Page 207
the bases of understanding.35 For example, in a culture of

magic the actors must deal with entirely different condi-
tions. In such a culture, harming our fellowmen cannot
simply be reduced to the problem of the evil eye. For
example, in the British Commonwealth it caused brutal
tensions that former colonisers, who often exercised their
alleged cultural superiority with a missionary’s enthusiasm,
were able to meet plenty of situations in the tribal cultures
ruled by the principles of English law, when the natives
realised that an evil eye was cast upon them and they were
bound to defend themselves. Since the evil eye is deadly, its
threat must be just as deadly. So, it is not by mere chance that
the defence wielded against these threats was not a light one:
occasionally it might cause the injury of those casting the evil
eye, perhaps even (and justifiably) their death. However, the
natives had to defend themselves because if they had not
done so, they would have endangered not only their lives but
the chances of their after-lives as well. From the perspective
of our own culture these world-views are extremely hard to
conceive. On their turn, the British regarded such similar
considerations as blank superstition, which they considered
to be against the minimum conditions of civilisation, and
since it qualified as a threat to life it deserved unconditioned
35
Still staying with the example of medicine, under the conditions of the
standardisation of health procedures globalised, the feasibility of a culture-
specific interpretation has as well to appear as a scientific problem. E.g., see,
as preliminary questions, Cornel West Race Matters (Boston: Beacon Books
1993) xi + 105 pp. and J. J. Scheurich & M. D.Young, M.D. ‘Coloring Epis-
temologies: Are our Research Epistemologies Racially Biased?’ Educational
Researcher 26 (1997) 4, pp. 4–16, and, in a medical application, Culture,
Disease, and Healing Studies in Medical Anthropology, ed. David Landy
(New York: Macmillan 1977) xv + 559 pp., Disease, Medicine, and Empire
Perspectives on Western Medicine and the Experience of Colonial Expan-
sion, ed. Roy MacLeod & Lewis Milton (London: Routledge 1988) xii +
339 pp., Jennifer Green Death with Dignity Meeting the Needs of Patients
in a Multi-Cultural Society (London: Nursing Times 1993) vii + 15 pp. as
well as ‘The Socially Constructed Nature of Race, Culture, and Disability’
Research Exchange [National Center for the Dissemination of Disability
Research] 4 (1999) 1 in <http://www.ncddr.org/du/researchexchange/v04
n01/concepts.html>.
Old175-236 11/12/19 9:21 Page 208
punishment.36 Well, summarising the above we may realise

that it is our cultural dependence which selects the
c o n c e i v a b l e aspects of fundamental human relations,
thus, among other things, what “can” qualify as facts.
(deliverance from an During World War Two, an Italian soldier of the occupying forces in
evil spirit) Abyssinia wrote down his peculiar memories on his travels through the
desert. He was driving through the dunes of sand, occasionally meeting
one or two other vehicles that drove by. He noticed from the distance that
somebody was standing motionless at the side of the road. He began
watching more attentively, but the only thing he could see was that the
other person was also watching, without wanting anything more. Thus,
he would have driven peacefully by when the native, who just stood there
before, all of the sudden jumped across the road in front of the moving
vehicle. Our driver stopped tremblingly: what could the native want
anyway? To die? Well, as he could later find out, the case was the exact
opposite: he wanted to stay alive. As he later reconstructed it, the story
went the following way: the native was tortured by an evil spirit. He felt
that death got hopelessly closer and closer, and it would have come forth
unless he found a way to get rid of his torturer. So, he thought he would
take the risk, and, by gathering all his strength, jump in the last second,
and the evil spirit torturing him will surely be run down by the car.
Blow-up: MICHELANGELO ANTONIONI’s film Blow-up37 may help us

previous knowledge give a general form to this question.38 Let us suppose that we
➝ focussing
➝ proving
36
Robert B. Seidman ‘Mens Rea and the Reasonable African:The Pre-
scientific World-view and Mistake of Fact’ The International and Compara-
tive Law Quarterly 15 (1966) 4, pp. 1137–1156. Cf. also Michael Saltman
The Demise of the »Reasonable Man« A Cross-cultural Study for a Legal
Concept (New Brunswick & London:Transaction 1991) 168 pp.
[means of proving 37
Michelangelo Antonioni Blow-Up A Film [1967] trans. John Mathews
proves to be the (London: Lorrimer 1984) 115 pp. [Classic Film Scripts].
38
obstacle of proving] According to ANTONIONI’s confession: “I wish to recreate reality in an
abstract form. I’m really questioning the nature of reality [...]. One of the
chief themes [of the film] is »to see or not see properly the true value of
things«.” [Cahiers de Cinéma, janvier 1967] in Focus on Blow-Up ed. Roy
Huss (Englewood Cliffs, N.S.: Prentice-Hall 1971) xiii + 371 pp. at p. 8.
The aesthetical analysis of the final art-product just refines the original
question: “Questioning reality via the channels of perception, using a
Old175-236 11/12/19 9:21 Page 209
do not hold any knowledge on man. For instance, we have

arrived from an alien civilisation but have excellent cameras
and video equipment. Well, what can we do with these
earthly people? Should we observe them? And if we observe
them, how should we do it? How can we learn, for example,
why and how far is a human human? Well, we may choose
observation, but before we start using our gadgets we have to
calibrate them and decide (which is usually a routine in the
everyday use of the same equipment) on what to focus the
camera, that is, to decide w h a t exactly we intend to
record. Thus, we ought to decide beforehand—continuing
the questions rose by Blow-up—whether we want to make a
nature film on a trembling bush or acquire proofs of a
committed murder. We can only be sure of one fact: the
possibilities of perception, both by creations of nature and
artificial devices, are unlimited. And when we are not
approaching from within a familiar culture and when there
are no points of reference available, we will not be able to
decide what to zoom our camera exactly on.
The same is true for the research in case of natural Change of
sciences. It is the level of cultural development which prede- paradigms: through a
fines how given professions—chemists, pharmacists, new approach
anatomists (etc.)—approach things. For they could
approach them in some other way as well, and different
predominantly visual medium to this, required from ANTONIONI a complex

and compelling use of metaphor.The photographer’s camera, the leitmotif
of Blow-up, is not simply his tool, it is also his weapon in an aggressive
assault toward the world of appearances. However, the photographer lapses
into a gratuitous form of assaulting this world, relinquishing his own
personal perspective, replacing it with a mechanical means of recording
isolated images and not continuous events. The result is that the camera
becomes a barrier, a recurrent metaphor. […] The distance that Thomas,
the photographer, assumes in order to »get his shots« renders him not only
a doubling Thomas, but also a Peeping Tom. ANTONIONI orchestrates all of
the elements of his medium to demonstrate the pitfalls of believing too
firmly in one’s percepts of the world and the events which we see but that
are not truly our own.” Ned Rifkin Antonioni’sVisual Language (Ann Arbor:
UMI Research Press 1993) at p. 20 [Doctoral Thesis].
Old175-236 11/12/19 9:21 Page 210
cultures differ indeed in their approaches.39 As we may know

from the changes of paradigms that occurred throughout the
evolution of science: blast-like revolutions in science come
about mostly when doubts of the past are finally taken seri-
ously, and by organising past tensions and insufficiencies
into a new ideal systemic arrangement, things begin to be
approached in a different way.
Analogic selection of As we have mentioned before: the world is extensively and
factual aspects from intensively infinite. So, deciding what can qualify as a fact
the infiniteness of does not derive directly from the world itself. Any type or
“facts” quantity of facts can be “produced” at leisure from the
world. Let us just recall the example of GOTTFRIED
WILHELM LEIBNIZ who constructed a judgement-machine
to generate all “possibly existent” judgements—by linking
all conceivable subjects to all conceivable predicates.40
LEIBNIZ thereby suggested that the number of facts that can
be stated within our culture is somehow limited. Yet, his
belief did not derive from the world itself, but from the
cultural dependence prevailing at the time. Conclusively,
deciding what can qualify as a fact in our world is not deter-
mined by the world itself but by human cognition, more
precisely, by the manner in which we relate to the world in
the process of cognition. Naturally, humans wish to cognise
reasonably.They want to search reasonably for the points of
reference (more precisely, the relevant factual aspects) in the
world, and relying on these they may link new perceptions
and realisations to the already known factual aspects by
39
Cf., e.g., Marshall H. Segall, Gonald T. Campbell & Melville J.
Herskovits The Influence of Culture on Visual Perception (Indianapolis & New
York: Bobbs-Merrill 1966) xvii + 268 pp.; moreover, as applicable for
expressly scientific fields (in our case: clinical epidemiology), too, e.g.,
Warren Newton ‘Rationalism and Empiricism in Modern Medicine’ and,
mainly, William M. O’Barr ‘Culture and Causality: Non-Western Systems
of Explanation’ Law & Contemporary Problems 64 (2001) 4, pp. 299–316 as
well as pp. 317–323.
40
Cf., by the author, ‘Leibniz und die Frage der rechtlichen Systembil-
dung’ in Materialismus und Idealismus im Rechtsdenken Geschichte und
Gegenwart, hrsg. Karl A. Mollnau (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag Wies-
baden 1987), pp. 114–127 [Archiv für Rechts- und Sozialphilosophie,
Beiheft 31] & in Varga Law and Philosophy…, pp. 219–232.
Old175-236 11/12/19 9:21 Page 211
drawing analogies. This is the only way to build a mental

edifice: by starting from the foundations and gradually
constructing factual statements reasonable in a given
systemic framework within the human world of cognition.
Inasmuch as the world is infinite both extensively and A total set of
intensively, the total whole is also wholly c o r r e l a t e d at chances, out of the
any given time. Totality is totally one, that is, t o t a l l y total interrelation
interrelated. Internal infinity thus becomes the infinity of
something. For this reason, the way we explain the construc-
tion and operation of the world, and what elements we can
use and in what configuration within it, will, in principle, be
of infinite variety. In any kind of representation and repro-
duction, the variability of elements as well as the sets of
arrangements and the configurations thereof will also be
infinite. It is our practical interests towards and our practical
relationship to the world that will select what we elevate
(isolate, identify and name) from among these.
The Greek concept of ‘truth’ involves precisely such a Tâlethes : truth =
connection. Tâlethes in the original sense means that we selected
elevate, pick up and hold something to the light.41 This problem-solving
already presumes some relationship. We can only elevate,
pick up and hold something to the light if leaving everything
41
“According to purpose, features showing differences and similarities
between discrete items will be selected and typified by a process of general-
ization […]. In typifying things, an ideation of the actual takes place and
description oscillates between these poles of experience. To describe
ideations, metaphors are needed.These link the particularities of a percept
to a taxonomy of types.” “In observing something, our glance focuses on it.
[…] [I]t detaches itself from its background. […] [C]asting light on some-
thing involves obscuring something else.” “Finding the relevant is the first
step in linking the problematic to the familiar.” “The Greek expression
denotes the uncovering of a thing which is veiled or otherwise hidden from
view. ‘Relevance’ in its original meaning denotes the lifting up of a thing, to
bring it to prominence, so that it can be seen better. As it is frequently the
case, the translation of tâlethes as ‘the truth’ fails to exhibit all the semantic
implications of the original. What is obscured is the problem solving char-
acter of a behaviour designed to gain information on a range of probabili-
ties.” George H. Kendal Facts (Toronto: Butterworths 1980) x + 106 pp.
with quotes on pp. 2, 3, 12 and 21–22. Cf., from the author, Theory of the
Judicial Process…, pp. 34 and 101.
Old175-236 11/12/19 9:21 Page 212
else in its environment in the shadow. By pronouncing

tâlethes we confess that there is an agent in operation, and
this is us, subjects who want to cognise by elevating some-
thing and shedding light on it. This agent draws something
into the range of its inquiry, but by doing so overshadows
everything else. Thus, the classical Greek understanding of
the truth already implies, at least on an intuitive level, the
recognition that truth is based on s e l e c t i o n . By
declaring something to be the truth we deny the truth (taken
in the same sense) of everything else. That is to say,
numerous other considerations could also be regarded as
truths, but we selected exactly the one we needed in the
given context. Obviously, the story here is not at all about us
being hopelessly subjective. Conversely, what it speaks
about is that humans create their social world through their
practice, and they do so in a manner continuously fed back
by the results of the same practice.
Language-use: We have thereby arrived at a further realisation. In the
constitutive 1970s, JOACHIM ISRAEL, a sociologist in Lund, was investi-
generation of subjects gating language games as they are applied in human
based upon communication. His essential realisation42 was that—and
practical existence this seemed next to incredible at the time when I became
acquainted with his research during my guest-professorship
at his department—language (also) has a d i a l e c t i c s
which is rooted in the underlying dialectics of p r a c t i c a l
42
[weak normativity] On the language games revealed in relation to the paradigmatic social
presupposition of language use—“social scientific theories […] are based
on pretheoretical suppositions. […] They are normative assumptions about
the nature of man, the nature of society, and the relationship between man
and society.” Joachim Israel ‘Remarks Concerning Epistemological Prob-
lems of Objectivity in the Social Sciences’ in Research in Sociology of Knowl-
edge, Sciences and Art I, ed. Robert Allen Jones (Greenwich, Conn.: Jai Press
1978), pp. 63–80—, see, by Joachim Israel, ‘Stipulations and Construction
in the Social Sciences Chapter’ in The Context of Social Psychology A Critical
Assessment, ed. J. Israel & H. Tajfel (London: Academic Press 1972), pp.
123–211; ‘Is a Non-normative Social Science Possible?’ Acta Sociologica 15
(1972) 1, pp. 69–87; The Language of Dialectics and the Dialectics of Language
(Copenhagen: Munksgaard 1978) xvi + 262 [+4] pp.; ‘Relativisme culturel
et logique du langage’ Diogène (Janvier–Mars 1981), No. 113, pp. 121–143.
Old175-236 11/12/19 9:21 Page 213
h u m a n e x i s t e n c e .When expounding this argument

in terms of sociological theory, he also proved that human
action through language is constitutive in the weak sense
from the very beginning. That is, it g e n e r a t e s i t s
o w n s u b j e c t that could not even exist without the
creative contribution of language-use and the practice of
communication. Accordingly, naming is in and of itself
already a creative act through which we bring into social
existence something that did not exist prior to this.
It is to be noted, however, that constitutivity in the weak Language-use is
sense applies not only to the results of language-use. The weakly constitutive
rules of language are weakly constitutive themselves. For also in case of rules
they allow variability to an extent that allows us to claim:
language-use at any given time not only reproduces but
produces its own rules. By selecting its rules of use from the
available store of rules, it establishes the personal style char-
acteristic of each individual language-user, none of them
being ready-made or merely borrowable from a codified
series, but is shaped individually through one’s own practice.
(Had we duly subtle means and procedures of analysis, they
would surely enable us to demonstrate also that uses of
language in situations that may seem common or average are
nevertheless unique, and not simply originated from a pre-
codified set of patterns. So, again, they are constitutive in a
weak sense.)
Claiming something to be the product of a creative act The interest implied
obviously does not imply that its existence is self-evident or by cognition is also
initially given. We started our explanations from the claim constitutive
that the world is infinite in its internal variability. Hence, any
event or thing bears an infinite number of potential aspects
indefinable beforehand. Cognition of the world begins with
the tâlethes, that is, at the point when something is lifted up
and put in a context, this being what makes it construable.
(At the same time, we are aware of course that things do not
elevate by themselves. So, without the constitutive act of
cognition the aspect in question could not become more
perceivable than either of the others.)
Old175-236 11/12/19 9:21 Page 214
Σ: fact = In sum: facts are the outcome of our communicative and

an aspect cognitive relationship to reality. They are born from our
of reality asserted conceptualisation of certain aspects of reality whereby we
as real make them subjects of communication. In factual state-
for us ments we state it as fact that we h a v e strong r e a s o n s
to express our recognition related to the respective aspects of
reality as facts. We thereby claim that the relevant aspect of
reality stated as a fact is real, therefore its prevalence and/or
existence is also a fact to our understanding. And t h i s is
the fact.
(example: water) In consequence, what we regard as self-evident in a given
context also depends on our cultural presuppositions. We
think that water, for example, is no doubt indispensable for
any form of life. As to its composition, H2O, it is composed
of two units of hydrogen and one unit of oxygen. Although,
closer analysis may reveal that in practice (in our practical
relationship to water) we know as many kinds of water as
there are various cultural uses for it. So ‘water’ does not
depend on its concept (supposed as natural) and chemical
composition, (etc.) but on its practical uses and recognised
human utility as sea-water, river-water, lake-water, brook-
water, rain-water, the water from melted ice, or the humidity
gained from collecting morning dew (etc.)—otherwise
containing intermixtures and polluting substances. In other
words, it is the social interpretation of vital (geographical,
meteorological, etc.) conditions that determines the types of
water we distinguish and name in language. Some languages
apply dozens of distinctions to specify what the clouds, rain,
snow and ice are like, or what the water is like in a ditch or a
brook. Hence, we can by no means state that ‘water’ just
“exists”. For it is not the so-called ‘water’ that exists with
such self-evident unambiguity, but the aggregate of cultur-
ally defined relations within the frameworks of which water
is perceived by us, actors, who share its curses and blessings
in our practice.43
43
In a general approach, see W. H. Balekjian ‘The Concept of Fact in the
Physical Sciences and in Law’ in Theory of Legal Science ed. Aleksander
Peczenik, Lars Lindahl, Bert van Roermund (Dordrecht, Boston,
Lancaster: Reidel 1984), pp. 183–188 [Synthese Library 176].
Old175-236 11/12/19 9:21 Page 215
4.2.4. What are notions?

The o b j e c t i v i s t trend claims about notions that they Objectivism /
(1) reflect reality, (2) have clear-cut boundaries, and (3) subjectivism
“objectively” correspond with reality, (4) providing a
neutral, objective and true perspective on reality. The
s u b j e c t i v i s t trend, born as an anti-thesis to the
former, claims that notions (1) can only reflect themselves,
(2) are arbitrary, (3) rely on historically incidental social
conventionalisation, and (4) build on the continued actuali-
sation of the respective social practice through conventions
re-conventionalised.
Let us have a look at what the so-called n a i v e Naive realism:
r e a l i s m says on the tenets of the objectivist trend.
Ad (1): Is the notion a reflection? For a naive realist it may reflection
seem obvious that the process of notion-formation reflects
reality. Accordingly, we have reality on the one hand, and our
thinking capacity on the other, and we reflect the former on
the latter, while mentally processing the former through the
instrumentality of language. Needless to say, we make use of
our thinking capacity through language in order to mentally
reconstruct reality—for the sake of our own use and inter-
ests.We reflect it, or at least model it, even if somewhat trans-
forming its form. Patterns, however, always differ from the
patterned to some extent, but are still the same concerning
certain relevant and determinant features. They are not
mechanical or photographic mirrors, but something to
which we have also contributed in the process of their selec-
tion and creation. So, for a naive realist, the existence, reason
and limits of notions are all provided by the fact that he
obtains the reflection of reality in and through them. It is
neither we nor our cognitive culture that is reflected in them
but reality.
Ad (2): Do notions have clear-cut boundaries? For a naive discrete, having
realist, notions are reflections of reality with boundaries clear-cut boundaries
defined by nature. True, we may not exactly know these
boundaries, but this is only due to our defective cognition.
By means of rational reconstruction, science must strive to
draw the boundaries of notions as accurately as possible.
Since the boundaries of notions are provided by reality (in
Old175-236 11/12/19 9:21 Page 216
the reflection of reality), their conceptual delimitation will

only reveal what these boundaries have always been. So,
what we achieve through cognition is the reflection of what
has already been inherent in the thing.
objectively Ad (3): Do notions “objectively” correspond with reality?
corresponding with Everything conceptually cognised draws, in one way or
reality another, from the so-called objective reality. We only model
it through cognition, that is, pattern the construction, organ-
isation and stratification of reality on a conceptual plane,
and, accordingly, our notions on reality will be nothing other
than the reflections of the structure of reality.
in a true perspective Ad (4): Do notions provide a neutral, objective and true
on reality perspective on reality? This requirement seems to be rather
impossible. For it is built upon the presumption that we
ought to be determined enough: once we have made up our
minds, cultural dependencies on mental constructions
imbued with our human and social existence can simply be
left behind. Or, in accordance with this, we would have to
assume the possibility of a neutral perspective on reality,
from the point of view of which cognising man could truly
become an external observer, not playing an active role in
the process of cognition with his personality and by his act
of observation. This assumption suggests we would appar-
ently be able to cognise without having our existence
(human and social perspectives) reflected in the process of
cognition in one way or another.
Subjectivism: What does s u b j e c t i v i s m suggest from the opposite
positions though? And, how can the contradiction between
the two extreme views be converged into one synthetic
cognitive view?
naming projections of Ad (1): In philosophy, FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE was the one
our inner selves to be to start arguing with a strong envisioning force that man—
reality nolens volens—always speaks of himself, projecting his own
desires onto theses of cosmic dimensions even when
engaged in theory-construction. Or, the world of notions
according to him is comparable to spitting all over in the air:
incidental, arbitrary, random. Although we may be able to
reveal some agreement-like congruencies between people,
these still do not reflect reality but our most intimate desires
Old175-236 11/12/19 9:21 Page 217
at most, which might eventually display some common

features. Does this perhaps mean the continuous re-conven-
tionalisation of conventions? Well, indeed, even our suppos-
edly most objective cognition cannot be more than that we
(firstly) project our inner-selves on reality then (afterwards)
agree to name reality according to this projection.
However bizarre it may seem at first, this apparent LUKÁCS: mental
extremism of subjectivism does not lack all truth, as far as its representation is
critical directions are concerned. GEORGE LUKÁCS, in his reasonable only
Ontology of the Social Being, once used a rather appropriate provided that it is in
expression when—assessing the ontological correspon- tendential unity with
dences of cognitive images of reality—he referred to the outer world
“ t e n d e n t i a l u n i t y ” .44 He was contemplating the
chances of that regardless of the largeness of the incongruity,
detachment or even the arbitrariness between the subject
of reflection and the reflected image, certain b a s i c
m e s s a g e - v a l u e still persists and bridges the two.
Current Anglo–American cognitive sciences emphasise
precisely what we used to express by KARL MARX’s favourite
aphorism: the proof is in the pudding. Accordingly, in the
course of human practice various modes of contacting
reality always come into being in one way or another.We may
individually hold diverse opinions on reality, but they must
always be tested—like tasting the food we are cooking.Thus,
when projected back onto social practice it ought to prove
reasonable.
After the conclusion of our analysis we will easily under- Knowledge is not
stand all of this, and it should certainly be enough to repel sure but we may
the temptation of subjective idealism. It is true, however, make reasonable
that we hold hardly any knowledge of reality. Nevertheless, statements
this should not keep us from making reasonable statements notwithstanding
44
“In one way or another, these subjects are from the beginning [tendential unity]
confronted (eventually: short of perishing) with the scope of action given to
them in the total process at any time. Accordingly, a certain tendential unity
will assert itself on every domain, without lending a kind of absolute unity
to the process (in the sense of the old materialism or as a logical conse-
quence following from HEGEL’s logic).” György Lukács A társadalmi lét
ontológiájáról [Zur Ontologie des gesellschaftlichen Seins] III (Budapest:
Magvetô 1971), p. 296, and also II, p. 217. Cf., by the author, Theory of the
Judicial Process…, pp. 162–163.
Old175-236 11/12/19 9:21 Page 218
about reality, by testing them against the historical experi-

ence we hold on the same reality. Naturally, being able to
reasonably dispute, by trying the fruit of our thinking against
others’ is not excluded either. So, there are enough precon-
ditions given to establish a social practice which does not
exclude the building of reasonable relations with reality with
proper feed back that stands the trial of practice as well.
Language: There is a flourishing school of language philosophy
metaphorical, today, originated in California, the fundamental principle of
fictitious which claims that language is of m e t a p h o r i c a l origin
and nature, its functioning and ability of communication
both being determined by force of metaphorical expres-
sion.45 Naturally this does not lack antecedents in scholar-
ship. From among the pioneering opinions, we may recall
HANS VAIHINGER’s doctrine of f i c t i o n s , formulated
within neo-KANTianism in Germany.46 VAIHINGER claimed
that we always act in a way as if doing something else: for
instance, when we refer to a norm we actually pattern the
desirable order of reality. The above mentioned language-
45
George Lakoff & Mark Johnson Metaphors We Live By (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press 1980) xii + 242 pp. On the characteristics of
metaphoric expression, also see Sergio Cotta ‘Remarques sur le symbol-
isme politique’ Archivio di Filosofia II (1980), 157–168 and Giuseppa
Saccaro-Battisti ‘Changing Metaphors of Political Structures’ Journal of the
History of Ideas XLIV (1983) 1, pp. 31–54. On metaphors in general, see
Metaphor and Symbol ed. L. C. Knights & Basil Cottle (London: Butter-
worths 1960) xi + 150 pp. [Colston Papers 12], especially D. G. James
‘Metaphor and Symbol’, pp. 95–103; Ehud Rahat Metaphor Through an
Evolutionary Perspective on Meaning [Thesis] (Edinburgh: University of
Edinburgh 1990); Metaphor and Thought ed. Andrew Ortony (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press 1993) xvi + 678 pp.; as well as Conceptual
Structure, Discourse and Language ed. Adele E. Goldberg (Stanford, Ca.:
Center for the Study of Language and Information Publications 1996) xi +
503 pp.
46
Hans Vaihinger Die Philosophie des Als-Ob System der theoretischen,
praktischen und religiösen Fiktionen der Menschheit auf Grund eines
idealistischen Positivismus (Berlin: Reuther & Reichard 1911) xxxv + 804
pp. {The Philosophy of »as if« A System of the Theoretical, Practical and Reli-
gious Fictions of Mankind, trans. C. K. Ogden (London: K. Paul, Trench,
Trubner & New York: Barcourt, Brace 1925) xlviii + 370 pp. [International
Library of Psychology, Philosophy, and Scientific Method]}.
Old175-236 11/12/19 9:21 Page 219
metaphorical version of the doctrine on fictions essentially

suggests the same considerations from which we started
earlier ourselves. Accordingly, we do not (and cannot) know
what reality is, but we nevertheless make certain kind(s) of
propositions(s) about it. It is plainly enough for us to make
it conscious that we thereby do not (and maybe cannot)
communicate substantively representable knowledge of
reality, but we merely give expression to our belief that it
would be satisfactory if reality were like this, because it will
be enough for the successful continuation of our practice to
posit only this much about reality.
The Californian school of language philosophy went developed from
further and made use of the results of research in evolu- infantile basic
tionary psychology. Notably, it learned from this research coordinates
that the formation of certain primary notions is specifically
linked to man’s learning process of locomotion co-ordina-
tion and to its accompanying socialisation.47 We may find out
from such analyses that all fundamental notions of mankind
are special metaphorical extensions (and representations) of
a primitive, infantile biological existence.To put it generally,
they are the functions of how man expresses his world organ-
ising it around what basic co-ordinates.48 Thus, it revealed
how the infantile world-view populates his world, how the
relationships between things are named according to the
47
George Lakoff Woman, Fire, and Dangerous Things What Categories [geometry itself is
Reveal about the Mind (Chicago & London: The University of Chicago rooted in human
Press 1987) xvii + 614 pp. This recognition is not new in scholarship, so experience]
much so that Ernst Mach—Space and Geometry In the Light of Physiolog-
ical, Psychological, and Physical Inquiry, trans.Thomas J. McCormack (La
Salle, Ill.: Open Court 1906) 148 pp.—pointed out a century ago that “The
source of our geometric concepts has been found to be experience.” (p.
142), because “Our notions of space are rooted in our p h y s i o l o g i c a l
organism. Geometric concepts are the product of the idealization of
p h y s i c a l experiences of space. Systems of geometry, finally, originate
in the l o g i c a l classification of the conceptual materials so obtained.”
(p. 94).
48
As is known, when learning a language the chief task after we have [influence of linguistic
reached an elementary level is to be capable of expressing easily what we structure upon
intend to communicate. In the Hungarian language, for example, we treat
thinking]
inanimate things as animate. Hence we regularly use such verbs with them
that are not intelligible in the English language, not even in a figurative sense.
Old175-236 11/12/19 9:21 Page 220
patterns provided by his fundamental motions, attempts and

acts of establishing relations, and how all of these will lead to
the language of the adult world, including, among others,
our thinking on reality.
Our conceptual world, It is undoubtedly necessary that everything we state about
too, projects our reality in a conceptual language to essentially cover, at least
basic relations “tendentially”, its features and aspects perceived and inter-
preted by us. This only can make our venture of creating
notions of reality reasonable. The most important in all the
above might still be the connection (correspondence, etc.) of
which we have already spoken. Namely, the question of what
aspects of reality we sense and name as facts fully depends
on our culture and on our practical relationship to reality
within our culture. Hence, our system of concepts is by no
means a mechanical mirror linked to certain aspects of
reality either arbitrarily or exhaustively, but an image which
is concomitantly an a s p e c t and conceptual projection of
our h u m a n r e l a t i o n s upon reality.
Assuming it to be Ad (2): We may regard the complex and interrelated
discrete only serves boundaries of notions as sharp outlines reminiscent of lines
the reasonable on a map or ones used in geometry. But, what proofs are
communication: there or could there be for these? The above outlined
language-philosophical investigations revealed exactly that
since notions cannot be found in reality proper—they are
actually established through the rationalising practice of
humans with the main purpose of being able to reasonably
communicate about reality by using notions as representa-
tives—, it is ourselves who treat the realm of notions as if
they had (could have) any boundaries at all.49
notions are discrete, Obviously, a notion without boundaries would make no
as bound to ends sense at all.Yet, let us recall for a moment the previous state-
49
[nature-concept / This is exclusively the need of scientific notions. “The ‘reality’ which
culture-concept] we apprehend in perception and direct intuition presents itself to us as a
whole in which there are no abrupt separations.” Ernst Cassirer The Logic
of the Humanities [Logik der Kulturwissenschaften] trans. Clarence Smith
Howe (New Haven:Yale University Press 1961) 217 pp. on p. 141. In rela-
tion to HEINRICH WÖLFFLIN’s classic work— Kunstgeschichtliche Grundbe-
griffe Das Problem der Stilentwicklung in der Neueren Kunst (München:
Hugo Bruckmann Verlag 1915) xv + 255 pp.—, he separates c u l t u r e -
Old175-236 11/12/19 9:21 Page 221
ment we made when speaking of presuppositions in general.

We mentioned that when humans perform an action they
usually do not elucidate all the presuppositions of their
action and their connections. Over the eras and cultures man
could act relatively perfectly, rationally and effectively
without making the slightest efforts to clarify the presuppo-
sitions of his action.The process of making these presuppo-
sitions conscious and to codify them started (again) in the
20th century after our enlightened rationalism and the math-
ematical-physical world-order relying on its world-view
became questioned.
To assume that notions do not have any boundaries what- yet, with what
soever would actually mean that all notions are the same. delimitations?
This would obviously make no sense at all. Although, it is
questionable whether by simply denying such a presumption
we substantiate another presumption of the opposite sense,
which would suggest that if notions have boundaries at all,
then these can be nothing other than clear-cut, unam-
biguous and evident.
Let us summarise here: humans in their social activity do Depending on
not elucidate the presuppositions of their practice. Actually, practice: (example:
they have never clarified them, and could not clarify them national tradition) /
completely either, since every notion refers to and builds (example: affirmation
upon another, therefore the demand for complete clarifica- vs. discrimination)
tion would lead to some sort of reductio ad absurdum. On the (And where comes
other hand, we may ascertain that in the same way our well-intentioned
universe of notions depends on our practice of communica- disinterest in
tion, discourse, and so on, and that the boundaries of conceptual
notions also depend on this same practice. Let us recourse dichotomisation
to repetition again: all of this by no means implies that our from?)
notions lack boundaries or limitations. It only means that
when we debate and eventually misunderstand each other,
c o n c e p t s from n a t u r e - c o n c e p t s , claiming that “Such expres-

sions do indeed c h a r a c t e r i z e but they do not d e t e r m i n e ; for
the particulars which they comprehend cannot be deduced from them.”
Ibid., p. 140. This is what logic has concluded already, by separating so-
called class-concepts deciding on inclusion from so-called order-concepts
suitable only for characterisation. Cf. Carl G. Hempel & Paul Oppenheim
Der Typusbegriff im Licht der neuen Logik (Leiden: Sijthoff 1936) vii + 130 pp.
Old175-236 11/12/19 9:21 Page 222
one of the reasons for this may be that we use notions in

different ways. In such a case, we must clarify with ourselves
and between each other that we can only continue our
debate reasonably insofar as we conceptually distinguish
these differently understood notions. For instance—and this
might be the case of conflicting cultural dependencies,
moreover, the clash of civilisations, resulting in entirely
different understandings of notions regardless of the use of
allegedly identical conceptual marks—, it is quite imagin-
able that one of us is convinced of the cohesive force of
national traditions exerted on the social entity as a solid
background capable of inspiring common action, while the
other may refuse such a non-universalist perspective,
regarding it as tribal atavism narrowed down to one group’s
limited range of vision. So, as another case may be, one of us
formulates a (positive or negative) value-judgement in a
given situation, context, or with a given justification, and the
sensitive other, by complaining about impatience, will
respond with counter-impatience or counter-exclusion as a
reaction to the exclusion he has sensed. In an empathetic
discussion the parties will halt at this point for a moment to
make at least clear what this or that notion means. For both
sides are aware of the fact that they can step further in their
discussion reasonably only provided that both notions—
clearly separated (and perhaps also conceptually distin-
guished) by this time—equally allow the message of both
parties to be expressed and understood. In such cases it may
easily turn out that there are certain intermediate steps
between the positive affirmation and the negative refusal.
(At least, law seems to be unambiguous enough: equality of
rights is violated by both positive and negative discrimina-
tion amongst ones supposed to be otherwise equal. The
intervention of legal policy narrowing the equality of other-
wise equal parties may in such cases weaken the principles
of the legal order through its practical constraints, to funda-
mentalise it so as to become chaotic.50) That is, in such a case
50
Cf., by the author, ‘Önmagát felemelô ember?’ [note 13], pp. 61–93.
Old175-236 11/12/19 9:21 Page 223
tertium datur. Since between the two extreme values—i.e.,

the conceptually divided and unconditional self-identifying
affirmation, on the one hand, and the unconditional refusing
negation (as, for instance, affirmative action and negative
discrimination, standing for inclusion and exclusion, respec-
tively)—both neutrality and well-intentioned indifference
may be wedged in, and so may also the intermediate values
of more closely defined empathy, sympathy, or, simply,
affinity than inspired by the extremes (and not exclusively as
logical classes but as more practical mass attitudes than any
kind of extreme). Thus, if we happen to come across stub-
born misunderstandings, these are likely to be fed by the
extreme impatience drawing from the initial sensitivity or
hypersensitivity. For it must be clear from the above
methodological suggestions that patriotism, for example, is
not equal to chauvinism, and the reluctance towards the
unconditioned undertaking of filo-types of sentiments
cannot be identical with the unconditioned rejection of anti-
sentiments taken in the strict sense of the word. That is to
say, we may have to face misunderstandings in social and
moral matters alike. Insofar as these result from a difference
in the use of notions—as often happens in a tense atmos-
phere, in the case of a low culture of debate, or even when
the pretence of misunderstanding is provoked intentionally
(this apparent unclearness sometimes generating even social
hysteria)—, then, for the sake and within the framework of
discourse, we can (and must) arrive at drawing bordering
lines. After the methodological job is completed, we would
really sense, apparently with reason, as if these bordering
lines would have been drawn from the beginning.
Let us continue by providing some examples. Our presup- Drawing the
position that usually follows such a clarification suggests that boundaries of notions
the boundaries of notions have now been truly set by defin- cannot do the job
itions given this way or by some tacit means. So from now on once and for all
it appears as if notions had boundaries indeed. Yet, the
history of human discourse proves the exact opposite, and
this is one decisive lesson of linguistic reconstruction: ques-
tions of boundaries arise again and again, the more unclear
the notional relations which describe things, the more often.
Old175-236 11/12/19 9:21 Page 224
The final outcome is even more troublesome. As we may

know from historical experience, social and moral issues
cannot be settled once and for all. And this is so not because
humans cannot recall past events due to their feebleness or
because being natural-born trouble-makers so that they
even destroy their own past as if driven by bad instincts. On
the contrary: it is a basic fact of socio-ontological impor-
tance that in historical dimensions and in an overall social
context man never does anything in vain, and whatever he
ends up doing he does because he feels that he must—on the
basis of his usual deliberations, sober reflexion and respon-
sible choice.
(example: WATSON on Let us elucidate the issue with an example from legal
adaptation as a history. ALAN WATSON, the Scottish historian of private law,
neglected factor of after completing his investigations on the driving forces of
legal development) Roman legal development (trying to identify its whys and
hows), launched another comparative inquiry. Advancing
from case to case, he arrived at more and more surprising
conclusions which he published in a series of magisterial
papers.51 Putting it in black and white, he proved that we can
hardly speak of legal development proper. Man is one of the
ugliest and laziest creatures on planet Earth: he does not
create anything unless bare necessity forces him to. And if he
finally ventures anything, he does it with minimum effort.
So, if there is any chance, he follows beaten paths, works with
ready tools, and always uses—by adapting—the ones at
hand.Therefore, he invents something only when there is no
idea or thing available in his environment to shape further or
re-adapt. So necessity urges him to be creative, to consider
making his own move, or even to invent something.
(example: WATSON’s historical justification steps from a trivial
goring of an ox & example. Namely, on the territory of the Fertile Crescent (in
the irradiation ancient Mesopotamia), the goring of an ox proved to be a
of JUSTINIAN‘s deadly danger. It happened very often, so the question of
accidental selection) who was liable for the damage and what compensation was
due had to be regulated by law. Well, from the author’s
51
Alan Watson Legal Transplants An Approach to Comparative Law
(Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press 1974) xiv + 106 pp.
Old175-236 11/12/19 9:21 Page 225
research it is clear that in this civilisation extending over an

immense territory, all the autochtonously evolving cultures
used the same construct, the normative wording of which
(although in different local languages) was even the same.52
Looking for further proof, WATSON found a similar example
in JUSTINIAN’s codification. As is known, the conceptual
distinctions and classification applied in JUSTINIAN’s Institu-
tiones—its structure and breaking down not being self-
evident or even the sole alternative in the context of the late
Roman historical development—have become the standard
pattern for internal systematisation especially of the civil law
on the European continent (as well as in Scotland). Accord-
ingly, our entire legal culture seems to rely on inveterate
conceptual incidentalities, random improvisations, findings,
moreover, sometimes even gross errors and misunderstand-
ings. For we are accustomed to taking every ready or half-
ready tool and conceptual initiative from the treasury of the
past and simply re-adapting it if we so need, often without
any genuine critical reconsideration, unless some strange
and rather exceptional reason forces us to act differently.
Through this historical exemplification, WATSON (example: speculative
reminded his readers that even in present-day English crim- theological foundation
inal law, for instance, the states of mind marking the various of criminal wilfulness)
levels of wilfulness and negligence are distinguished and
termed according to the conceptual differentiation estab-
lished two centuries ago—prior to the development of
52
Cf., e.g., Albrecht Goetze ‘Mesopotamian Laws and the Historian’
Journal of the American Oriental Society 69 (1949), pp. 115–119, reprinted
in Folk Law Essays in the Theory and Practice of Lex Non Scripta, ed. Alison
Dundes Renteln & Alan Dundes (New York & London: Garland 1994), pp.
485–494; A. Van Selms ‘The Goring Ox in Babylonian and Biblical Law’
Archiv Orientální [Prague] 18 (1950), pp. 321–330; Reuven Yaron ‘The
Goring Ox in Near Eastern Laws’ Israel Law Review 1 (1966) 3, pp.
396–406; J. J. Finkelstein ‘The Goring Ox’ Temple Law Review 46 (1973) 2,
pp. 169–290 {also reprinted in Transactions of the American Philosophical
Society 71 (1981) 2]; Bernard S. Jackson ‘The Goring Ox again’ Journal of
Juristic Papyrology 18 (1974) 1, pp. 55–93.
Old175-236 11/12/19 9:21 Page 226
psychology (and the formation of modern experimental

psychology in particular)—, as the component of a specula-
tive, theologically inspired systematisation. (In comparison,
on the European continent the distinction between the
various forms of wilfulness and negligence are considerably
younger: they date back to the last decades of the 19th
century when a certain level of modern scholarship and
methodological cognition was already reflected in conceptu-
alisation.) In England, this early ancilla theologiae was obvi-
ously still based on the separation of body and soul. This is
why the considerations motivating conceptualisation were
left behind by the science of psychology (taking shape in the
mid-19th century), and were gradually forgotten, since their
archaic metaphysical presuppositions were completely
useless in scientific description. However—and here we can
see the difference justifying the priority of practice over
purely theoretical considerations—, there was no reason for
the law to forget them. It eventually bore certain distinctions
which proved suitable and workable enough in its practical
effect for the purposes of criminal jurisdiction—namely,
to draw relevant, proper, and moreover, appropriate
distinctions between the different states of mind character-
ising criminal behaviour from the perspective of their
practical consequences. All in all, law was consistently
treated as a practical instrument in the somewhat standard-
ising resolution of problems, something that should not
be confused with scholarship which was organised along
other types of considerations. Hence, there was no reason for
law to become, paradoxically speaking, the ancilla psycholo-
giae.
Cognition: reflective So, man does not invent anything unless he is forced to. At
+ constructive the same time, we are aware that all phenomena, situations
and events are of infinite variety. Human interest approaches
them in various ways, differentiating and naming almost
randomly selected correlations from among them
as aspects, to build them back later into the phenomenon,
situation or event in question in the course of their theoret-
ical reconstruction. This is the reason why we claim that
Old175-236 11/12/19 9:21 Page 227
human cognition is reflective and constructive at the same

time.
As we have seen above, in the final analysis, boundaries of The boundaries of
notions are in function of the discourse (or, as we may also notions are in function
claim: situation or context) to a certain extent. Every of the discourse:
discourse, that is, each new discourse questions and chal-
lenges these boundaries recurrently, because each discourse
is in principle a n e w discourse: it differs from the previous
one as it requests an answer for a situation somewhat modi-
fied since then in some of its aspects. In the same way, in
English law, the hundreds, thousands or even millions of
cases embodied in and by the body of precedents accumu-
lated do not add up to an exhaustive system, for it is by far
not necessary that the new situations emerging at any given
time require an answer along the same path taken once by a
past individual decision.The judge may recourse to novation
in any phase of the procedure, by presenting—with reference
to equity, justice, or to other pleas and exceptions, as well as
measures and steps to take—the decision he suggests as
providing a relatively new answer (as compared to the deci-
sional pattern incorporated by previous precedents) to an
entirely or partially new situation, or to newly conceptu-
alised facts that may constitute a case in law, that is, a
different answer reacting more sensitively and suitably to the
issue, in followance from the deliberation of those principles
that may come into account. Of course, in this respect, the
judicial procedure does not differ essentially from similar
issues that arise in everyday conversation. For every human
discourse that breaks through the established boundaries of
notions or questions them can and does exactly do so
because it approaches the respective notion through a new
perspective, in a new context.
This does not mean, however, that notions have no these are open,
boundaries. In the same way, the circumstance that these because their closure
boundaries depend on the discourse does not necessarily is casual at the most
imply that the approach applied here is a subjectivist one.
One can formulate as a general theoretical conclusion that,
in principle, notions are o p e n because their closure
Old175-236 11/12/19 9:21 Page 228
cannot be but casual: done artificially, exclusively in given

direction(s) and context(s), with validity for the given
discourse(s) only.The availability of a notion in and of itself,
with boundaries marked within and for the given discourse,
never anticipates future boundaries. Each discourse has
to face a new situation with new contextual potentialities,
therefore it has a chance to resolve or question any kind
of earlier closure by modifying and re-actualising these
notional boundaries (with the prospect of reconventionali-
sation).
In cognition: This is the framework within which we can raise the ques-
maximisation of tion of whether notions can “objectively correspond” with
justification and reality at all. Certain guidelines for response may be found
minimisation of in what we have said about paradigms in general. Accord-
falsification are ingly, within our conventional world-view, we usually prefer
needed those sets of notions which display more potential in justifi-
ability and less in falsifiability.We want to maximise j u s t i -
f i c a t i o n and minimise f a l s i f i c a t i o n at the same
time.We are also bound to realise that we can only justify or
falsify a theory by means of another theory, since we do not
have any direct media or instruments of control (means
of physical identification, or—referring to our above
example—eating the pudding) at our disposal.
with theoretical rivalry Within a given world-view and set of underlying para-
according to chosen digms, one accepts that theory as true, proven or at least
methodicalness provable, which corresponds the most to given methodical
principles of the scientific methodology accepted by the
community (by scholarship and in general) at a given time.
OCKHAM’s razor is a methodological principle of this kind. It
inspires us not to presume (or posit) more basic facts, enti-
ties or relations as axiomatic fundamentals of composition
than absolutely indispensable by the force of sine qua non to
substantiate our sufficient explanation. In sum, only that
theory must be accepted and preferred to other feasible
alternatives, which displays the strongest explanatory force
with the least exposition to attack.
Old175-236 11/12/19 9:21 Page 229
4.3. THE NATURE OF NORMS 229
4.3. THE NATURE OF NORMS
After the turn of the 19th to the 20th century, parallel to the
birth of modern cognitive sciences and inspired by a neo-
KANTian renewal in the methodology of sciences, new real-
isations were formulated concerning norms.
Language philosophy was the first to face the challenge of SAUSSURE:
defining its own subject.53 Following the conceptualisation ‘construction’ /
introduced by FERDINAND DE SAUSSURE in his lectures,54 the ‘functioning’
conclusion gradually took shape—finally breaking with both RYLE: ‘body’ / ‘soul
the trap of naive realism and the false duality of objectivism Existence:
and subjectivism—, according to which language does not ontologically prevails
have separate ‘ c o n s t r u c t i o n ’ and ‘ f u n c t i o n - and exists but does
i n g ’ which could be interpreted, defined or assessed in not “function”
and of themselves. These are purely correlative concepts
mutually supporting one another that can only be inter-
preted in their relative opposition within a unity. Conse-
quently, both of them can only be treated analytically:
presuming one of them is the precondition to positing the
53
On the problems of linguistic norms, see Oswald Hanfling ‘Does
Language Need Rules?’ The Philosophical Quarterly 30 (July 1980), No. 120,
pp. 193–205, as well as Renate Bartsch Sprachnormen Theorie und Praxis
(Tübingen: Niemeyer 1985) ix + 341 pp., especially ch. III, pp. 84–140,
which—mainly based on H. L. A. HART’s és JOSEPH RAZ’ arguments—
attempts to apply the lessons of legal philosophy to linguistics as well. As a
pioneering venture, see Ildikó Villó ‘A nyelvi norma meghatározásáról’ [On
the definition of the linguistic norm] in Normatudat – nyelvi norma [Norm
consciousness – linguistic norms] ed. Gábor Kemény (Budapest: MTA
Nyelvtudományi Intézete 1992), pp. 7–22 [Linguistica, Series A, Studia et
dissertationes 8], and, for a practical case-study, Ilona Kassai ‘Nyelvi norma
és nyelvhasználat viszonyáról az -e kérdôszó mondatbeli helye(i) kapcsán’
[On the relationship between linguistic norms and language use in relation
to the place(s) taken by the interrogative particle ‘-e’] Magyar Nyelv 90
(1994) 1, pp. 42–48.
54
SAUSSURE’s importance is analysed in a wider context by Roy Harris
Reading Saussure A Critical Commentary on the Course de linguistique
générale (London: Duckworth 1987) xvii + 248 pp.; David Holdcroft Saus-
sure Signs, System, and Arbitrariness (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press 1991) x + 180 pp. [Modern European Philosophy]; Roy Harris
Language, Saussure and Wittgenstein How to Play Games with Words
(London: Routledge 1988) xv + 136 pp. [Routledge History of Linguistic
Thought].
Old175-236 11/12/19 9:21 Page 230
other.We might recall GILBERT RYLE’s figurative expression,

according to which things have no independent “souls” that,
as some sort of external force, could make the existing
“body” function. On the one hand, for its intellectual repre-
sentation, the phenomenon is fully brought to life by
‘construction’. The thing is thereby completed, since its
‘functioning’ is rooted in the very existence of the phenom-
enon understood as a thing. In fact, and in retrospect,
however, it is precisely the ‘construction’ that qualifies as a
randomly complementary function of something else,
namely, the ‘functioning’, since it cannot be torn off what—
in one way or another—actually ‘functions’. On the other
hand, we cannot state that the existence (e.g., the social
being) conceived as a process ‘functions’; it exclusively
e x i s t s (happens or occurs), i.e., ontologically prevails.
Only repetitions Thus, with the help and as the result of scholarly analysis,
construed within a we just give expression to continuous repetitions and relative
structure can be consistency in the very process by means of notions.We have
characterised as to notionalise in order to distinguish and detach the process
‘functioning’ in question as a phenomenon from its ‘environment’, in
order to be able to describe it in its distinctive and discrete
form as potential ‘appearance’ or ‘state’ of the same
‘essence’. In other words, we may say that what we do is
merely to construe a notional structure through scientific
description. And this we only do to allow us to characterise
the functioning we constantly observe as the f u n c -
t i o n i n g o f s o m e t h i n g , broken down into the
sequence of discrete elements.
Norm: separation of From the above derives the position that presuming the
‘right’ from ‘wrong’ existence of a norm is nothing other than an additional
in this repetition aspect to the above abstractions. For we must presuppose
the existence of a norm to be able to analyse it as a given set
of ‘functionings’ and then propose further conceptual
distinctions for the analysis of such functioning. In conse-
quence, the hypostatisation of its existence is not only a
precondition to being able to define the main direction(s) of
its observable functioning and differentiate its constant
features from its peripheral parts and additional incidental
components. It is also a precondition to being able to sepa-
Old175-236 11/12/19 9:21 Page 231
rate ‘ r i g h t ’ procedures from ‘ w r o n g ’ ones in the

course of a generalising abstract operation based on the
differentiation of the ‘norm-conform’ uses of the hyposta-
tised norm from what we will later label as ‘norm-breaking’.
The same fundamental point is raised by HANS KELSEN’s KELSEN: is there an
Pure Theory of Law as his theory is built on the self-descrip- ‘order’ created by
tion of law in a conceptual reconstruction of its construction norms?
and functioning. Well, accordingly—shortly and simply—,
what construction and functioning are needed to justifiably
speak of law at all? Or, in more professional terms: into what
mentally construed order (which, once established, is
capable of self-definition, and through its functioning, also
of incessant self-assertion and self-determination) are we
expected to place the norm in order to be justified to speak
about it as part and constituent of the law?
KELSEN, despite the far-reaching changes of emphases validity derived / the
in his gigantic oeuvre, bearing, however, a consistent contingence of what
basic message (notwithstanding the sometimes inconsistent will be eventually
or simply contradictory conclusions he drew therefrom), enforced
answered the question without ambiguity. Namely,
v a l i d i t y , as the specific quality of what is d i s t i n c -
t i v e l y l e g a l ,55 is transferred by legal functioning
through a statically built hierarchy, advancing act by act
from top to bottom, while all other forms of generating
validity at equal levels at any given time are also conceivable
when there is procedural action and it is actually taken.
Validity becomes unchallengeable when the chance of taking
an otherwise available procedural action is not effectuated or
is procedurally excluded, whereby the validity becomes final
by the legal force (Figure 9).
55
This term originates from its use by Philip Selznick ‘The Sociology of
Law’ in International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences 9, ed. David L. Sills
(New York, etc.: MacMillan & The Free Press 1968), pp. 51 et seq.
Old175-236 11/12/19 9:21 Page 232
➜➜➜➜➜➜➜➜➜
subordination
deductive “statics”
hierarchical
lending/borrowing of validity
with procedural competence
in case of legal force
➜➜➜➜➜➜➜➜➜➜➜➜➜➜➜➜➜
➜➜➜
inductive “dynamics”
Figure 9.
We still have not answered the question: do norms exist at

all?56
Does law consist In law we usually think of their existence as obvious
solely of norms? although they are only paradigmatic in modern formal legal
Customs / parables / arrangements. We may recall that in ancient cultures
moral considerations / (pertaining to the Old Testament, Northern Europe or even
dikaion as Albania) the task of the lag saga meant the annual recitation
jump-board: of the law.57 The reason for this was that law was considered
to live in and through customs. The law’s only task was to
provide a framework for action and its only quality was to be
considered “just”, but only in as much as it was acknowl-
edged and proven by the community to be formed along
what was recognised as “tradition”. As we may recall,
Talmudic justice relied on parables, golden rules and eternal
56
For the most recent summary, see Edna Ullmann-Largalit The Emer-
gence of Norms (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1977) xiii + 206 pp. [Clarendon
Library of Logic and Philosophy].
57
For the lagsaga [or lögsögumad-ur], cf., e.g., Sigur∂ur Líndal ‘Law and
Legislation in the Icelandic Commonwealth’ Scandinavian Studies in Law
37 (Stockholm: Jurisförlaget 1993), pp. 55–92 as well as, as a note, in
<http://www.icelandreview.com/icelandrevies/search/news/Default.asp?ew
_0_a_id=302657>.
Old175-236 11/12/19 9:21 Page 233
truths, and it strove to find the individually concrete justice

when solving or resolving a particular case. The circum-
stance that the very cases were projected onto a mentally
erected plane, woven of norms and referred to within a
normative framework, served only as the rationalising justi-
fication of the given solution. – As is known, China followed
a different line of developing tradition.The codified, written
and recorded Chinese fa only served as a framework of the
last resort, keeping in mind those rather extraordinary situ-
ations when the central, imperial order ought to be kept and
enforced in cases where the li living in moral teachings did
not prove capable of fulfilling its task (to bring about mutual
social calm through own initiatives), due to the stubborn-
ness of the parties. Although in average cases and according
to average moral expectations, consideration and careful
leading should provide sufficient points of reference within
the realm of CONFUCIan morals. – Finally, according
to another tradition, the law built upon the ancient
Greek–Roman ideal of dikaion was regarded as a jump-
board, starting from which any judge or layman could arrive
at the just solution of the case to be decided.
Thus, the question arises: what kind of norm-setting and regulation: prealable:
positing characterises “law” in modern formal legal arrange- comprehensively
ments? Does it have a principle according to which exhaustive vs.
everything that can be said should be posterior: when the
s a i d ? Or, just the contrary, its underlying principle is legal status is
everything can be said that should be questioned
s a i d ? The former reflects the ideal of comprehensively
exhaustive regulation. It expresses the demand for legal
homogenisation along the lines of relevance, as well as for
gapless norm-setting. On the other hand, the latter is some-
what freer. By means of formal norm-setting it actually tries
to define normatively only the contents the legal status of
which is questionable or contradictory, that is, those crying
for direct and open regulation for practical purposes.
The first one is familiar from Civil Law traditions. The (example: English
second is nonetheless known, although not in continental law: the judge follows
Europe. Its variants are displayed by the legal lives charac- his inductively devel-
teristic of so-called primitive societies and of Anglo– oped rule of decision)
Old175-236 11/12/19 9:21 Page 234
American Common Law arrangements. In early legal

cultures, “the law” was pronounced by the high priests or
magicians of the community but only at exceptional and
festive occasions. In average situations when disputes or
conflicts occurred, the tradition consecrated by customs was
most often revoked. Accordingly, legal reasoning is consid-
erably loose in everyday life: it appears a s t h o u g h it
were going around something. Yet, one cannot state or
revoke as factual knowledge whether there are norms at all,
and providing that there are, what they say. Anglo–American
law may have statutory provisions for ordinary situations,
but the question of what they actually provide for a case to
be decided can (and will) only be answered by the
proceeding court—purely on grounds of a somewhat
predictably consolidating judicial practice. In the amalga-
mate of precedents, accepted as guidelines for and by judi-
cial practice, it is not so much the position finally taken by
any one actual decision that will provide genuine directions,
but those reasons, considerations, principles and arguments
[in its technical language: ratio decidendi] that served as the
channelling framework, both spring-board and cogent
reason alike, for the judges proceeding in the case to make
their decisions. The ratio decidendi is formulated within the
context of and for the facts established in the case, while the
obiter dictum relates to other comparable (actual or imagi-
nary) cases. Posteriorly, and basically in every situation, it is
the reason given in the case, i.e., the ratio decidendi, that is of
binding force for the judge at any later time, unless he proves
(making use of his “art of distinguishing”) that despite all
appearances, it is not the considerations in the previous
precedent(s) that provide guidelines for his case due to the
fact that there are distinctive factual differences and these
are so weighty that they justify another principle to be
followed. The selection of arguments for distinguishing is
given free scope and is purely the pragmatism and self-disci-
pline (and, of course, the desire to get the approval of higher
judicial fora) that bind the judge in complying with the tradi-
tion of ancestors when making his own decision, or, as the
Old175-236 11/12/19 9:21 Page 235
case may be, attempting to beat new paths, to be justified

especially carefully and conclusively. After all, in principle,
no matter whether he complies with or diverges from the
past, he always follows his o w n rule of decision which he
shapes inductively, unless he follows, as usual, his own past
decision by claiming it covers the case again.
So, are there norms at all? When pondering the question Order presupposes
again we must arrive at the conclusion that o r d e r is the existence of a
conceivable even if norms are set individually by and for norm if related to the
each person separately. In consequence, ordering through issue as a mediator
formal norm-setting cannot be regarded as sufficiently
complete in perfecting the job in and of itself, that is, as some
sort of t o t a l e v e r y t h i n g stepping in place of
n o t h i n g , in the literal sense of the words. Implanting
norms only introduces a further factor into social discourses
on and within the established and acknowledged order. It
does so emphatically, and with elementary force, in cultures
where the construction and preservation of order is expected
to derive from the sole gesture of elevating some external
signs into a kind of fetish (and we may recall here the stele
with HAMMURABI’s laws or the engraving of the Ten
Commandments onto a table of stone) and not (yet) from
the democratic culture of discourse. However, we thereby do
not intend to suggest that norms are nothing more than
showy clothes. It may sound paradoxical, but norms may be
transformed into objects of adornment mostly in the hands
of those who expect them to display the magical force of
being capable of solving everything—in and of themselves.
So, in the hands of those who ignore the fact that stelae or
stones (in brief: objectivations) do not have a restrictive force
i n a n d o f t h e m s e l v e s , neither do they command
respect. The sheer fact that they stand does not prevent
anyone from spitting on them, or from evading or going
around them. When characterising the basic situation we
may even increase the paradoxity of the expression: norms
become genuinely valuable and purposeful instruments only
in the hands of those with whom a f o r m a l c u l t u r e ,
too, is developed, requiring the norms themselves to be
Old175-236 11/12/19 9:21 Page 236
transformed into actual mediators in the process of social

mediation into which they are built—that is, into useful and
at the same time merely m e d i a t i n g standards, and so
much into the signs, symbols and fortifiers of a by and large
efficaciously prevailing order.58
The source of In the final analysis, we can only state that the source of
certainty is the c e r t a i n t i e s in our everyday life, individual and
faith in reliability communitarian alike, can hardly be identified from within
the “things” themselves.They can only be founded upon the
continuity of human practice and the r e l i a b i l i t y of our
faith in such continuity.
[order is impossible 58
“Jurisprudence regards a legal norm as valid only if it belongs to a
without practical legal order that is by and large efficacious; that is, if the individuals whose
feedback] conduct is regulated by the legal order in the main actually do conduct
themselves as they should according to the legal order.” Hans Kelsen ‘The
Pure Theory of Law and Analytical Jurisprudence’ [Harvard Law Review
LV (1941) 1, pp. 44–70] in his What is Justice? Justice, Law, and Politics in
the Mirror of Science: Collected Essays (Berkeley & Los Angeles: Univer-
sity of California Press 1960), p. 268.
Old237-309 11/12/19 9:21 Page 237
237
5. DILEMMAS OF MEANING
The question we will raise repeatedly all along the reasoning Do symbols of
below will be about what meaning is. Our previous reflec- language bear
tions were, of course, also on language, on how we think with a meaning?
the help of the instrumentality of language. Now we intend In what way?
to make this question more specific, and investigate how the
symbols of language (or any other sign the textual sequence
of which can transmit a message) bear the meaning that we
can sense and decypher. How do the symbols of language
address us in a way that—according to our perception—the
texts themselves seem to start addressing us?
These are just small fractions from the immense store of problems an issue
ever raised by linguistic theories. First and foremost because there is the of linguistics &
science of signs (semiotics) and numerous other specialised fields of
investigation from phonology to phraseology, syntax and praxeology, all
which deal with one problem, naturally, each in its own way. Namely,
how can we construct reasonable (i.e., meaningful) units from symbols,
organise the various sets of signs into sentences, or build a particular
style with additional messages from individual sentences, and so on?
The reflections that follow are all based on a tradition of of language-

semantics originated by LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN in his theory philosophy
of meaning interpreted in a language-philosophical sense.
5.1. THEORIES OF MEANING
In the following we will survey the main trends of semantics Theories of meaning
in a language-philosophical sense by raising a question building upon
fundamental from the perspective of understanding law and one another
Old237-309 11/12/19 9:21 Page 238
238 5. DILEMMAS OF MEANING
the construction of the underlying thinking culture.

Namely: what is meaning?1 The questions specific to the
respective trends and the ways they are answered are also
built upon one another, for they represent certain stages in
the long process of the development of semantical thought,
at the same time arriving at increasingly complex and
comprehensive solutions. We will thus survey the lexical,
contextual, hermeneutical, open-texture-based, as well as
the so-called deconstructionist concepts of meaning.
5.1.1. Lexicality
Sign → meaning The lexical approach is the last in semantics to display direct
→ designated connections to classical language theory, so also to FERDI-
2
NAND DE SAUSSURE’s linguistic theory. According to the
lexical theory of meaning, a sign is a s i g n once we
assign a m e a n i n g to it. And signs are those physically
perceivable things (or whatever else, like, for instance, the
human voice perceivable as oscillation of air, or radio waves
receivable by receiving sets) that are accessible to others.
Obviously, something else is needed, too: what is being
signalled, what is thereby d e s i g n a t e d . Physical
phenomena and mental constructs can both be designated.
The connection between the signs and the designated is
established by meaning. From the infinite variety of our
natural environment and artificial world, only that will
become a sign to which a meaning is attached (Figure 10).
sign ➩ meaning ➩ designated

Figure 10.
1
For a summary, see, e.g., Roy Harris & Talbot J. Taylor Landmarks in
Linguistic Thought The Western Tradition from Socrates to Saussure
(London & New York: Routledge 1989) xviii + 199 pp. [Routledge History
of Linguistic Thought], for a 20th century classical summary, C. K. Ogden
& I. A. Richard The Meaning of Meaning A Study of the Influence of
Language upon Thought and the Science of Symbolism [1923] (London,
Boston & Henley: Ark Paperbooks 1985) xviii + 301 pp.
2
Ferdinand de Saussure Cours de linguistique générale publ. Charles Bally
& Albert Sechehaye [1915] (Paris: Payot 1916) 336 pp.
Old237-309 11/12/19 9:21 Page 239
5.1. THEORIES OF MEANING 239
According to the lexical theory of meaning, the sign and taken as a predefined
the designated will be connected lastingly and unambigu- and unchangeable
ously only by the definition of meaning. Thereby it tacitly relation
acknowledges that the thus created link is predefined, that is,
both d e t e r m i n e d and u n c h a n g e a b l e . Taking a
mathematical or logical definition as an example: when we
state that ‘A’ means this or that, we must know (even when
we are not certain about our knowledge) that our knowledge
is limited, since the definition, in the particular setting it was
worded, is to be taken as complete—per definitionem, i.e., by
force of definition. For ‘A’ becomes a mathematical or
logical proposition precisely because a quantitative or logical
domain has been ascribed to it. The lexical definition of
meaning is also unchangeable.This particular characteristic
is presumably also an indirect legacy of the axiomatic way of
thinking, for we can speak of a mathematical system—i.e.,
‘A’ can remain ‘A’—exclusively as long as the meaning in
question is ascribed to it. Once somebody stands up and
claims: “I have my own ‘A’ because I have ascribed some-
thing different to it”, he will have thereby announced that he
has created a different system by defining ‘A’ in a different
way. At this point, it is already an issue of linguistic conven-
tions and professional tradition whether the community will
consider it an abuse that the new meaning bears the ‘A’ sign
unmarkedly as if it were the old one.
One distinctive feature of the lexical theory of meaning is Change of meaning
that it conceives of the predetermined and immutable presupposes a
nature of meaning as an axiom, that is, with unquestionable new sign
rigour. In addition, it does so with a fervour reminiscent of
the mechanical world-view, and this will sooner or later lead
to a paradox. Even when the original meaning is abandoned
(as, for example, KARL MARX degraded the notion of
‘religion’ into one of a pejorative meaning, regarding it as
“the opium of the masses”,3 thereby making ‘religion’ a
3
“Die Religion [...] ist das Opium des Volkes.” Karl Marx ‘Draft Intro-
duction to a Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right’
[in Deutsch–Französiche Jahrbücher (February 1844)] <www.marxists.org/
archive/marx/works/1843/critique=hpr/intro.htm>.
Old237-309 11/12/19 9:21 Page 240
synonym for obscurantism, generating a language use in

which anything non-desirable or simply stupid can be trans-
ferred into the extension of ‘religion’), positing the new
meaning will in point of principle be validated with
axiomatic rigour.
Even the possible All in all, according to the lexical theory of meaning, one
undefinedness is can freely dispose of, and even modify, meaning provided
taken as defined that it is done in a definitive manner, with the demand of
thereby definiteness within the definition’s sphere of validity. If we
loosen up the meaning, that is, we intend to change its deter-
minedness and definiteness into a new determinedness and
definiteness, we are free to do it but only by the force of a
new definition. For example, if to ‘A’ as a mathematical
proposition a different mathematical quantity is ascribed, it
can be done only by transforming or re-positing the system.
We seem to have reached a paradox here, although it is still
important to note that the force of definition is to be under-
stood in a way to include also LUKÁCS’s term, “the
well-defined undefinedness”.4 We thereby mean to express
that we must regard our definition as defined in a lexical-
semantical sense even if it would actually result in an entirely
undefined (and exactly t h u s defined) definition. In theo-
retical reconstruction, definition can only qualify as
undefined according to a given definition, because we have
intended to define it just as such according to another
definition (less strict and exclusive in the given context).
That is to say, within the given domain or understanding of
meaning, everything will qualify, in principle, as defined—
with the proper volume and extension of definedness
ascribed to it.
ANTAL: anything This semantic concept, still prevalent in our day, was
can be a sign wide-spread in the past decades especially in the Communist
with rules of use world, and it was particularly rigidly followed in Hungary.
ascribed to it: One of its prominent preachers in Hungary from this era,
4
Georg Lukács Die Eigenart des Ästhetischen I (Berlin & Weimar: Auf-
bau-Verlag 1981), ch. 9, para. 11: »Die unbestimmte Gegenständlichkeit«,
pp. 683–704.
Old237-309 11/12/19 9:21 Page 241
LÁSZLÓ ANTAL,5 had excelled (before he left the country

decades ago) by his impatience with more modern and
complex Western answers and with the differing views within
Soviet-type MARXism. As he expounded it, linguistic signs
are nothing more than linguistic signs and the rules of use
ascribed to them. They are signs precisely because rules of
use were definitely and unchangeably ascribed to them.
If we take this seriously, extreme consequences will imme- do ‘construction’ /
diately follow, and they may be of particular interest in ‘functioning’
relation to SAUSSURE’s norm-conception. Inasmuch as the still separate?
sign and the ascribed rule of use combined result in what we
can regard as a linguistic sign (defining meaning), this will
necessarily mean that social institutions themselves (as
generated by linguistic acts) consist of two distinguishable
aspects: ‘construction’ and ‘functioning’.6
In such a case we can construct a language by putting the yes, but only providing
whole series of signs on the table claiming: “This is the that ‘construction’ is
language, these and these are its units, since we have hypostatised without
ascribed rules of use (and meanings) to each sign.” ‘functioning’
However, language has never functioned the way described
above, neither does it function like this, moreover, we cannot
even be sure that at any time in the future it will have some-
thing to do with any functioning. For, according to this
model, functioning will be the outcome of making the
constructed phenomenon operate. Namely, if the set of signs
and rules of use in and of themselves can be accepted as
5
See, by László Antal, ‘Sign, Meaning, Context’ Lingua X (1961) 2, pp.
211–219; Questions of Meaning (The Hague: Mouton 1963) 95 pp.; Content,
Meaning and Understanding (The Hague: Mouton 1964) 63 pp. [Janua
lingarum, Series minor 31]; ‘Jegyzetek az igazságról, a jelentésrôl és a szino-
nímiáról’ [Notes on truth, meaning and synomyms] in Általános nyelvészeti
tanulmányok [Studies in general linguistics] III (Budapest: Akadémiai
Kiadó 1965), pp. 9–19; A jelentés világa [The world of meaning] (Budapest:
Magvetô 1978) 173 pp. [Gyorsuló idô]. For a contemporary discussion,
see, e.g., Herman József in Általános nyelvészeti tanulmányok III (Budapest:
Akadémiai Kiadó), pp. 242–258.
6
On the false separation of ‘construction’ and ‘functioning’, cf., by the
author, Theory of the Judicial Process The Establishment of Facts (Budapest:
Akadémiai Kiadó 1995) vii + 149 pp. and especially at p. 113.
Old237-309 11/12/19 9:21 Page 242
linguistic meanings and their definitions, then what truly

concludes from this is that functioning is not a precondition
to construction. That is to say, we are able to build pheno-
mena without truly operating them. We can create our own
Esperanto or secret language without trying it out, or even
attempting to use it.We put it down in a book (the same way
children record their special languages or secret writing,
creating the sequence of signs and assigning meanings to
them) whereby the work is completed: here we have our own
exclusive language.
in operation: On the other hand, if construction and operation are
‘conformity to rules’ / regarded as two separate entities, then operation (as the case
‘inconformity to rules’ may be: language-use) will be characterised eo ipso (by the
force of distinction) by the possibility of being used properly
or badly, correctly or incorrectly. Establishing the “correct-
ness” or “incorrectness” of the usage will qualify—
furthermore, selectively qualify—the operation in practice;
namely, it will determine whether or not the usage in ques-
tion c o n f o r m s t o t h e r u l e s . (Similarly, the basis
for distinguishing a “good” theory from the “bad” one can
be the evaluation of whether we have formed reasonable
thoughts, that is, of whether we have used the language for
the purpose we initially meant to.) (Figure 11.)
construction functioning
sign + rule of use good/bad, correct/incorrect use
Figure 11.
but, then, The above distinction has one further consequence. If we

‘construction’ and draw a dividing line between construction and operation,
‘functioning’ are the practical use of what we have constructed will be fully
separated secondary, and, moreover, arbitrary. For the existence of
language as constructed is complete and perfectly done even
without anybody attempting to test or apply it.
Old237-309 11/12/19 9:21 Page 243
In sum, according to the lexical theory, meaning is and ‘functioning’

inherent in the sign and must be unravelled and disclosed becomes incidental
from it. All of this implies a metaphysical presupposition and secondary
concerning its philosophical foundations. Namely, we can
hence presume an entity which is not operated or does not
operate. We pre-dispose of the idea of establishing institu-
tions (e.g., language) by human conventionalisation, and the
constructed institution will prevail and “exist” without
actual functioning. Since we have tacitly accepted by our
previous definitions that operation is complementary,
casual, and therefore it may join the institutions consecu-
tively but not necessarily, accompanying them with
ephemeral incidentality at the most.
We call this conception lexical because it conceives of the Lexical meaning =
meaning—any meaning of a sign—as present in a dictionary. as defined
As to its argumentation: what else can the meaning be if not by a dictionary
the one a dictionary ascribes to it? Or, the other way around:
if we realise that the given meaning apparently ascribed to
the sign is not among the definitions of our dictionary, but
later it is still proven that we could successfully communi-
cate by using the respective sign, then our conclusion can be
either that we have abused the language which carries the
given sign or that our dictionary is deficient from the outset.
Therefore, whenever we say ‘table’, thereby being able to
mean something that cannot be found in the dictionary,
there are two available explanations we can choose from: we
have either made innovations in the language, or the dictio-
nary was deficient from the beginning. But our conclusion
must be the same in both cases: the dictionary must be
amended. The case is either this or that, and whatever the
case may be, tertium non datur.
Until the elaboration of more complex and dynamic theo- Traditional basis of
ries of meaning with proper language philosophical legal thinking:
foundations, the lexical conception was considered the
prevalent theory world-wide, the theory of meaning of a
model-value for linguistic sciences. It was therefore out of
necessity that until the very last decades (and until recent
years in our region) this represented the paradigmatic theory
Old237-309 11/12/19 9:21 Page 244
in legal sciences as well. Conception of law, judicial practice,

as well as legal education were built upon its truths. It is a
well-known fact that legal scholarship generally takes a
traditionally conservative stance, preserving and continuing
old values and attitudes especially on the European conti-
nent, due to codification and its consolidating effects on
statutory positivism. Instead of answering the newest issues,
the innovative and deconstructive drives of social sciences, it
adopted old and tested patterns unchangedly, those origi-
nating from solutions consecrated by tradition. Hence, a
specific legal theory or any initiative to reform was not
needed for the legal arrangements and their environment to
inspire such a concept of meaning to the legal profession,
either practitioners or scholars of law. Already in our cradles
(beginning with our socialisation in childhood) and until the
ends of our lives we could meet only such kinds of inspira-
tions that were built upon paradigms rooted in the lexical
conception of meaning.
law = text In law, all of this suggested an impression that we are given
+ interpretation (as an a t e x t (since within Civil Law systems we have been told
external addition) that law is nothing other than a kind of text, or aggregate of
texts at most) and we must learn that only this—and nothing
but this—is the law for us. Customs, or anything else we can
experience in practice but are not written bodies, thus disap-
pear from the scene as elements of empty (or irrespective)
conceptual classes. On the other hand, this culture also
presupposes that the text in question is activated. With an
analogy: just as we associate the medical profession with
stethoscopes, lances, pharmaceuticals and bandages, we
conceive of the legal profession as a specific craft of objecti-
fication, and primarily as an art of i n t e r p r e t a t i o n ,
i.e., the “manipulation” of texts. Furthermore, aspirin is
available to anyone these days, but its chemical composition,
or how it works and reacts in what combination to what
problems needs not be known. Similarly, anyone may pick
up a tool, but it is mostly the mechanic who will know where
to hit with it in order to eliminate a problem, which an
outsider may find impossible to solve, in a few seconds.Well,
interpretation is a very similar professional procedure. The
Old237-309 11/12/19 9:21 Page 245
task of the lawyer is to bring the text t o l i f e . Taken that

the text embodies the law, its meaning must therefore
become foreseeable for the client and must provide him
orientation whatever his case, and it must also be able to
provide (justifying or disproving) motivation for asserting
the given case at court.The outcome will be qualified by the
degree of success with which we could bring the text to life:
useful from the client’s perspective and truly self-concludent
from the one of the procedure followed by the judge.
According to the fundamental presupposition of the The latter is the
lexical theory, we have two entities different by nature at our lawyers’ art (= ars)
disposal. On the one hand, it is the text. In the continental
European culture we understand this as the text being the
carrier of law. By this we have elevated legal quality—
juridicity—into a metaphysical entity, standing in and of
itself, since we have absolutised the text by reducing the law
to the text. Whereas we also claim that there is some sort of
special professional knowledge, too—ars in Latin, art in
English (i.e., ‘art’ and ‘craft’ at the same time)—, which is
interpretation. It comprises the knowledge of how we must
proceed with the text in order to generate practical effects
through and starting from it. In result, a new but secondary
social reality is born—eventually not from anything real,
since this new reality after all originates from the implemen-
tation of a purely professional opinion, from the proceeding
judge’s decision—and this decision consists of nothing more
than the declaration that some q u a l i f y i n g c o n c e p -
t u a l i s a t i o n d e r i v e s f r o m a t e x t of the law
(with the stamp of legal validity).
So, the lexical conception holds that the sign is after all an The meaning is
independent entity, as the meaning is thought to be inherent in the sign
somehow metaphysically inherent in its understanding.The
meaning is inherent in the sign either because it is so
asserted by a metaphysical truth, or because the criterion is
proclaimed that the sign—be it any kind of oscillation of air
or a branch lying across the road—can qualify as a sign only
if defined as a rule of use and its meaning is also ascribed to
it.Therefore, there is not and cannot be any room for contro-
versy or ambiguity. Each sign-user is assumed therefore to
Old237-309 11/12/19 9:21 Page 246
be conscious in knowledge of all rules of use with regard to

all signs and to use the language by mobilising the entire
store of signs.
derivatively, like Accordingly, the final result can be deduced from the text
extraction in itself, be it lawyer’s advice, judicial decision or whatever else.
chemistry The metaphysical pressuppositions of this conception of the
process of understanding are characterised by the fact that
the basically d e r i v a t i v e manner of thinking here is
reminiscent of a chemical process of e x t r a c t i o n . Since,
in the procedure called interpretation the result will be
gained f r o m the text.That is, we had something in hand,
and in the process of derivation we elevated something from
it as though in an extraction process. Let us put, for instance,
the question: what is water composed of? Well, according to
our scholarly response: its composition is H2O. However, if
it were this simple, then we could bring one molecule of
water to the lab-table, and could bring another tool with
which we could break up the molecule of water. Then we
could extract, if we so please, one component of the water
(for example, the two units of hydrogen), and finally do
whatever we wish with the remaining one unit of oxygen.
Well, we have just used a conceptual description that
appears to be comparable to what we can do with language
as well. Moreover, our present knowledge assures us that
even things like oxygen, hydrogen and molecular structure
truly exist.Would it therefore be conceivable that such parti-
cles exist separately in language as well? Properly speaking,
does the mere fact that a text exists imply that things like
signs exist in language, signs which (per definitionem and by
the force of their existence) embody and define something
which we can posteriorly identify as their meaning?
Method of In the legal culture of the European continent, we have a
interpretation: textual framework, the corpus, given. The legal profession is
grammatical + logical also given, and therewith the professional knowledge of a
+ systematic profession, by practising which profession we select a
+ historical meaning, claimed to be given in the text. As is well-known,
the key-chapter in studying processes of law-application
[Rechtsanwendung; application du droit] within the realm of
Civil Law is the theory of interpretation. This treats various
Old237-309 11/12/19 9:21 Page 247
established methods as if they—combined or separately,

maybe in a given sequence, but in each case due to and
resulting from our determination of will—could be freely
made to operate. It is also known that in the theory of inter-
pretation of Civil Law systems—regarding its methods—
interpretation can be g r a m m a t i c a l , l o g i c a l ,
s y s t e m a t i c and h i s t o r i c a l . This has been taught
at universities for centuries as individually applicable
methods, inspite of the fact that they evolved consecutively
in history and are built upon one another in the practical
process of interpretation.7 Thus, teaching is aimed at how
to interpret grammatically, logically, systematically and
historically. Logical interpretation already includes the
grammatical one. Accordingly, grammatical interpretation is
the starting point in approaching a text.The logical, system-
atic and historical interpretations comprise more complex
methods. Naturally, we must always start with the most
simple. All of this is based upon wisdom, knowledge and
experience accumulated through the millennia, with the
germs already present in primitive forms in the late Roman
legal culture. In consequence, the paradigmatic roots of the
lexical theory of meaning date back to this time.
Given the above, we may question whether t e l e o l o g - + teleological?
i c a l interpretation (relying on the clarification of the
purpose of regulation) can be added to them as a separate
method. If the answer is positive then it can hardly qualify as
something other than the abuse of the lexical theory of inter-
pretation. IMRE SZABÓ, preaching the once “socialist
normativism”, but later criticising it within MARXism,
argued in the same way in his magisterial work on The Inter-
7
E.g., <http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auslegung_%28Recht%29>. Cf.
also, by the author,‘What is to Come after Legal Positivisms are Over?
Debates Revolving around the Topic of »The Judicial Establishment of
Facts«’ in Theorie des Rechts und der Gesellschaft Festschrift für Werner Kraw-
ietz zum 70. Geburtstag, hrsg. Manuel Atienza, Enrico Pattaro, Martin
Schulte, Boris Topornin & Dieter Wyduckel (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot
2003), pp. 657–676.
Old237-309 11/12/19 9:21 Page 248
pretation of Statutory Rules,8 published during the years of

severe dictatorship. According to him, teleological interpre-
tation is just dodging, a technique developed by bourgeois
lawyers at the end of the 19th century to meet timely needs,
since legal conclusions can only be drawn from the actual
wording of the law, that is, the meaning can be defined exclu-
sively from and through the normative text. Obviously, the
position taken by SZABÓ along the traditions of the Civil Law
thinking presumed that grammatical, logical, systematic and
historical interpretation add nothing to the text from
without. They merely assist the text to disclose its meaning
for us—and this is a result previously unknown to us, albeit
encoded in the text from the very beginning; it is only that
we did not know about it as we were not interested in it
earlier.
it already points The issue of teleological interpretation becomes decisive
beyond the text at this point. For this interpretational method is no longer
concerned with simply relying on (when drawing meaning
from) the text but with openly undertaking the circum-
stances that cried for law-application. So, instead of applying
the normative text itself we from now on take into consider-
ation, in an emphatic manner or exclusively, the (social,
political, etc.) goals to be achieved by the act of law-applica-
tion. And insofar as we take into consideration the goals to
be achieved by recoursing to teleological interpretation, we
no longer treat the text as the exclusive source from which a
meaning is ultimately extracted (although the text should be
the sole determinant for us: the exclusive basis for learning
the law’s message, otherwise we unavoidably run against the
law—we act, to a lesser or greater extent, but differently by
all means).
8
Imre Szabó A jogszabályok értelmezése [The interpretation of statutory
rules] (Budapest: Közgazdasági és Jogi Könyvkiadó 1960) 618 pp. in ch. II,
especially at pp. 104ff. Cf., for his summary in his Die theoretische Fragen der
Auslegung der Rechtsnormen (Berlin 1963) 20 pp. [Sitzungsberichte der
Deutschen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin: Klasse für Philosophie,
Geschichte, Staats-, Rechts- und Wirtschaftswissenschaften, 2].
Old237-309 11/12/19 9:21 Page 249
As to the results of interpretation, the same kinds of prob- Result of

lems are faced by the lexical theory of interpretation. The interpretation:
positivist conception claims that this can exclusively be affirmative / restrictive
a f f i r m a t i v e , r e s t r i c t i v e , or e x t e n s i v e . / extensive
IMRE SZABÓ, for instance, in his entire work, used an image
that suggested the existence of discretely separated entities
of meaning, given in and of themselves, their modifications
resulting from volatile processes only. He furnished expla-
nation in the following terms: before interpretation we
believed the meaning to have been such and such, but after
concluding the process we have arrived at a meaning that
differs from the initial one.9 Well, this argumentation does
not make any sense in this quoted form, unless we conceive
of it as confirming the paradigm of the lexical concept of
meaning. Again, this position involves the message that we
can believe in anything as we please, but when a text is given
we can only derive the meaning from the text, and only that
meaning which was already inherent in it. Thus, the so-
called “restrictive interpretation” will result in a narrower,
and the “extensive interpretation” in a broader meaning as
compared to what we initially thought to have been inherent
in the text.Whereas a truly “restrictive” or “extensive” inter-
pretation is not conceivable, since the once asserted
“socialist legality” would have qualified it as an abuse if
anyone assigned a meaning to the text that was not inherent
in it—for it had not been in it, therefore it could not be in it.
9
Szabó, p. 290. It is to be noted that while this theoretical formulation
relied on paradigms unjustifiable from the perspective of philosophy, it
could still be beneficial from the one of legal policy. Since, in case of
“socialist legality”, it emphasised the formal restrictions deriving from
statutory settlement, while accusing the “bourgeois” practice with the
loosening of meaning—thereby tacitly confirming that Soviet-type arrange-
ments belong to the culture of modern formal law, with the only difference
that it unbrokenly preserves its traditions as adapted it to its own (socio-
political) needs, without becoming captive of the processes of the
“increasing slackening and crisis of legality” (as usually formulated at the
time) which took place in Western Europe in the age of “imperialism” (from
the last third of the 19th century).
Old237-309 11/12/19 9:21 Page 250
WRÓBLEWSKI × SZABÓ: In Poland, JERZY WRÓBLEWSKI’s criticism, backed by their

static / dynamic own, more flexible traditions, had already been professing
approaches for decades that the criterion used by traditional positivism
is obsolete and wrongly put. He proved it through linguistic
and logical analyses that in every legal culture (Civil Law
standing for code-law, Common Law for case-law, as well as
in traditions differing from the European ones) s t a t i c
and d y n a m i c concepts, trends and elements prevail
simultaneously in endless competition with each other.
Therefore, more static or more dynamic stages of develop-
ment can be distinguished, alternating with or transforming
into one another in the long run.10 We can encounter an
ethos, force or pressure that assert static conservation
in every legal order. A static point of view allows either
affirmative or restrictive judicial interpretation. It is paradig-
matically revealing how IMRE SZABÓ, with his doctrinaire
MARXism in the background (rigidified in its conceptual
horizons at a phase preceding the formation of modern
cognitive sciences), rejected—and, of course, misunder-
stood—JERZY WRÓBLEWSKI, exactly because the latter
launched his theory from the grounds of a paradigm incon-
ceivable, unacceptable, furthermore, damnable (as being
the messenger of subversion and chaos) from the former’s
perspective. It is to be noted that SZABÓ considered
WRÓBLEWSKI as betraying the only true faith, particularly
because the latter acknowledged the principle that the
theoretical dilemma here concerns directions in legal devel-
opment and not the mere denial or limitation of “legality”
(i.e., the latter’s confrontation with pure “a l e g a l i t y ” or
“i l l e g a l i t y ”).
Dynamic True, there can be dynamic stages in the development of
interpretation: law when results are indeed restricted or extended—in the
text + interpreter sense of the lexical theory of meaning. Therefore, insofar as
(example: MAGNAUD
The good judge
10
Cf., by Jerzy Wróblewski, ‘The Problem of the Meaning of the Legal
Norm’ Österreichische Zeitschrift für öffentliches Recht XIV (1964) 3–4, pp.
253–266 and especially at p. 265 and ‘L’interprétation en droit: théorie et
idéologie’ in Archives de Philosophie du Droit XVII: L’interprétation dans le
droit (Paris: Sirey 1972), pp. 51–69 and in particular at pp. 65ff.
Old237-309 11/12/19 9:21 Page 251
we accept—still within the limits of the lexical theory of

meaning—that interpretation cannot be other than “affir-
mative” even conceptually, then in cases of the actual
restriction or extension of meaning we must presume that it
is not the same text of law that came to be interpreted.
WRÓBLEWSKI offered a solution to this dilemma by claiming
that t h i s is dynamic interpretation proper. In the case of
dynamic interpretation we have the text of the law, on the
one hand, and the judge, aware of his professionalised social
responsibility, on the other.With a historical example, PAUL
MAGNAUD, The Good Judge,11 tried truly to measure the
different perspectives pointing to antagonistic directions
and the interests involved when a new conflict arose, instead
of attempting to answer these challenges simply by following
the easiest path or the previous judicial routine. For he met
bread-stealing children among those starving, drifted to the
periphery of society. And in order to be able to reach a
judgement in accordance with his morally coloured legal
world-order, he distinguished criminal behaviour from the
desperate efforts of a starving human being at satisfying his
hunger. He thought that in the case when a miserable human
did everything he could to ease his misery and he did not do
a greater damage by his deed than was absolutely necessary
to satisfy this sole need arising from hunger, then he should
not necessarily be treated as a criminal when his deed is
judged.
Nevertheless, provided that we still consider the lexical extracts meaning
theory of meaning relevant, we are entitled to and also ought from the text of
to put the question: did MAGNAUD indeed apply the same the law alone?)
provision(s) of the same French Code pénal? For if he did, we
might get entangled in some irresolvable contradiction.
What is more, we may even arrive at the conclusion the
11
Paul Magnaud [1848–1926]: Les jugements du président Magnaud,
réunis et commentés par Henry Leyret (Paris: V. Stock 1900) xlviii + 346 pp.
[Recherches sociales 4]. Cf. Roland Weyl & Monique Picard Weyl ‘Social-
isme et justice dans la France de 1896: Le »Bon juge« Magnaud” in
Quaderni fiorentini per la storia del pensiero guiridico moderno I (1974–1975)
3–4, pp. 367–382 et Jacques Foucart-Borville Le Bon juge de Château-
Thierry (Amiens: Bibliothèque municipale 2000) 286 pp. [Eklitra 84].
Old237-309 11/12/19 9:21 Page 252
logical reconstruction of which will reveal nothing else but

that MAGNAUD actually interpreted another provision (even-
tually not existent in the textual body of the Code pénal as not
being enacted in it) as if it had been the interpretation of a
provision in the Code pénal. And he had no right to do this,
no matter how much we may like him and his procedure. He
could have said that in his argumentation he interpreted the
facts that constitute the particular case of theft in the French
penal code in force only insofar as he had the entitlement to
do so. Moreover, what MAGNAUD did is actually inconceiv-
able within the lexical conception, as it can be described by
a baron-Münchhausen-type of gesture at the most. Namely,
the meaning he extracted from the statutory text is a
meaning that eventually had never been in it.
5.1.2. Contextuality
Origination of the Born as a reaction to the lexical conception, the contextual
contextual from the approach attempted to surpass some obvious deficiencies
lexical and limits of the former. The truly paradigmatic nature of
the lexical doctrine is proven by the fact that this new trend,
born to replace it, eventually could not detach from it, and,
as a final result, it provided a less rigid, improved version,
more open to compromise solutions. This is the contextual
conception.
HART: core HERBERT LIONEL ADOLPHUS HART was the first to intro-
+ penumbra duce and formulate, in the middle of the 20th century, the
contextual approach in his treatise, a classic by now, on The
Concept of Law. HART simply thought that both statutes and
judicial precedents are carriers of meaning having two
layers: the c o r e and its p e n u m b r a .12 For example, let
us suppose that we light up a field with a reflector. We will
12
For the first formulation of the ‘core’ and ‘penumbra’, see H. L. A.
Hart ‘Positivism and the Separation of Law and Morals’ Harvard Law
Review 71 (February 1958) 4, pp. 593–629 [in his Essays in Jurisprudence
and Philosophy (Oxford: Clarendon 1983), pp. 63–72]. Cf. also Ronald
Dworkin Law’s Empire (London: Fontana & Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap
Press of Harvard University Press 1986) xiii + 470 pp. and especially at pp.
39–42.
Old237-309 11/12/19 9:21 Page 253
find that there are strongly lighted areas with clear lines, but
we also notice bordering zones on the periphery which
despite their not being in the beam of light are still not dark.
They can be noticed and seen, but they still do not have such
unambiguous outlines; they are rather dominated by some
sort of an all-merging greyness.Well, HART suggested that in
most cases legal practice in the hands of judges is nothing
other than a simple and problem-free, easily and routinishly
decidable e a s y c a s e . Accordingly, no dilemmas can
arise when the normative text of legal provisions is applied,
since no one questions its meaning.This is why they are easy
cases.13
“Dogs are not allowed into the park.” We may easily easy case / hard case
comment on this prohibition and claim that the ‘dog’ is a dog
and the ‘park’ a park; we may even point at both. So there is
no doubt about how we can and must apply this prohibition
in any given case. Still, the novelty of HART’s conception, as
opposed to all previous paradigms, started at the point
where he admitted the bare chance of the existence of a
penumbra of meaning. He admitted it by making a distinc-
tion between the easy cases and, as opposed to their average,
the hard cases. H a r d c a s e s are those problematic—
therefore mostly exceptional—issues in relation to which it
is not clear what text to apply in practice, or whether the text
itself (the application of which seems to be relevant in the
easy cases, since in these the rule is held unambiguous, and
appears as not requiring interpretation) applies or not for
the situation in question. According to HART, in a hard case
normative texts—regardless of how strictly they are formu-
lated—can transmit meaning only in a penumbra-like way.
This is why contextuality comes into sight: to allow us to still
choose meanings from the aggregate of uncertainties
(partially uncertain at least in this or that sense).
13
On the dilemma of easy case and hard case, see Dworkin Law’s
Empire, passim, especially at pp. 265–266 and 353–354, as well as David
Lyons Ethics and the Rule of Law (Cambridge, etc.: Cambridge University
Press 1984) x + 229 pp. and especially at pp. 87ff.
Old237-309 11/12/19 9:21 Page 254
Border situations are Our question is the following: if meaning is defined only
inevitable in a certain sense and just as an indication—and not
unambiguously—and it can be detected exclusively in the
penumbra, what could help us make it more precise? As to
the response furnished by the theory here: it is exclusively
contextuality that can do it.We may start contemplating the
characteristics of ‘dog’, or the issue that if we eventually had
a cat, then, what would its similarities be to a dog, if any, and
to what extent would these apply. Accordingly, when leaving
the core of meaning and entering the penumbra, it is only the
context that can be of help. That is, primarily the textual
environment and context of the norm.Whereas the question
of what will qualify as relevant from this environment and
context will be defined exclusively by the given case’s actual
environment and context, calling for regulation in the given
situation.
but can be responded Various contexts can inform us on such and similar condi-
in practical cases tions: What was the intention of the rule-maker when he
launched and drafted the regulation? Of what relevance is it
that the rule-maker has already made a rule under some past
conditions which provided for the prohibition of taking dogs
into the park? Well, the only thing we know is that “ ‘Dogs’
‘are’ ‘not’ ‘allowed’ ‘into’ ‘the’ ‘park’.” We may ponder
various conditions such as, for instance, whether a city-
decree applies to railway-parks, military training grounds or
episcopal gardens. If this prohibition applies to areas of
restricted access, then would it be allowed—in lack of
specific regulation—to take dogs into public places, for
example, on city buses, tramways or trains? Does the prohi-
bition apply to cats and other pets as well?
Are hard cases These questions are justified. However, we must be aware
exceptional indeed? of the fact that not even proven contextual correlation or
similarity can be of help in reaching an unambiguous
decision—for the rule specifically names the dog and the
park after all, yet we are to decide about different things. All
of this notwithstanding, contextuality still has something to
suggest. For we know that the dilemmas of whether a cat can
be considered a dog, or an episcopal garden a park arose in
a somewhat similar context and textual environment.
Old237-309 11/12/19 9:21 Page 255
Insofar as these narrower and broader contexts and en-

vironments are clear, their similarity or dissimilarity will
obviously help us make a decision whereby we will under-
take to consider a cat a dog, and an episcopal garden a park
under the stated conditions. In consequence, we may claim
that under this rule cats are not allowed into the park, and
practically no pets can be taken on board of a public trans-
portation vehicle or into a room meant for public use.
Such a solution is supported by the presupposition that
average cases are problem-free and are in no need of any
interpretation whatsoever, since the meaning of the relevant
text is almost self-evident. On the other hand, hard cases
cannot be but exceptional.
After all, nolens volens, the contextual theory of meaning Are hard cases to be
thereby follows the lexical one by strengthening its basic taken as an abuse?
idea, foreseeing only one kind of exception. For contextual prevented by
theory, too, the message defined as the core is lexically given law-application as
initially, and any definition of meaning depending mostly or problem-free?
exclusively on the textual environment can only be an excep-
tion when, realising the insufficiency of the core definition
of meaning, one must leave the core and step into the
penumbra of the peripheries.
From the perspective of the lexical conception, such a Reaction: lexicality is,
distinction can only be used to provide reasons for rejecting however, valid
the problem itself. In terms of lexical orthodoxy, LÁSZLÓ
ANTAL could ask with a captivating logic: what can the ques-
tion be in this at all? If the question of a penumbra in
meaning arises at all, then one of the following two alterna-
tives will have to prevail. In the first case
· the linguistic sign or expression bears an additional
meaning. In such a case we can rightly conclude that
our previous definitions were deficient or bad, full of ·
gaps. (This conclusion refers back to the situation
discussed earlier when we said that if a meaning could
be assigned to a word previously not defined in our
dictionary, then it was either us who found a wrong
meaning or the dictionary was bad.) In any case, the
dictionary must be amended. As to the second case, it
may happen that
Old237-309 11/12/19 9:21 Page 256
· the judge takes advantage of this position. If the ‘dog’ is

a dog, and the ‘dog’ truly remains a dog and nothing else
independently of any further consideration, then we
simply cannot ponder that the law may apply to cats as
well.The judge, however, is the master of himself in such
matters so he can say many things. He could say that the
rule applies to cats as well. But if this is true, well, the
notion of ‘dog’ applies to the cat not because the ‘dog’ is
supposed to be a cat, but only because the judge wants
the notion to apply to the cat, and he is in a position to
enforce his will.What is the use of all this? The least we
can say is that he consciously departs from (or amends)
what the law-maker orders—otherwise unambiguously.
It is the legal profession’s competence (not that of the
linguist, or of philosophical-methodological recon-
struction) to decide how this will qualify. Is it sheer
unlawfulness? That is, some sort of abuse? Or, on the
contrary: is it just a case of responsible and responsive
law-application? Or, is it the truly creative enforcement
of the legislator’s will aimed at regulation? Whatever the
answer, according to the tenets of the lexical concep-
tion, no doubt can arise here with regard to the
problems of meaning.
admitting that nothing In a paradoxical way it was precisely this challenge, the
is perfect in this world emergence of a penumbra conceptualised within the field of
meaning, that gave impetus for the followers of the lexical
conception to rigidify in their beliefs.They thought that it is
exactly these and similar situations which cast light upon the
fact that, in principle, the meaning cannot be other than pre-
codified. Naturally, they did not claim it with pretensions
making the linguists able to guarantee all dictionaries to be
perfect. We all know that dictionaries are not any different
from average matters of the world: they are just as good or
bad as anything else—because, symbolically speaking, ever
since our ancestors fell we have all been in a state of imper-
fection. Although the circumstance that our dictionaries
cannot be perfect does not alter the definitional relationship
between sign and meaning. Moreover, it ought not to change
Old237-309 11/12/19 9:21 Page 257
our basic human stances either—i.e., the fact that in any of

our human roles we all act as though we were perfect,
although we are aware of our feebleness: we take advantage
of our positions, tyrannise others, fake security—in want of
anything better, only for our own reassurance—and so on.
Well, with all the above said the situation is basically the
same.
These issues are not settled for good to this day. Interest- In principle,
ingly enough, most recent publications still profess that there are exclusively
there are easy cases and hard cases. It is not our task to argue hard cases, and
about these here and now. Instead, our present question easy cases are the
should be whether there is any difference between the two? ones to have been
Should we not rather say that every case is, or may turn out routinised
to be, a hard case in principle? Moreover, from the mass of
cases, easy cases will only be the ones the solution of which
is already routinised in practice, so, due to a refinement of
standing practice, they no longer raise uncertainties (appar-
ently and exclusively from a practical—momentary—point
of view). So, if we finally subject the ways of thinking in
action here to scrutiny, we must realise that paradigmatic
definedness prevails already in the formulation of the
question. If we assume the existence of easy cases—as
distinguished from hard cases—, we thereby indirectly
confirm the fundamental tenets of the lexical conception.
The paradigmatic nature of this consists in the fact that in
the meantime the genuine problem may still lie in something
else and the above distinction just hides the real difference.
It may be the case, for instance, that the distinction itself
turns out to be nothing more than a kind of theoretic posi-
tion, which can only be regarded as reasonable at most on
grounds of the tradition developed by the lexical theory of
meaning.
Anyway, would it be truly a reasonable venture to make a (example:
distinction between the two kinds of cases? We ought to normal
recall from our previous analyses that if we deny the reason × pathologic)
of distinction, we thereby not only claim that easy cases and
hard cases are one and the same category but, as a conse-
quence, we also lose the criterion of distinguishing, for
Old237-309 11/12/19 9:21 Page 258
instance, healthy functioning from the pathological one. In

other words, we may hazard to identify normal functioning
with what we have just characterised as abuse or at least as
the case of over-use at the edge of misuse. From such a
perspective, however, to state that easy cases are reasonably
distinguishable from hard cases means in the ultimate
analysis nothing other than that there is n o r m a l func-
tioning and it derives from the structure and internal
definition of the given phenomenon (therefore, allowing
everyday routine to freely prevail in it), on the one hand, and
there is such functioning in the case of which for whatever
reason (e.g., over-use at the edge of misuse, abuse, or any
a t y p i c a l consideration excluding the usual routine) we
deviate from normality, transforming the whole process into
a p a t h o l o g i c a l one. Well, there are eventually two
logical alternatives for theoretic description and explana-
tion. Namely, we either
· introduce something new without admitting it, or we
openly admit that
· the previous definition was not complete (or was not
accepted as such)—independently of the further ques-
tion (only indicated here) of whether it could in
principle be complete or not.
FOUCAULT, SZÁSZ: For easier understanding let us recall MICHEL FOUCAULT
deviance is a function and the contemporary Western deconstructionist move-
of human ment. As an off-spring of a rather wide-spread intellectual
conventionalisation stance that ideologically has already led to, among others,
the 1968 leftist-anarchist student uprisings in the USA,
France and Germany, the destructive criticism has success-
fully challenged the world-view established by the
intellectual reconstruction following WWII. And, as an
outstanding and radiating by-product of such ambivalent
uncertainties which relativised previously established
axiomatic cornerstones of all convictions and beliefs, let us
recall that ever since the revelating developments starting
with THOMAS SZÁSZ’s oeuvre, we are not able to know with
the old certainty who is and who is not mentally ill among
us, because the difference—as proven by history—is not
Old237-309 11/12/19 9:21 Page 259
apprehensible as a criterion14 but depends more on social

conventions.15 Thus, we may see that the great revolution of
psychoanalysis and of the areas that can be taken into
consideration from the perspective of neuroses and mental
hygiene (professed by SIGMUND FREUD and his school), as
well as the revolutionary changes in our social view of the
world (as to the methodological foundations, generated by
FOUCAULT and others elaborating the European history of
ideas and views with respect to the evaluation of social
deviances16), well, these are all concerned with the one issue:
why and how to distinguish the healthy from the unhealthy,
the normal from the abnormal or deviant. From this point
forward it became truly obvious for the Atlantic world that
any conceptual absolutisation which attempts to distinguish
14
It is worthwhile to recall that at the beginning of scholarly thinking,
the relations within the cosmos, the acts of gods and the connection
between health and illness were equally conceived of as derived from the
pattern of legal order—cf., e.g., G. Vlastos ‘Equality and Justice in Early
Greek Cosmologies’ Classical Philosophy XLII (1947), pp. 156–178—as “a
balanced relationship, even a contract, between equal opposed forces”. G.
E. R. Lloyd Magic, Reason and Experience Studies in the Origins and Devel-
opment of Greek Science (Cambridge, etc.: Cambridge University Press
1979) xii + 335 pp. at p. 248.
15
From his oeuvre concerning the relative nature of “normality”,
primarily see Thomas S. Szasz The Myth of Pschychotherapy Mental Healing
as Religion, Rhetoric, and Repression (Oxford: Oxford University Press
1979) xviii + 238 pp., for the background, his Psychiatric Slavery (NewYork:
The Free Press 1977) xiv + 159 pp. and Schizophrenia The Sacred Symbol
of Psychiatry (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1979) xiv + 237 pp.; and for
a comprehensive evaluation, Richard E. Vatz & Lee S. Weinberg Thomas
Szasz Primary Values and Major Contentions (Buttaly, N.Y.: Prometheus
Berks 1983) 253 pp.
16
By Michel Foucault, see, first and foremost, Folie et déraison Histoire
de la folie (Paris 1961) [Madness and Civilization A History of Insanity in
the Age of Reason, trans. Richard Howard (New York: Pantheon Books
Random House 1965 & London:Tavistock 1967) xiii + 299 pp.]; Les Mots
et les choses (Paris 1966) [The Order of Things An Archeology of the Human
Science, trans. A. Sheridan (New York: Pantheon Books & London: Tavis-
tock 1971) xxiv + 387 pp.]; L’Archéologie du Savoir (Paris: Gallimard 1969)
[The Archeology of Knowledge (New York, Hagerstown, San Francisco,
London: Harper & Row 1972) 245 pp. {Harper Torchbooks}].
Old237-309 11/12/19 9:21 Page 260
with universal pretensions (leaving time and space co-ordi-

nates out of consideration) the “normal” from the “deviant”
with regard to mental states is false and unjustifiable.
Distinctions are not made along some per se criteria, but we
c h o o s e on the basis of our o w n e v a l u a t i o n ,
human and social alike.We do not disclose and make visible
the features already inherent in the matter, but we judge and
are judged according to our most particular social points of
view (and the acculturations, conventions and interests
involved).Whatever is considered undesirable is judged in a
way to make the judgement unquestionable by thrusting the
attitude, behaviour or event concerned, to the negative pole
of a conceptually constructed classification scheme.With an
ultimate simplification, we can indeed say that someone is
mentally ill, abnormal or deviant, if he differs from us in
aspects relevant for us.
with the conclusion Obviously, the question here is not whether any kind of
that, in principle, illness can be relativised or not. We do not ask whether the
normality could limits set by social conventions can be made absolute or not.
replace, or be built on, Our question is not whether or not some or most mental
“abnormality” as well illnesses seem to be just as, and in the same sense, dysfunc-
tional (that is, resulting from disturbed functioning as
compared to the previous and/or the average) as any
so-called common illness. Of course, THOMAS SZÁSZ’s intel-
lectual experiment was not aimed at proving this.Yet, it was
successful in what it was aimed at. He discovered that part
of the states which are not only present in the various states
of mind, but are also pathologically identifiable in forms
of physically provable degenerations, are stigmatised on
occasion into psychiatric cases eventually by the value-
judgement of a historical era. That is, the particular
characteristic that made it a psychiatric case in the public eye
is rather its expression as a social deviance. Needless to say,
such a statement assumes the acceptance of a further
conclusion. Namely, the hypostasis—at least as a mental
hypothesis—of the following issue: if the mental illness in
question did not qualify as a mental illness, then an actually
functioning society could still be constructed and operated
Old237-309 11/12/19 9:21 Page 261
on this basis, that is, on some sort of societal order in which

normality were perhaps represented by the mentally ill
person proper.
THOMAS SZÁSZ exerted influence mainly on the Anglo– Social
American and Nordic thought, whereas in Europe the conventionalisation
accepted view was that of MICHEL FOUCAULT. The starting as the basis
point of his analyses was the threat with confinement of
social deviances. Speaking of historical driving forces, he
described a similar process and motivation. Accordingly,
society labels intolerable conducts as pathological at first,
then it metes out punishments on them. Is this perhaps to
mean that both normality and pathology are randomly
created by common persons? And if so, by what means do
they create them? As to FOUCAULT’s response: the social
common creates paradigms through his h a b i t s , thus
through conventionalising habits and general everyday atti-
tudes. He has it accepted as conventional, as the b a s i s
f o r n o r m a t i v e s e l e c t i o n in a way that the
habitual order incorporates normality from then on, and
whatever falls outside this circle he will condemn it as
deviant from the normal.
Somewhat taking advantage of our position, we may what can be
outcast everybody who is not like we are; our procedure, described and
however—at least in the epistemological sense of cogni- explained but not
tion—, cannot be described as proposition. Obviously, verified
everything we do and everything that surrounds us can be unconditionally
described, and even explained, by social theory (putting the
situations of any given time into various contexts, thereby
ideologising them), we can still not “verify” them with
pretensions of “truth” and “unconditionality”.
Today’s scientific opinion rejects that we are able to properly define, (example: death /
for instance, what life is, what death is, and what the intermediate phases blood pressure)
are. It is a well-known fact that death has legal, biological, physiological,
cerebral and other definitions—all of which may, in addition, depend on
the given culture. All of them differ in their criteria, even if this difference
can only be measured perhaps in microseconds with regard to the course
Old237-309 11/12/19 9:21 Page 262
and sequence of events of the concrete state.17 All we know for sure is that
no difference can be ascertained between normal and pathologic func-
tioning in itself as regards its contents, because no norm can be set up
scientifically to serve as a basis of comparison. For we cannot actually
find out anything from examining several entities simultaneously, only
perhaps from examining one single entity at various times.18 Similarly, we
do not hold any solid, unitary concept on health either. For instance, in
recent years, medical researchers have proposed and accepted dozens of
definitions for hypertension, all of them significantly differing from the
others. Their complexity is characterised by the fact that all of them
somehow refer to certain conceptions of life, by offering explanations
17
Cf., e.g., The Definition of Death Contemporary Controversies, ed.
Stuart J. Youngner, Robert M. Arnold & Renie Schapiro (Johns Hopkins
University Press J45) 368 pp.; Robert Streiffer ‘Definition of Death’
(March 9, 2000) <www.philosophy.wisc.edu/streiffer/HOM558S00Folder
/000309/Definition_of_Death>; David Hershenov ‘The Problematic Role
of »Irreversibility« in the Definition of Death’ Bioethics 17 (2003) 1, pp. 89
et seq. & in <www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/doi/10.1111/1467-8519.00
323>. Its cultural religious contextures are directly shown by The Medical
Definition of Death A Symposium Held in Kuwait (17–19 December 1996)
<www.islamset.com/bioethics/death/state.html>. For one contrasting
example—as Masahiro Morioka writes in his ‘Bioethics and Japanese
Culture: Brain Death, Patients’ Rights, and Cultural Factors’ Eubios Journal
of Asian and International Bioethics 5 (1995), pp. 87–90 & in <www.lifes
tudies.org/japanese.html>—, “Americans think of organs as replaceable
parts, and [...] this way of thinking is based on traditional Western notions
of mind–body dualism. The idea of brain death and transplantation thus
matches the Western way of thinking. Contrasting with this, YONEMOTO
noted that Japanese tend to find in every part of a deceased person’s body a
fragment of the deceased’s mind and spirit.” S. Yonemoto Baioeshikkusu
[Bioethics] (Tokyo: Kodan Sha, Gendai Shinsho 1985) on p. 200. Accord-
ing to the Prime Minister’s counsellor—Takeshi Umehara ‘Opposition to
the Idea of Brain Death: A Philosopher’s Point of View’ in his ed. Brain
Death and Transplantation (Tokyo: Asahi Shimbun Sha 1992), pp. 207–236
{for an English translation, cf. <www.npq.org/issues/v111/p25.html>}—
life lasts as long as blood circulates in the warm body, and animism
(attributing souls to animals, trees and even mountains) is in contrast with
the notions of mere brain death, based on the separation of spirit and body
rooted in the tradition of CARTESIanism and free transplantability.
18
Georges Canguilhem ‘Essai sur quelques problèmes concernant le
normal et le pathologique’ [1943] in his Le normal et le pathologique (Paris:
Presses Universitaires de France 1966) 224 pp. [Quadrige], quote on pp.
118–119 and 156.
Old237-309 11/12/19 9:21 Page 263
and proposing certain conventions within the given concept of life. All of
them can surely be useful from a pragmatic point of view, alternating
with each other and being actually accepted in the hope of a greater and
more predictable social profit (explanation, prevention and curing) than
their antecedents. At the same time we can be sure of not having such
problems of distinction in everyday life: health and unhealth are clearly
separated on the plane of everyday evidences.
In our simplified and ego-centric world-view, normality Is the pathologic

appears as something standing in itself, defining itself the same functioning
through its inherent nature. Accordingly, do we have to made unlimited?
regard the pathological as a reaction to something else? Is it
merely about the fact that what we consider pathologic
expresses certain tendencies arising from the structure of the
underlying system and/or inherent in its operation more
openly, emphatically and visibly, or maybe even more unlim-
itedly and unscrupulously than the comparable other
examples? Going further in simplification, does it make
more evident what was already existent and present but less
noticeable due to its hidden manifestations?
All science tells, cautiously, that illness is nothing else than illness: normality in a
“the simple quantitative version of physiological pheno- version quantified
mena defining the relevant functioning in a normal state”.19 differently
Let me remind you here of a particular parallelism in (example: fever &
thought. According to certain physiological theories, fever is cancer)
not explainable in and of itself, moreover, it does not repre-
sent a problem in and of itself, and cannot be considered an
illness in and by itself. Symbolically speaking, our organism
is apparently programmed with certain parameters to help
through positive feedback that what we will then qualify by
the force of our logic, externally and posteriorly, to the
programming as a healthy state, and when the actual func-
tioning diverges from this, then, to react with some
meaningful sign, thus, for instance, with fever, as a negative
feedback.The parameters of functioning naturally change at
19
“une simple variation quantitative des phénomènes physiologiques
qui définissent l’état normal de la fonction correspondante” Ibid., p. 155.
Old237-309 11/12/19 9:21 Page 264
such occasions. The otherwise normal reactions of the

organism intensify, and certain commands are built into our
organism—as we may conclude from the results—so that if
the given parameters change in a given way then the temper-
ature and/or transpiration of our body (etc.) to rise/increase,
that is, to induce a systemic reaction. Advancing gradually
along such an explanation, we might arrive at an interpreta-
tion which claims that, from our above perspective,
pathological functioning is nothing but the intensified state
of normal functioning, hence the reaction that an illness trig-
gers in a functioning organism is not a different but a
stronger one than the average and usual. Well, this parallel
becomes dramatic and eerie when considering the fact that
our knowledge of cancer points in the same direction.
Cancer today can be reconstructed in the following way: it is
essentially a pathologically excessive, uncontrollable, and
unendable cellular proliferation while we also know that our
biological existence as such is owed to cellular proliferation,
since both our biological reproduction and self-reproduc-
tion relies on the (self-)reproduction of cells.
Σ: “pathological” = In ultimate conclusion we may therefore realise that the
normal, having n o r m a l turns into p a t h o l o g i c a l whenever the
become unregulated otherwise auto-regulated processes lose their capability to
balance themselves on a proper level within due limits.
[example: cylinder in Isn’t this process reminiscent of a situation when the cylinder breaks
the steam-engine] down, or we take it out of the steam-engine and the boiler soon blows up?
Yet, we all know well that steam-engines are mechanisms operating
according to the laws of physics, therefore the fact that the boiler of a
steam-engine blows up sooner or later if its cylinder is taken out is a
natural outcome. Well, from this perspective, what can no longer be
natural is to have a steam-engine which operates without a cylinder.
The easy case too is Returning to our initial question, is it conceivable that in
just an instance of the principle there is no difference whatsoever between the easy
hard case case and the hard case? Is it feasible that only some
secondary practical consideration enlarged into a selecting
criterion makes us state a difference at all? Well, even if this
is true it can mean at most that there is something with the
Old237-309 11/12/19 9:21 Page 265
easy case that takes place in a r o u t i n i s h way, some-

thing that should not occur with the hard case. Although,
paradigmatically, there is nothing substantially different
between the two.
If we are predisposed to accept the conclusion according conventionalised in
to which meaning is basically a continuum gained within the practical routine
framework of social processes (as a function of social prac-
tice), then we have to arrive at the conclusion that the
notions of ‘easy case’ and ‘hard case’ are nothing but r e l a -
t i o n a l concepts themselves and, as such, functions of a
conventionalised social routine. The “easiness” reflected by
the term ‘easy case’ is easy indeed (in contrast to the ‘hard
case’, thought to be hard, complicated and allowing only
ambiguous solutions to be derived) owing to the fact that in
the average routine of ‘easy case’, the entire process from the
formulation of problems to finding a solution has already
taken place many times in social practice. Hence, if we can
precisely tell what a ‘dog’ is, and what ‘allowed’ ‘into’ ‘the’
‘park’ (and so on) stands for, then we will be disposed to
associate the notion of ‘dog’ with a barking, four-legged,
hairy animal with a characteristic face, weight and behaviour
(etc.). In such contexts, the “hard” implied by the term ‘hard
case’ will only mean that we have come across certain condi-
tions which challenge the previously established and
conventionalised routine we were socialised into, so much
that the question of whether we may or may not ‘allow’ an
‘animal’ ‘into the park’ can no longer be answered by the
previously encountered decidedness and unambiguity of the
provisions on the ‘dog’. Therefore, we are expected to
ponder at least about the issue and weigh the numerous
circumstances (including the reconstructible purpose of
regulation) so that we can deliver the decision: does this
animal in question mean the ‘dog’ or not.
5.1.3. Hermeneutics
A third tradition, called hermeneutics, may take us closer to SCHLEIERMACHER: the
a solution. FRIEDRICH SCHELEIERMACHER launched this Holy Scripture taken
trend of thinking two centuries ago as an interpretational as the exclusive
approach necessary for investigation into Old Testament source to draw from
Old237-309 11/12/19 9:22 Page 266
theology,20 and he named it hermeneutics.21 Classical

philology, biblical sciences and other sciences of religion
were the first to embrace it, mainly in order to study reli-
gions, in cases of which there is mostly one holy corpus of
texts serving as a basis for theoretical development and argu-
mentation. That is, where the foundation of theological
construction is defined by one holy book, regarded as the
incorporation of godly revelation, therefore unchangeable
and unchallengeable at the same time. So one book provides
the exclusive reference for orientation, a corpus on which the
belief of entire communities is built and on which we can
and must base all human certainties as well as the knowledge
cultivated as science, called theology.
The one and single Inasmuch as this is a holy text relying on revelation, every-
embodiment of thing inherent in God—more precisely, everything God
godly revelation intended to transmit to us humans—has to be encoded in
t h i s v e r y t e x t . So, the question necessarily arises:
how can we unravel the meaning from (as hidden in) the
text? How can we justify this meaning as the exclusive
message of the text? For we know that in law we can receive
orientation from numerous sources and in various direc-
tions, whereas in theology this text is the exclusive source
from which the reconstruction of the godly message can
begin. Archaeological findings, bones and stones can be of
no help here any longer. It is merely a few canonised texts
(acknowledged as the exclusively authentic sources) and
20
„Das Geschäft der Hermeneutik darf nicht erst da anfangen, wo das
Verständniß unsicher wird, sondern vom ersten Anfang des Unternehmens
an, eine Rede verstehen zu wollen. Denn das Verständniß wird gewöhnlich
erst unsicher, weil es schon früher vernachlässigt worden.” Friedrich
Schleiermacher Allgemeine Hermeneutik von 1809/10, p. 1272, quoted from
<http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermeneutik>, note 32.
21
For an overview, see, e.g., Manfred Frank Das individuelle Allgemeine
Textstrukturierung und Textinterpretation nach Schleiermacher (Frank-
furt am Main: Suhrkamp 1977) 382 pp.; Paul Ricoeur Essays on Biblical
Interpretation ed. Lewis S. Mudge (Philadelphia: Fortress Press 1980) ix +
182 pp.; for a comprehensive summary, see Werner Jeanrond Theological
Hermeneutics Development and Significance (London & New York:
Macmillan & Crossroad 1991) xv + 220 pp.
Old237-309 11/12/19 9:22 Page 267
some further fragments (records, references and contempo-

rary documents of questionable authenticity treated as
apocrypha) that we can rely on.
For twenty centuries from CHRIST’s era onward, scholars What can explain the
—Old Testament readers imbued with philosophico-theo- historically varying
logical interests, classical philologists with theoretical veins interpretation
and others—have been contemplating the question of of old corpuses?
whether it is our world that is changing, or, as the case may
be, classical texts like the Old Testament, Greek and Roman
texts, or even SHAKESPEARE’s22 (i.e., oeuvres and inscrip-
tions) are changing over time.That is, what explains that our
interpretations, born in different periods of time, are based
on the same texts, but nevertheless change from one era to
another as if reflecting their own era instead of (or besides)
their subjects? Or, questions are raised and answered one by
one, questions that can be best formulated on grounds of the
hermeneutical tradition. For instance, whether variability
can be compatible with what is, by definition, unchanged
and unchangeable in and of itself, and how it can be so.
Let us suppose that the student of the Bible, SCHLEIERMACHER, truth × falsity? or a
surpasses the results achieved by another Old Testament scholar.Well, is result of the age?
he entitled for this reason to tell his predecessor: “Sir, you were wrong”?
And what if SCHLEIERMACHER is really in the position to prove the
sustainability of his opinion? Will this necessarily imply that the previous
opinions were wrong? The question is thought-provoking indeed. Inas-
much as the earlier opinion proves to be wrong, this will tacitly imply that
also our own relationship to the text cannot be other than an error based
on a previous error. However, we may propose an alternative path of
argumentation as well, which differs in direction, yet is nonetheless chal-
lenging from a methodological point of view. Hence we may ask: is it
feasible that the meaning is not solely and exclusively drawn from the
text? Is it conceivable that the relationship between the text and i t s
meaning is by far not as absolute and exclusive as it was expected to have
been before? Are there maybe rules of use of the signs not hidden and
22
Cf., e.g., Shakespeare in a Changing World Essays, ed. Arnold Kettle
(London & New York: International Publishers 1964) 269 pp.
Old237-309 11/12/19 9:22 Page 268
certainly not unambiguously reconstructible from the text? Or, more

precisely, can it be the case that those rules may be inherent in the text
but concomitantly also in the era and cultural environment into which
we happened to be born, and especially in which and into which we were
socialised? Is it therefore ultimately the culture into which all we are
socialised in our own time and era, which is organised by, and organises
incessantly from, the mass of conventions making this culture live and
liveable, that is, also helping us explain signs and sign-carriers in a given
way?
The text gets its The hermeneutical tradition is essentially the way of
interpretation in the thinking relying on the a n a l y s i s o f t e x t s of the
tradition biblical heritage and, in general, of testimonies of the
cultural past in a classical philological sense.The recognition
at its basis is the following: even our apparently most
abstract abstractions cannot be interpreted in and of them-
selves. Regardless of how one intends to act, he will still
follow paths and move within the boundaries of his own
traditions (or, we might hazard to say: of paradigms). For
whatever one does, he will perceive, sense and interpret
mainly these traditions, will depart from and arrive at them,
pursuing only the endless f o l l o w i n g o f h i s o w n
t r a d i t i o n s . Thus, tradition is a key concept for
hermeneutics.23 It is a generic term for what bridges and
links the text to the human being who decyphers the text.
Meaning, what we, so to say, unravel from the text, is at all
times gained from the interpretation of a text within the
context established by the underlying tradition. Therefore
23
For the relationship of tradition to culture, cf., by the author, ‘Legal
Traditions? In Search for Families and Cultures of Law’ in Legal Theory /
Teoría del derecho Legal Positivism and Conceptual Analysis / Postivismo
jurídico y análisis conceptual: Proceedings of the 22nd IVR World Congress
Granada 2005, I, ed. José Juan Moreso (Stuttgart: Steiner 2007), pp.
181–193 [ARSP Beiheft 106] & [as a national report presented at the World
Congress of the Académie internationale de Droit comparé] in <http://
www2.law.uu.nl/priv/AIDC/PDF%20files/IA/IA%20-%20Hungary.pdf>
& Acta Juridica Hungarica 46 (2005) 3–4, pp. 177–197 & <http://www.
akademiai.com/content/f4q29175h0174r11/fulltext.pdf>.
Old237-309 11/12/19 9:22 Page 269
tradition has a dual significance. It is important for the

contemporaries in their efforts to gain meaning, but it also
gives a key for cases that occur in subsequent times when
the predecessors’ understanding of a given text has to be
reconstructed and justified. Nonetheless, this involves the
following consequence: the same text, if placed into the
context of different traditions, will allow different meanings
to be unraveled from (and, ultimately, ascribed to) it.Tradi-
tion thereby gives a key for later generations as well as for
different cultures to reveal and understand the textual inter-
pretation of their predecessors or contemporaries.
So, we have practically arrived at the dilemma marked by with neither neutral
the symbolic instance of the Missionaries in the Boat.24 This language, nor neutral
involves the realisation that human knowledge—i.e., all point of reference
knowledge related to human activity and human culture available
(practically everything that does not pertain to nature, until
finally natural sciences too are proven to be cultural sciences
themselves, even if more indirectly)—with all of its concepts
included, must be regarded as c u l t u r a l l y s a t u -
r a t e d , bound and dependent. This is where the image
inspiring the above title derives from: various missionaries
are sitting in a boat, trying to form an image on the world
24
According to its original formulation, “In this model, the missionary, [Missionaries
the trader, the labor recruiter or the government official arrives with the in the Boat]
bible, the mumu, tobacco, steel axes or other items of Western domination
on an island whose society and culture are rocking along the never never
land of structural-functionalism, and with the onslaught of the new, the
social structure, values and life-way of the »happy« natives crumble. The
anthropologist follows in the wake of the impacts caused by the Western
agents of change, and then tries to recover what might have been.” Bernard
S. Cohn ‘Anthropology and History: The State of the Play’ Comparative
Studies in Society and History 22 (1980) 2, pp. 198–221 on p. 199. Cf. also
Hans Medick ‘Missionaries in the Rowboat? Ethnological Ways of Knowing
as a Challenge to Social History’ Comparative Studies in Society and History
29 (1987) 1, pp. 76–98 & in The History of Everyday Life Reconstructing
Historical Experiences and Ways of Life, ed. Alf Ludtke (Princeton, New
Jersey: Princeton University Press 1995), pp. 41–71 [Princeton Studies in
Culture/Power/History].
Old237-309 11/12/19 9:22 Page 270
that surrounds them.Yet, their situation is paradoxical from

the beginning, as the entire environment around them, the
“facts” and “artifacts” among which they are placed—boat,
water, and so on—and they themselves relate to one another
from the first moment as the potential messangers of
different cultures. So, they have neither a neutral language,
nor a point of reference which could be outside of all what
they themselves are or what they can at all sense with their
own culture, wanting to learn about it.
with the observer Notwithstanding that we are now meditating within the
adding to observation sphere of cultural anthropology, neither ALBERT EINSTEIN’s
inevitably view used when explaining physical relativism, nor the one
of particle physics and quantum mechanics on the inevitable
interference by the instruments of human experimentation
(proving how rudimentary formations theories are as
compared to the experimented subject, and yet it is them by
the help of which we have to break in upon the subject, inter-
fering with its natural medium, if we are to gain information
on it at all) differs much from this.Consequently, although
observation can only be performed through the use of an
instrument, it will still be a kind of observation equalling to
the intervention into the on-going processes.
EINSTEIN: parameters As opposed to the prevalent thought of previous eras
can only be drawn which could take certain more or less firm positions on the
from respective basis of which entities and aspects of the world could be
positions and inter- safely reconstructed and arranged, EINSTEIN had to realise
connections that there are no fixed points of reference but only relations
between entitites in constant motion.We may posit anything
we please, but we can relate our parameters exclusively
to p o s i t i o n a l s i t u a t i o n s and their i n t e r -
c o n n e c t i o n s . Everything we can formulate about
substances, ourselves and the various dimensions and para-
meters, is interpretable only in the above terms and as their
function. Moreover, this only makes sense when placed into
a contextual framework—at least we can only interpret it
within a context—in which o u r o w n p o s i t i o n
toward the p o s i t i o n of anything else is, in principle, also
inherent. In addition, everything else is, too, in constant
m o t i o n . So, our knowledge speaks about the relationship
Old237-309 11/12/19 9:22 Page 271
of such non-fixed points in incessant motion, and we can

make statements on anything only within the range and
context of the relations between these entities in move, ulti-
mately even when we intend to formulate scientific theses on
things that appear undoubtedly solid at the first sight (e.g.,
substance).25
Returning to the problems symbolised by the metaphor of Σ: “your culture as
the Missionaries in the Boat, it turns out that whenever we interpreted by mine”
come into contact with another culture and try to reason on
its perceived aspects, it is eventually our own cultural tradi-
tions, scientific presuppositions and ways of thinking that
are projected onto the given culture—simply to be able to
speak about it. It ultimately derives from this that such gaps
(and jumps to bridge them) are perhaps not exclusive for the
relation bridging the “missionary” background cultures
under observation. What is to be observed, due to being
unknown, can be the possible representation of a different
and thus utterly independent culture. However, not being
capable to step outside the spell of our own culture, we can
only understand a different culture by projecting ours onto
it (“y o u r c u l t u r e i n t e r p r e t e d b y m i n e ”)
and attempt to draw some conclusions from this intercul-
tural encounter. Obviously, these should not be conclusions
which involve our own culture only, but which truly—more
precisely: to the possible extent—describe and explain the
relevant aspects of the observed culture.
Following such an argumentation coherently might as an empathetic
disclose that we Hungarians think differently than, for tune-in instead of
instance, the Dutch do, although we all have our roots in the ‘cognition’
European culture. We may even arrive at the extreme reali-
sation that each person is a unique and matchless individual,
so to say, and that every manifestation of human thinking is
the carrier of itself, building its own traditions. So, following
25
See also, e.g., Karl Brinkman ‘Physikalischer und juristischer Posi-
tivismus: Ein Versuch über Einstein und Kelsen’ Philosophia Naturalis 23
(1986) 4, pp. 511–546.
Old237-309 11/12/19 9:22 Page 272
this line of thought up to the absurd, we can state that from

the variability of social cultures we may even arrive at
constructing gaps between the individual sets of human
existence, and formulate the need for them to be bridged,
claiming that human commerce and communication
implies cultural transformation and the reflection of one
culture by the other. Or, in a more precise formulation,
instead of cognising a culture we can only set the more
humble goal of interpreting this culture through our own.
This is nothing more than a process of approximation which
is never complete, and when an optimum result is accom-
plished, this still does not generate congruence but an
empathetic tune-in or intellectual participation at most.
Regardless of the acceptance or rejection of this conceptual
duality, it still remains a fact that we have no other means of
penetrating the other culture—to have an insight into it or to
establish a cognitive relationship with it—than to recourse to
such an empathetic approximation.
(example: When drawing even superficial conclusions for law, our
can legal borrowing first question is: what truly happens when we import a law?
be completed without How can we intellectually reconstruct the wide-spread
simultaneous cultural reception of the Roman law, the historical cases of legal
transplantation?) transplantation, with the introduction of the Swiss civil code
to Turkey to replace local Muslim institutions and tradi-
tions, or the silent but long-lasting impacts of the various
French and German codes in Japan?26 For it immediately
strikes the eye that whenever we deal with social institutions
and institutionalisations like the l a w ’s, representing
mostly a c u l t u r e , and along with it, an i n s t i -
t u t i o n a l i s a t i o n and i n t e r i o r i s a t o n o f
m e a n i n g s (manifest in texts of norm-structures enacted
through legislation as in Civil Law systems, or actualised in
26
Cf., by the author, e.g., Codification as a Socio-historical Phenomenon
(Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó 1991), part one, especially ch. 5, para. 4, as
well as ‘Jogátültetés, avagy a kölcsönzés mint egyetemes jogfejlesztô
tényezô’ [Legal transplantation or borrowing as a universal factor of legal
development] Állam- és Jogtudomány XXIII (1980) 2, pp. 286–298.
Old237-309 11/12/19 9:22 Page 273
judicial decisions as in Common Law systems and other

arrangements in which the law is embodied by authoritative
declarations—made in the name of law—of what is
considered to have ever been the law), the issue of legal
transplantation becomes rather interesting. Namely, how
can we exert an influence on one culture through the instru-
mentalities of another culture? Since, as we know, everything
we can transplant or accept as the reception of Roman law—
namely, the text—is not culture but its manifestation, for
culture is t r a d i t i o n proper.
Well, it becomes evident from this context that tradition Transfer of law is only
itself consists merely of cultural paradigms and presupposi- partial, reduced to the
tions, skills and sensibilities, mental and emotional attitudes technical level
and responses. So, it is the total of socialisations which on
their turn originate typical conventions. For instance, what
is given? What is the donné in it, and what is the construit? Or,
what do we mean by meaning? All in all, everything consid-
ered, what we usually call legal transplantation can in the
final analysis be nothing more substantial than a mere tech-
nicality, in the course of which texts with norm-structures,
conceptual connections and shifts of context are offered for
technical combination and utilisation. Furthermore, trans-
plantation can only be partial and exclusively unique.
Continuing our query: what is the case with law-making? (example: not even
When limiting the dilemma of the Missionaries in the Boat to law-making is capable
micro-conditions, it turns out that the legislator (insofar as of renewal without
the law-giver is one identifiable person or a group of identi- new traditions
fiable persons, or a corporation presentable as a person) originated)
represents and acts within one given culture, although we
humans, conceived as individuals, bear different cultures in
ourselves. So, it may occur that, after all, we are addressed in
vain, because the features that distinguish us (or make us feel
different) from others keep us untouched and uninvolved.
Anyway, investigating the possibilities of influencing by law,
and generating social change through the law within a soci-
ological perspective (facing the issue how law and society
can be addressed and incited to change through legislation)
reveals that the legislator can realise extremely minor, more-
over, dubious accomplishments merely by the act of
Old237-309 11/12/19 9:22 Page 274
enacting a text.27 The decisive factor is still hermeneutical: is

there an effective and proper tradition available? Can proper
tradition develop on the grounds of certain antecedents,
including the enacted text? As is known, there are no ways
for a legislator to originate tradition, and very limited
chances to influence tradition. He does not dispose of any
specific, necessary or duly effective means in the same way
as we just talk without grounds when we state that we have
learned another culture through our own.
through mere All of us have a certain culture, and by making reference
projection to it, either of us can claim: “I interpret your culture through
mine”. This is more justifiable as an expression. For we do
not claim by this that we learned what is different and
distinct from our culture, but, more modestly, we claim that
we make efforts at interpreting the other culture by
p r o j e c t i n g our own culture on it in order to gain rele-
vant information on it—for ourselves, for our purposes, for
own use. The legislator’s goal can be this at the most. He
issues a text; announces that he issued such text; then he can
largely hope (and encourage by the help of instruments of
mediation at his disposal, as well as of the governmental
machinery, media, etc. within the social system, making us
involved by threatening us or by promising advantages) that
we, addressees, will understand his text the same way he did.
But, after all, at the intersection of our respective cultures
(the culture of the legislator at any given time, and ours, the
current addressees), both the legislator and we are not able
to generate more than a mere i n t e r p r e t a t i o n a l
s i t u a t i o n . In other words, there is no direct means of, or
27
Cf., above all, Antony Allott The Limits of Law (London: Butterworths
1980) xx + 322 pp. and especially at pp. 5–16 as well as, by the author, ‘The
Law and its Limits’ Acta Juridica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 34
(1992) 1–2, pp. 49–56 & in Csaba Varga Law and Philosophy Selected Papers
in Legal Theory (Budapest: ELTE Project on “Comparative Legal
Cultures” 1994), pp. 91–96 [Philosophiae Iuris], reprinted in Indian Socio-
Legal Journal An International Journal of Legal Philosophy, Law and
Society [Jaipur: Indian Institute of Comparative Law] 25 (1999) 1–2, pp.
129–134.
Old237-309 11/12/19 9:22 Page 275
access to, shaping either the interpretational tradition of the

addressees or the contextuality of the texts at the legislator’s
disposal. Tradition prevails due to our everyday thinking,
commerce and communicational practice that maintains it.
As in social matters, reproduction of the social being is also
complemented here by incessant re-adaptation through re-
actualisation. Thus neither of us can master tradition in a
direct way, and tradition as such stands beyond the reach of
our intentions and influence. Neither is the legislator able to
do more than any of us can: shape and form a text. In profes-
sional terms: he drafts and enacts a norm, then promulgates
it as law. He thereby attaches legal validity to a text, and
orders a potentially coercive apparatus within the executive
and judicial branches of the state power to “apply” the text—
its obligatory application being a specific duty within the
spheres of their respective competence.
In a long-term perspective, the aim of the legislator cannot (example: tradition
be other than to influence the traditions of each of us, being inaccessible,
changing the traditions of the entire circle of addressees step law-maker addresses
by step. Since tradition is after all something interior, and the external
what can be influenced from without is our exterior. This is behaviour)
to say that both the legislator and his coercive apparatus can
only react if we acted in a way externally manifest, otherwise
not. This is why only externally manifest conduct, describ-
able and identifiable through external features, can be
subjected to normative regulation in law, and this is why
conducts qualified by law are always defined by those exter-
nally identifiable features that constitute a case in law.28
This is exactly what the hermeneutical conception in a hermeneutical
suggests, and it is justifiable. Our cognition is intercultural, situation
whereas human interest in human matters is not merely
intercultural but also assumes interpretation, projection on,
28
Those “facts that constitute a case in law” is the conceptual product
of abstraction, an issue of late 19th century German criminal law doctrine
[Tatbestand]. It presumes the qualifiability of any behaviour (etc.) through
criteria defined by describing normatively what facts do constitute a case in
law.
Old237-309 11/12/19 9:22 Page 276
and reflection by, the culture. The same holds for law. Law
has only one possibility of action, and that is to operate with
texts, for it does not dispose of other means to alter tradition.
(example: breaking Further consequences may derive from this. It might
tradition may fail occur that the normative requirement is entirely fulfilled but
despite successful we still cannot exert direct influence upon tradition. So, it
law-enforcement) may occur that the state enforces the law all through, but the
underlying purpose that initially made the legislator perform
the legislative act will remain out of the reach of law, and the
tradition of the initial sphere of addresses will remain
socially inaccessible. Shortly, the law was enforced inspite of
all the efforts that led to its drafting and enforcement having
proved unsuccessful.29
Lexicality According to the lexical conception, something becomes
may render anything a sign by attaching a meaning to it. Anything perceptible—
a sign or meaning oscillation of air or electric impulse—becomes a sign if it
designates something, that is, a meaning is attached to the
designator (that is, by the normative definition of designa-
tion) leading to the designated (for instance, by pointing at
the designated object), re-asserting the convention: this is a
sign inasmuch as it designates that. Well, this is what makes
the sign a sign, and it cannot be a sign without it. In conse-
quence, this is what makes the text become a text. A piece of
paper bears a text because there are signs on it, and not just
some meaningless scribble (generated by, e.g., chance).
May artistic If we blow on dust and the specks of dust arrange them-
production also selves into a given configuration: can we take this as a
become random generator of message at all? Should we consider a sound
expression? uttered by a new-born child a text? As is well-known,30 in the
wave of prevailing deconstructionism, it is a serious issue in
art today whether the random outcome of the random oper-
ation of a paint-sprayer, or the setting of a computer to
schematically programmed probabilities can or cannot
result in art. After all, the question may also arise whether it
is art if someone doodles on a piece of paper in his boredom.
We may regard certain tacitly accepted or apparently
conventional limits as established. Accordingly, for instance,
whenever the artist does not have any personal influence
upon the outcome then the product (coming out from his
Old237-309 11/12/19 9:22 Page 277
hands, from his devices or studio, etc.) should eventually not

be taken as art, or maybe as minimal art at most, that is: it
will be considered art in the exclusive sense that it happened
to be the artist in question who invented the procedure of
generation, or, after all, launched the unreproducible (and,
in this sense, artistically unique) process.
As a reverse case, we should think of a dramatic social What happens if
turn—for example, the formation of a Nazi or Bolshevist, or with signs unchanged
simply a dictatorial type of totalitarian social influence— the culture of meaning
when maybe no formal change is effectuated in the wording changes?
of legal texts which would cause the respective change in the
law’s meaning, but such changes are forced through (by
means of propaganda, by hammering the opinion of some as
the mainstream to encourage conformism, by simple
deceit,31 intimidation or eventually brute force) in the social
traditions conventionalising the meaning that the text itself
will from then on be understood differently. In such a case
(by far not hypothetical or imaginary, but acutely actual as
experienced throughout the 20th century history in Central
and Eastern Europe) we can positively state: despite the text
being formally identical with itself, it is no longer the same
with regard to its meaning.
Thus we may arrive at the analysis of what variants and layers of (example: STALIN’s
meaning STALIN’s 1936 Constitution had, for instance.Today it is but an Constitution of1936)
addition to GEORGE LUKÁCS’ communist intellectual career to realise
how far he went (from a philosopher’s pedestal and with inerrancy of
31
See, e.g., the dishonestly irresponsible political manipulation with the
concept of “civil disobedience” as well as the subsequent attempts at justi-
fying the disturbances when a ‘taxi-drivers’ blockade’ was generated in
Hungary in autumn 1991. Cf., by the author, ‘Civil Disobedience: Pattern
with no Standard?’ in his Transition to Rule of Law On the Democratic Trans-
formation in Hungary (Budapest: ELTE “Comparative Legal Cultures”
Project 1995), pp. 111–118 [Philosophiae Iuris] and ‘At the Crossroads of
Civil Obedience and Disobedience’ in his Transition? To Rule of Law?
Constitutionalism and Transitional Justice Challenged in Central &
Eastern Europe (Pomáz: Kráter 2008), pp. 262–271 [PoLíSz series 7] & ‘At
the Crossroads of Civil Obedience and Disobedience (A Case Study of a
Moment of Constitutional Impotence in Hungary)’ Central European Polit-
ical Science Review 9 (2008), No. 31, pp. 68–77.
Old237-309 11/12/19 9:22 Page 278
principle) with his euphonic praise of the greatness of the work accom-
plished by the Soviet leader.32 And, initiating the rest of the world into his
professional enthusiasm, he publicly admired the extent of human
freedom and the completion of this new type of democracy STALIN
ensured. We may undoubtedly accept it as a fact, on the one hand, that
the text—in German translation—might have messaged exactly this for
him. On the other hand, however, there must have been something else
as well (for instance, a deep personal identification, or a fear-driven intel-
lectual search for physical survival) which made him able to profess this
in the given form, being aware of the conditions in Soviet Russia in which
he himself opted to live. How should the text proper and its meaning be
assessed? What does it actually mean? For it could have meant something
for GEORGE LUKÁCS as the satisfaction gained from his almost religious
belief in the eschatological perspective taught him by his Bolshevik
understanding of the philosophy of history, and could have meant some-
thing else to commoners with less intellectually driven traditions: it
could have meant, for example, the ideology covering the harsh reality
which the Soviet practice had actually brought for the hundreds of
millions of miserables at its mercy, dehumanising both victims and
butchers.
Law: text Provided the hermeneutical tradition is methodologically

in the tradition defensible, its underlying conception will allow to surface
what could not surface from the lexical conception—where
the strict separation of “construction” from “functioning”
might have suggested that the work of shaping the law is
completed at some point in time: the law is ready to be
applied by the mere fact of having been enacted; for it is
complete as a textual embodiment of meanings, therefore it
is another question of how the outcome will be operated,
which obviously can be done well or badly alike—, namely:
the work of the l a w is no other than of a t e x t w i t h i n
t r a d i t i o n : placed into tradition, conventionalised
within and through tradition. In consequence, the law can
no longer be identified with a text, not even conceptually.
32
Georg Lukács ‘Zum Verfassungsentwurf der U.S.S.R.: Die neue
Verfassung der U.S.S.R. und das Problem der Persönlichkeit’ Internationale
Literatur [Moscow] (1936) 9, pp. 50–53.
Old237-309 11/12/19 9:22 Page 279
Obviously, if we transcend the problem of calling the text a

“source of law”, it will be just as metaphysical as asking: what
is the existence and essence of a source of law? Of course, it
is another situation when whatever the law states of itself is
taken for granted, that is, when the doctrine the law help
formulating for its official ideology is uncritically taken over
by legal scholarship into the framework of theoretical recon-
struction. On the other hand, when the concept of law
gained from the hermeneutical approach is tested against
social practice, practically the concept of the source of law
will again have to be torn to pieces, as it is so heavily loaded
with so many meanings that it ultimately becomes perfectly
emptied even from a metaphysical perspective. Anyway, the
survey above is not meant to criticise the various concepts of
law, since they seem to be reasonable and useful notional
tools after all, for any kind of legal game on the European
continent.
From the perspective of the hermeneutical tradition, the because the law is
l e g a l p h e n o m e n o n is a complex formation. Its also co-existent with a
conceptual sphere and its reality manifested in societal exis- given social environ-
tence includes the law’s s o c i a l e n v i r o n m e n t as ment
well, thus, among other things, the community with all
features presumed and posited by it. Accordingly, the legal
phenomenon is by no means a simple t e x t , neither is it
some pure objectivation. In the light of a hermeneutically
grounded conception we may realise that even the notion of
social r o u t i n e (which we applied when dealing with
questions of contextual meaning) is eventually the conse-
quence projected upon everyday practice that we have
confirmed the tradition under average circumstances and
with routinish recurrence, that is, in mass and as free of
doubts.
Obviously, in the same way that, in principle, there is no Meaning is neither
meaning free of doubts, there is no meaning unalterably free of doubts nor
identical with itself either. Of course, it may happen that in unalterably identical
typical social situations tradition is continuously confirmed with itself:
in routine ways, therefore it is not a problem that relevant changing the meaning
meanings may also seem unambigous from time to time. It also changes the law
goes without saying that unambiguity is a pragmatic concept
Old237-309 11/12/19 9:22 Page 280
too, tailored to fit the demands and conditions of social prac-

tice. It is unambiguous f o r u s only when no doubts arise
whether its operation may cause any problems. Preserv-
ing the meaning’s identity—at least in case of lasting
processes—is the function of preserving the tradition’s iden-
tity. Hence the long-lasting identity and unambiguity of the
meaning can only result from the routine-like confirmation
of tradition. On the other hand, it will also be conspicuous
that the change of meaning does not derive exclusively from
a textual change. More precisely, changing the signs is only
one of the possible alternatives to change meanings.That is,
change of meaning can also be effectuated through the
change of its conventionalising environment. In other
words, c h a n g i n g t h e l a w i t s e l f is not without
alternatives, this being only one of the possibilities of l e g a l
c h a n g e .33
(alternative strategies “[I]f law as a working system is composed of formal enactment and
for changing the law its social contexts making it interpretable and setting it in function a n d
itself or for provoking if a change of any of its components may cause a change of the law as a
legal change) working whole, there is offered a perspective for an a l t e r n a t i v e
s t r a t e g y . I mean thereby that a struggle for the law can be fought
through a struggle for confirming / reforming / revoking its formal enact-
ment and through a struggle for strengthening / reshaping / loosening its
social contexts as well, and that any of these alternatives can eventually
lead to the same goal as set.”34
33
For the background, cf., from the author, ‘Law as History?’ in his
Law and Philosophy Selected Papers in Legal Theory (Budapest: ELTE
“Comparative Legal Cultures” Project 1994), pp. 475–484 [Philosophiae
Iuris].
34
Csaba Varga ‘Is Law a System of Enactments?’ [1984] in his Law and
Philosophy..., para 4.3, pp. 396–397. “It is also their existence as a
continuum that makes it possible to understand why their historical nature
is so important from the point of view of practical action as well. For their
being a continuum in constant motion and change is also a function of their
environment, in the interaction with which they are shaped. Or, the way
they transcend themselves and by which their reproduction through their
continued reinterpretation is achieved is not only a function of them but of
the general culture and (political, legal, etc.) cultures of specialised fields as
Old237-309 11/12/19 9:22 Page 281
In a hermeneutical sense, the text itself as a carrier of Eventually, law is

meanings changes when the underlying tradition undergoes what is practised
a change. For a subsequent receiver the meaning will again in the name of it
be different. Needless to say, from the perspective of any
realistic conception of law, only that law can be truly
regarded as law which is experienced as law in the everyday
practice of implementation and enforcement, issuing from
its everyday (official and spontaneous) interpretation.
Finally, there is only one question left open within the
present framework—provided we accept the message of the
hermeneutical tradition as justified. Can there be cognition
and linguistic communication unaffected by the aforesaid?
In sum, we must note: the world-wide recognition of the Hermeneutics
hermeneutical tradition invoked a breakthrough which launched a
seems definite and irreversible for the development of the breakthrough in the
theories of meaning. The justifiability of the perspectives it theory of meaning
offered is no longer questioned. The lexical theory of
meaning has dominated the field unaltered for centuries as
the epistemological precondition and methodological para-
digm of our thinking; the contextual theory of meaning has
rather played a walking-on part with its importance
exhausted mostly in shaking the absolutism of lexicality;
hermeneutics, however, now heralds a complete break-off, a
change of paradigms in its wake. All subsequent formula-
tions and trends have excelled by more comprehensive
reformulations, or by new partial recognitions (as we will see
in the next case of open texture), their driving forces being
perhaps the strive for further theoretical universalisation or
well. It is so to such an extent that even the fight for them may have alter-
native actions to take. Namely, an action directed at them may aim at their
shaping in a direct way (as, in the case of law, directed at its enacted text),
as well as in an indirect way, through the cultural context in the interaction
with which they are shaped (as, in the case of law, with the mediation of legal
policies and legal culture, made to be strong enough to be able to have a
genuine role to play).” Csaba Varga ‘Institutions As Systems: An Essay on
the Closed Nature, Open Vistas of Development, as well as the Trans-
parency of the Institutions and their Conceptual Representations’ [1988] in
Law and Philosophy…, para. 18, pp. 422–423.
Old237-309 11/12/19 9:22 Page 282
an ad absurdum reaching of the extreme limits of theoreti-

cally conceivable possibilities (as in the case of the after-next
deconstructionism).
5.1.4. Open texture

Designation: The recognition of the open-textured field of meaning is
a practical task again rooted in the common realisations of the theories of
practically performed, meaning presented so far. Accordingly, it acknowledges the
according to the sign—be it taken as a mere term or as a concept—to bear a
typicality furnished by designation, it however starts from the pragmatic realisation
the routine (later proven also by philosophical analyses) that it can meet
its end—just as any end can be met by any means—only in
part and with definite restrictions. That is to say, the prac-
tical task of designation can only be accomplished in a
p r a c t i c a l way. As is known, practical routine in
everyday life is distinguished from situations that require
creative solutions. So, whenever the sign is used to designate,
it can only be done so in some particular direction. In
everyday routine, typical situations receive routinish
answers, and in order to routinise and justify these solutions,
we furnish the proper terminological and conceptual identi-
fications and delimitations. The issue of what qualifies
typical in everyday life will be fully decided and responded
to in a practical way, hence it is by no means the direct func-
tion of the ontological or epistemological recognition of
metaphysical connections. Its only relevant aspect is a prac-
tical realisation. Accordingly, designation can exclusively
point to one given direction, leaving any other directions
open, because what is not designated cannot be taken as
designated at all.
Wedging in Let us recall the deeply philosophical, conceptual and
intermediate phases methodological dilemma, most delicate and constantly
will increase recurring in legal evaluation: how can we notionally delimit
uncertainty things that do not delimit themselves from one another in
reality? How can we distinguish entities or states in contin-
uous juxtaposition, overlapping and interchanging? How
can we separate the young from the old, day from the night,
winter from the summer, life from death, snow from water,
or even the horse’s tail from the continuation of his aitch-
Old237-309 11/12/19 9:22 Page 283
bone?35 It goes without saying that notions in a line of grad-

uation can still be distinguished from one another along the
grades. Although methodological attempts at more precise
delimitation in these issues of d e g r e e reveal as recurrent
experience that wedging in intermediate phases (e.g.,
‘twilight’, ‘spring’, ‘autumn’, ‘thawing’) weakens our uncer-
tainty in the direction concerned underlying the
delimitation, but leaves it untouched in all other directions.
Moreover, by wedging in further intermediate partition
lines, it eventually enhances the sources and factors of
uncertainty.36
Well, the same can be said of the various attempts at “Open texture”
correction (through improvement or closure). New specific in language
closures we may attempt to accomplish can close themselves
at most, that is, can close the given direction, while allowing
new kinds and directions of undefinedness to emerge. This
generates an unavoidable duality in language use: uses of
notions are defined by given practical interests, yet our
efforts at (in principle) exhaustively asserting previous
determinations in and through language—that is, close
directions, fields, etc. which point beyond the range deter-
mined by the respective use of notions—cannot be
accomplished, not even from a structural perspective.
FRIEDRICH WAISMANN termed this structural undeter-
minedness of language “open texture”.37
35
“Courts of Justice ought not to be puzzled by such old scholastic [after all, the judge‘s
questions as to where the horse’s tail begins and where it ceases. You are task is to make
obliged to say, ‘This is a horse’s tail’, at some time.” Justice Chitty in Lavery
decision]
v. Pursell 39 Ch. D. (1888) 508, p. 517, quoted by Glainville Williams
‘Language and the Law: II’ Law Quarterly Review 61 (1945) 2, pp. 179ff on
p. 184.
36
Cf., by the author, Theory of the Judicial Process..., pp. 116–117.
37
Friedrich Waismann ‘Verifiability’ [Proceedings of the Aristotelian
Society 19 (1949)] in Essays on Logic and Language ed. Antony Flew
(Oxford: Blackwell 1951), pp. 117–144.
Old237-309 11/12/19 9:22 Page 284
(example: book & car) Once the open texture of linguistic meaning is accepted in
principle,38 various (actual or imaginary) questions may be
raised, moreover, they can even be answered within the
limits of practicality. For instance, what does the notion of
‘book’ mean? We could set various conceptual criteria refer-
ring, for example, to its production through printing, to the
minimum number of pages it must bear, or even to the
applied binding procedure. Such definitions may prove
useful in average cases or as library standards, nevertheless,
questions to be decided in practical situations will still not be
eliminated. Let us take some examples. From what extent of
largeness (or smallness) is it still (and already) worthwhile to
speak about books at all? Can a simple colligation of printed
documents or posters, (re)paginated posteriorly, qualify as a
book? Or, can newspapers or prints originally published at
various places and times bound under a single cover be
38
[WITTGENSTEIN: the “We introduce a concept and limit it in s o m e directions […].This
use of words is suffices for our present needs […]. We tend to o v e r l o o k the fact that
defined by situations, there are always other directions in which the concept has not been
defined.”Waismann, p. 120. It is HART—H. L. A. Hart ‘Jhering’s Heaven of
not by mere rules]
Concepts and Modern Analytical Jurisprudence’ {in Jherings Erbe
Göttinger Symposium zur 150. Wiederkehr des Geburtstags von Rudolph
von Jhering, ed. F. Wieacker & Chr. Wollschläger (Berlin: Vandenhoeck &
Ruprecht 1970)} in his Essays in Jurisprudence and Philosphy (Oxford:
Clarendon Press 1953), pp. 274–275—who calls our attention upon the
close relationship between WAISMANN’s idea and the conceptual recon-
struction by his contemporary, LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN, who exposes in
one of his late writings—Ludwig Wittgenstein Philosophische Untersuchungen
/ Philosophical Investigations trans. G. E. M. Anscombe (Oxford: Blackwell
1953), para. 68, 80 and 84]—that “[D]er Umfang des Begriffs nicht durch
eine Grenze abgeschlossen ist. […] Es ist nicht überall von Regeln begrenzt.
/ [T]he extension of the concept is not closed by a frontier. […] It is not
everywhere circumscribed by rules.” “[W]ir nicht für alle Möglichkeiten
seiner Anwendung mit Regeln ausgerüstet sind? / [W]e are not equipped
with rules for every possible application of it?” “Ich sagte von der Anwen-
dung eines Wortes: sie sei nich überall von Regeln begrenzt. / I said that the
application of a word is not everywhere bounded by rules.”
Old237-309 11/12/19 9:22 Page 285
considered a book? And if it turns out that a collection of

pages of braille results in a book, then can the same be
gained from binding floppy-disks together? Similarly, we
appear to know quite well what to think of when we say
“car”.Yet, can a toy qualify as car if it is so small that it fits
into our hand, or if the construction of its engine allows it to
go only at a snail’s pace on the floor of the room? Or, if we
created for some special purpose a gigantic monster, big as a
few-storey house—for example, a residential edifice on a
marshland; a structure of the size of a small town, moving on
immense wheels or an oil-searching or fishing base on the
shallow see—would it qualify as a car? Or, does an air-plane
turn into a car if it has already landed and only the engines
putting its wheels into motion are in operation? Or, would a
caisson turn into a car if wheels are put on it so that a motor
can help it move on the bottom of the sea? We can realise that
the question itself is mere hair-splitting if not put with a
specific purpose. We may also realise that no reasonable
answer can be hoped for unless the underlying practical
considerations are clarified.
5.1.5. Deconstructionism
Deconstructionism was able to form a uniform doctrine A movement with
from all theories of meaning surveyed above—from their relentless
prospective core problems, methodological considerations, consequentiality
theoretical message, generalisations and over-generalisa-
tions. The deconstructionist theory soon transformed into
one of the leading movements in the humanities, posing as a
general theory of cognition with some properties usually
typical of ontological theories, while—despite its proposi-
tions being of syntactically affirmative forms—it has actually
never been more than a loosely arranged compilation of
relentlessly bold and logically outstanding criticisms and
refutations. Its novelty was provided by its almost limitless
doctrinairism: pushing rigorously and consistently through
all the merely theoretically positable statements, which—
precisely due to their polarising inclinations, moreover,
to their ultimate connotations leading to the absurd—the
traditional conceptions of science (still preserving some
Old237-309 11/12/19 9:22 Page 286
connections to reality) could no longer share; and it did this

even if being at fault for an own explanation.39
Whether or not The main thesis of deconstructionism is the realisation
tradition is followed (reaching to its ultimate consequences) according to which
depends, too, upon there are no situations into which one could enter without
interpretation own interpretation. Even deciding what qualifies as the
o b s e r v a n c e o f a t r a d i t i o n can be based only
on interpretation. Our memory is at stake in which past and
tradition can survive at all; therefore in our collectivity we
have absolute authority—controlled only by each other and
the best interpretability of the already formed subjects—
over everything transcended by time. Since the integration
of such interpretations into tradition can only be controlled
by means of interpretation resting upon tradition (the
quality of these interpretations observing a tradition them-
selves is again the issue of a subsequent interpretation), all
these interpretations can differ from one another (even run
against one another), and can also display a considerable
amount of confusion and random channelling and shifting
of directions in their processes taking place in time and
space.
At some moment a An old truth of organisational theory holds that issues
decision must be may be argued for and against to infinity. At some moment,
taken however, a decision must be taken. Then, beyond a certain
point, it will be the conclusion of the debate in an undis-
39
With the logical refutation of statements serving as explanation in
debates, with the gesture of contradiction, that is, by declaring unprov-
ability and non-consequence, deconstructionisms may serve as the
indispensable means of scientific self-control, the fact notwithstanding that
they do provide no explanations by themselves and particularly not exclu-
sive ones. It was at the Yale Law School in 1988 after a scholarly debate that
I enthused to one of the living classics of legal realism about the animating
force of a fashionable trend, mainstream there and then. Having listened all
along, he finally turned to me, in the silent serenity of settled wisdom, with
a couple of questions. Have I ever thought of all this being anything more
than parasitism, because its message has a meaning only together with what
it tries to negate? That is, a negation can have a meaning only in function of
a previous statement? And that no theory proper ever was born out of sheer
negation? And what our world became if there were no constructive sugges-
tions on solutions but doubts and criticisms exclusively?
Old237-309 11/12/19 9:22 Page 287
puted and undisputable manner that will matter as a crite-

rion and not the ways and merits of how this is eventually
done. In law, as well as in the mechanisms of executive
(governmental) decision-making, formalised issues belong
mostly to such a category. Various opinions can be wielded
in society on constitutional, legal and other topical issues on
the part of politicians, professionals, public figures, partisans
of omitted causes, affected and unaffected citizens alike.
Although, in order for the constitutionality, legality or right-
fulness of the relevant claims to be ascertainable, moreover,
not in an arbitrary manner but in forms of a valid authorita-
tive ascertainment with irrevocable legal consequences
ascribed to them, the authority with competence to proceed
on has to decide firstly about the constitutionality, legality or
rightfulness of the claim concerned.The rules providing for
such competence, creating authority and procedure may be
improper, nevertheless somebody somewhere sometime has
to reach a decision, and this first and foremost requires (even
if improper) competence, authority and procedure.
It was HANS KELSEN who primarily dealt with this KELSEN: validity
problem. His theory on the theoretical significance of the originated
l e g a l f o r c e o f t h e f i n a l j u d g e m e n t [res in a static way
judicata], formulated in his later years, represented a novelty
in that it sought ways of reconstructing such a procedure
consistently, originating the validity of the procedure’s
outcome from the propositions of the law by hierarchically
breaking them down. HANS KELSEN’s entire oeuvre—span-
ning more than half a century, from the pioneering initiative
of the Hauptprobleme der Staatsrechtslehre (1911)40 to the final
version of the Reine Rechtslehre, approved at the evening
of his life (1965)41—relied basically on the s t a t i c a l
40
Hans Kelsen Hauptprobleme der Staatsrechtslehre entwickelt aus der
Lehre vom Rechtssatze (Tübingen: Mohr 1911) xxvii + 709 pp.
41
Ruth Erne ‘Eine letzte authentische Revision der Reinen Rechtslehre’
in Rechtssystem und gesellschaftliche Basis bei Hans Kelsen ed. Werner Kraw-
ietz & Helmut Schelsky (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot 1984), pp. 35–62
[Rechtstheorie, Beiheft 5].
Old237-309 11/12/19 9:22 Page 288
d e r i v a t i o n of v a l i d i t y .42 According to his theory,

advancing from the general norm-setting of the Constitu-
tion (or, in absence of a formal constitution, the hypothetical
basic norm [Grundnorm]) toward the individual concrete-
ness of the act of law-enforcement, each normative level of
the law is to be conceived of as the concretising b r e a k i n g
d o w n of the nearest more general (upper) level’s
validity—a validity which itself is originated from an upper,
more general level. Or, approaching the bottom from the
hierarchical top, the whole process amounts to a sequential
and gradual “application” of the law.
step by step and In light of examples this means that—from the Grund-
grade to grade in law norm downward—national legislation is nothing other than
one possible way of filling the general and abstract norma-
tive framework drawn by the Constituion. Continuing the
line of hierarchy, the government’s authorisation to issue its
own sources of the law means the enactment of decrees
within the framework set by legislation, and the one of local
government to enact local decrees, within the framework set
by governmental decrees.The courts are authorised to make
decisions in application of the law within the above frame-
works, and, finally, law-enforcement agencies are authorised
to concretise and individualise the orders set by judicial
decisions: what, as addressed to whom, when and how is to
be meted out as sanction.
involving the moment This theory of the hierarchical breaking down and deriva-
of dynamism as well tion of validity,43 abstractly constructed with gapless
consistency, involves beside its basic statism a moment of
d y n a m i s m as well. For each level can be extended in
space and time, giving free scope for acts and motions in
various directions, but mainly for overlaps and contra-
42
See, e.g., Letizia Gianformaggio ‘Hans Kelsen sulla deduzione della
validità’ in Da Democrito a Collingwood Studi di storia della filosofia, ed.
Alfonso Ingegno (Firenze: Olschki 1991), pp. 117–147.
43
Cf., e.g., Robert Walter ‘Die Lehre vom Stufenbau der Rechtsord-
nung’ Archivum Iuridicum Cracoviense XIII (1980), pp. 5–16. For a critical
reconstruction, also see Werner Krawietz ‘Die Lehre vom Stufenbau des
Rechts – eine säkularisierte politische Theologie?’ in Rechtssystem und
gesellschaftliche Basis, pp. 255–272.
Old237-309 11/12/19 9:22 Page 289
dictions in practical events of jurisdiction in standing

competition. Dynamism may appear not only when judicial
reference is made to the constitutional text as a historical
document but also in the sequence of consecutive amend-
ments to the Constitution or with reference to them. In
governmental decreeing one may encounter parallelism and
even rivalry between ministries and agencies (because of
structural differences and diverging interests), whereas in
local administration and the judiciary, collateralities and
competition may emerge deriving from local autonomies,
and so on.44
Still, this apparently perfect intellectual construct, static closed down
yet properly loosened by dynamism, has eventually become eventually
captive of the trap of the legal force.45 As we have seen, the by the legal force
legislator can only enact laws within the framework set by
44
The directly deductive inference and local diversity of validity is
moderated by its foundation in practice, when equally feasible but not
exclusive solutions are generalised at one level to lean on one another, and
also by its vertical building in the opposite direction, when the underlying
sources of the law are re-interpreted at a higher level to make the practice
thusly established a pattern. Cf. Torstein Eckhoff ‘Feedback in Legal
Reasoning and Rule Systems’ in Scandinavian Studies in Law 22 [1976]
(Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell 1978), pp. 39–51.
The variety of legality may get distorted sometimes to a comic level. For
example, when the public order regulation of prostitution on roads varies
from county to county today, reminiscent of the complaint once having led
to the Revolution in France, whereas “There are, it is said, one hundred and
forty-four customs in France which possess the force of law.These laws are
almost all different in different places. A man that travels in this country
changes his law almost as often as he changes his horses.” <http://oll.liberty
fund.org/ToC/0370.php> [„Il y a, dit-on, cent quarante-quatre coutumes
en France qui ont force de loi; ces lois sont presque toutes différentes. Un
homme qui voyage dans ce pays change de loi presque autant de fois qu’il
change de chevaux de poste.” Voltaire ‘Coutume’ in his Dictionnaire
philosophique, vol. VII of his Oeuvres complètes (Paris: Firmin-Didot 1876),
p. 384 & <http://www.voltaire-integral.com/Html/18/coutumes.htm>.
45
In details, see, by the author, ‘Kelsen’s Theory of Law-application:
Evolution, Ambiguities, Open Questions’ Acta Juridica Hungarica 36
(1994) 1–2, pp. 3–27 {& in his Theory of the Judicial Process..., pp. 165–201}
or ‘Hans Kelsens Rechtsanwendungslehre: Entwicklung, Mehrdeutigkei-
ten, offene Probleme, Perspektiven’ Archiv für Rechts- und Sozialphilosophie
LXXVI (1990) 3, pp. 348–366.
Old237-309 11/12/19 9:22 Page 290
the Constitution, with the purpose to break it down in

enforcement; the government can only wield executive
powers conferred by the Constitution and within the limits
of the law (issuing decrees only for the sake of and within
execution), and so forth. However, if, for whatever reason,
this happens in another way, that is, whatever the ruling
formulates either through law-making or through law-appli-
cation by the proper agent following the proper procedure,
this will instantly become an unerasable element of the legal
order once it will have entered into force. For it is well-
known that the outcome of a competent procedure done by
a competent organ becomes effective—that is, f i n a l and
d e f i n i t e within the given legal order, or, otherwise
speaking, non-appealable, therefore incontestable and irrev-
ocable—inasmuch as there is no further access to appeal in
the given procedural system, or this has not been recoursed
to by those allowed to do so.
Σ: static theory ← with On ultimate analysis, we must conclude that the static
normative desiderata; theory of the derivation of validity formulates sheer
legal force ← with desiderata, i.e., nothing more than normative criteria.
prevalence of Turning this static and formal theoretical construction into
random factuality a dynamic one by the acknowledgement of the legal force
may, however, add a further consideration to all this.
Accordingly—and this is a rather elementary realisation—
law does not have any means to interfere directly, for its
available chances are merely procedural, operating with the
opening or closing of institutionalised formal paths to be
entitled to do or enforce anything. In practice this means
that the given (or attempted) ways of the legally valid
breaking down of a higher legal validity cannot be chal-
lenged otherwise than by the exclusive fora identified by the
law in the course and within the limits of a legally institu-
tionalised procedure. Whenever such opportunity is not
guaranteed by the law for some reason, or those authorised
by the law to do so did not take the opportunity or took it
unsuccessfully for some consideration, then the particular
form and way of the given (or attempted) breaking down
transforms into the law’s ultimate and definitive stance—
even if it is a common-sense knowledge shared by politicians,
Old237-309 11/12/19 9:22 Page 291
members of the legal profession, public opinion and the

media, as well as affected and unaffected citizens, that the
breaking down in this given form was either unfounded or
expressly relied on abuse.
So, we may be able to give plenty of good advice and
afford further ideological and normative channelling helpers
for the ideal of “rule-observation” to be accomplished, yet
the means at the law’s disposal to enforce it in borderline
situations are in practice rather limited.
Therefore it is not by chance that decades after the Deconstructionism:
completion of KELSEN’s oeuvre (and the change of para- escalation of
digms incurred in the meantime), the theoretical relativising what can
reconsideration achieved by deconstructionism did not serve as a measure
return eventually to the fixed points of an alleged and merely
pre-posited certitude (which had already proven a bare and
transient ideology)46 but to the beaten path of some
comforting uncertainty, moreover, of the relativisation of
measure and measurement alike (already recognised and
even tacitly approved by KELSEN).
The various theoretical formulations and achievements of
deconstructionism, born consecutive to one another, lead to
the increasing escalations and extensions of such a sequence
of derivation. For the sake of exemplification, let us survey
three of its variants.
Firstly, according to RONALD DWORKIN,47 the law is DWORKIN:
nothing but c h a i n - w r i t i n g . It is something like when chain-writing
in a gathering somebody starts writing a story—as a game—
then somebody else continues it by adding the next row
(sentence, paragraph or page). Well, every such continued
writing forms, in principle, a gradually narrowing chain of
thoughts. Since everyone who gets involved with the contin-
uation of the story somehow always responds to what the
person before him said, or to what happened in the story
46
Cf., for the criticism in an epistemological sense of the “lawyerly
world-view” and for its disciplining and limiting effect by its ontic (onto-
logical) role, by the author, The Place of Law in Lukács’ World Concept
(Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó 1985), ch.VI, para. 4.
47
Dworkin Law’s Empire [note 12] passim and particularly on pp.
228–232.
Old237-309 11/12/19 9:22 Page 292
before his turn, somehow starting always from the under-

lying conditions and the previously set characteristics of the
story, thus—in one way or another, even if choosing silence
or pause—he will at all times continue the commenced
story. However, the question justifiably arises: is it the
commenced story indeed which he continues even if being
aware of the antecedents? Or is the taking of this one time
opportunity perhaps his self-fulfilment? So, isn’t all this
perhaps about the fact that, inspite of the wagging of
whichever tail(s) at any point in time being allowed by
certain antecedents, the decision made by whom is the last
link in the chain of how and for what reason the given tail
wags will depend on the own determination of the chain-
writer? Consequently, won’t the last link in the chain of any
given time, about whom we have just said that he
“continues” the story, think instead that all those whom he,
so to say, “continues”, simply gave him the opportunity to
write? According to his ultimate conclusion, DWORKIN—
living in a social environment still somewhat influenced by
normative structures48—might have felt that inasmuch as
this game was aimed at continuing the story, then some of
the intentions have a chance to be still executed: the parties
will probably attempt to undertake this at least.
FISH: by continuing The representative of the second variant, STANLEY FISH is
we launch more radical, yet more pessimistic with respect to the
a new start indeed previous presupposition.49 He puts the question as follows:
why would the partners attempt to “continue” the story at
48
[building a theory on We have to see the Western world’s self-conceit in both its quasi-reli-
sheer convention] gious belief in having become complete, perfect and universal (as shown by
FRANCIS FUKUYAMA’s End of History utopia on the final victory of liber-
alism) and the way RONALD DWORKIN’s ideas were received as an
established philosophy—despite resembling more an exposition of legal
argumentation with universalising abstract and doctrinaire liberalism in the
background, shared by some metropolitan audiences in the U.S.A. so
restrictively that in another environment it could easily prove to be deprived
from genuine relevancy.
49
Stanley Fish DoingWhat Comes Naturally Change and the Rhetoric of
Theory in Literary and Legal Studies (Durham & London: Duke Univer-
sity Press 1989) x + 613 pp. [Post-contemporary interventions] especially
at pp. 87–119.
Old237-309 11/12/19 9:22 Page 293
all, unless the s i t u a t i o n s ensuing one another in time

result also in p r o c e s s - d e f i n i t i o n s following one
another in a chain-like succession? Since, he rightly points it
out, every situation is, in principle, unique and defined
primarily by its own medium. Although it is also evident that
each new situation conceals the cosmos of new opportuni-
ties, and in so much it presumes restarts and branch-offs
starting out from and suited to all the conditions of its
particular singularity alike. Notwithstanding that the
succession’s relationship to its origins prevails among them,
this is not a generic one, therefore it will not narrow down
the cosmos of potential possibilities. Hence, where the
chain-writer as the “continuer” at any given time starts from
will only serve as a historical p r e t e x t for writing.
Finally, the third representative, CHARLES YABLON draws YABLON:
with relentless unambiguity the conclusions that offer them- undefinedness
selves in the deconstructionist approach out of necessity:50 in principle,
both in societal life and in communication everything is a with human decision
function of conventions. Since our communicational prac- re-contextualised
tice is characterised precisely by that each step not only
provides feedback but conventionalises again, and the actu-
alisation of conventions involves (even in the case of
approval or confirmation) a potential shift in emphasis,
maybe not visible or perceptible in and of itself, but truly
capable of resulting in a new start due to cumulation,
thereby representing a new definition. For this reason we
ought to regard, at least in principle, the whole process
(everything and at all times) as undefined. Needless to say,
u n d e f i n e d n e s s i n p r i n c i p l e does not neces-
sarily presume chaos or anarchy. What it means is only that
in the realm of social understanding and transfer of tradi-
tion, that is, in actual social processes, mechanical links and
quasi-causal definitions no longer prevail. In man’s social
world, environmental—that is, contextual, and, in this sense,
hermeneutical—influences are the exclusive ones that can
50
Charles M. Yablon ‘Law and Metaphysics’ The Yale Law Journal 96
(1987) 3, pp. 613–636 and especially at pp. 625–635.
Old237-309 11/12/19 9:22 Page 294
result in a reliability manifest in social continuity. These are

limitations that urge each of us as receptors to undertake
and respond to what we have received—through communi-
cation with our fellowmen or as inherited from
ancestors—apparently ready-to-take from preceding gener-
ations.
5.2. SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF MEANING
Meaning as We must finally ask: what is meaning after all? Without

continuum: repeating the considerations drawn from theories of
meaning presented above, our response is rather laconic:
meaning is some kind of social practice that transfers the
understandings of social actors who take part in the practice
of communication from one act of comprehension (commu-
nication) to another, reproducing in the meantime the
process of communication itself concomitant with the re-
establishment of the understanding born by the process,
which it continuously attempts to mediate. For meaning is a
process and not a ‘thing’ that could be given once and for all.
More precisely, it is some sort of a continuum. In other
words, it is a c o n t i n u i t y with limits and guiding prin-
ciples inherent in the social practice and in the latter’s
continuous re-conventionalisation. This is why meaning, as
regards its true nature, hardly differs from other social
formalisations. That is to say, the existence of and the role
played by language is not very different from that of a branch
lying across the road, or of a knot tied in a handkerchief.The
elementary act of communication ends precisely with the
feedback signalling comprehension. So, the individual act of
communication, due to its transformation into a process of
communication, reconstructs and regenerates the meaning
born by communication—thereby re-institutionalising
meaning—, but it does so exclusively as a function of re-
conventionalising re-interpretation.
roles performed For this reason we raise the question again: what does this
through co-operation social character of meaning stand for? And what is society
composed of? Well, there is a self-evident answer to this last
Old237-309 11/12/19 9:22 Page 295
5.2. SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF MEANING 295
question: society is composed of institutions. Yet, we can

continue the line of questions: what is an institution
composed of? Our exploratory answer will be more sophisti-
cated this time: it is composed of roles performed by
mutually co-operating persons. But a further question
arises: what is co-operation composed of? Who and how, and
especially with what contents will draw up its framework? We
can advance one element of the response for now: ‘co-oper-
ation’ and ‘roles performed’ are complementary notions.
One derives from the other, and they mutually determine
each other. So, where do these role spring from?
5.2.1. Speech-acts
The so-called theory of speech-acts emerged some decades Linguistic
ago, especially in the Anglo–American literature on the communication:
analysis of language. Following the path set by LUDWIG self-reproduction
WITTGENSTEIN’s scepticism, his relentless inquiries and through active social
analytical reductions to elementary situations, the theory of self-regulation
speech-acts has torn linguistic communication (as part of
social communication) from its traditional epistemological
framework, elevating it to an act of social ontological impor-
tance, to an active and creative agent of social action. The
previous absolutism of the logical approach and explanation
was also challenged, having been replaced by a concept of
a c t i v e s o c i a l s e l f - r e g u l a t i o n , which, on its
turn, is a part and an aspect of the p r o c e s s o f s o c i a l
self-reproduction.
In JOHN AUSTIN’s perspective51—who realised that Speech → acting
through language we can achieve more than the sheer re- through speech →
productive reflection of either facts or interrelations of performation →
the external world; moreover, we can only act through institutionalisation
construing our own world (that is, when speaking about the (example: how much
“world”, we necessarily construct our own)—the important is my “weight”?]
thing was the distinction between s p e e c h and a c t i n g
51
By John L. Austin, How to Do Things with Words [1955] 2nd ed. J. O.
Urmson & Mariana Sbisá (London, Oxford & New York: Oxford Univer-
sity Press 1976) x + 169 pp. and ‘Performative Utterances’ in his
Philosophical Papers (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1961), pp. 220–239.
Old237-309 11/12/19 9:22 Page 296
t h r o u g h s p e e c h (the so-called performative act).

Within the range of these ideas, we call something
p e r f o r m a t i v e that allows us to add something to
reality, something that would (and could) not exist in it
without the act of speech.52 And—as already seen—this is
what i n s t i t u t i o n a l i s a t i o n means.53 With one
good example: when I state how much my ‘weight’ is, that is,
how many pounds I ‘weigh’, I give an account of an appar-
ently mere physical relationship concerning my place taken
in the world of gravity. However, the only ‘brute’ fact in this
statement is that our concrete existence creates something
otherwise described by physics as the force of gravity, and
this is truly independent of the concreteness of our indi-
vidual existence, because anything else could generate either
the same or a quantitatively smaller or greater variant of it.
Nevertheless, it will be entirely conventional—i.e., it will
depend on the acknowledged social institutions—whether
we eventually measure the above relation in pounds (and not
in, e.g., poods), and that we happen to communicate about
it using the above words (‘weight’, ‘weigh’).54
(example: “it’s On the basis of all the above, taking a step further does not
raining” × “I promise”) require more than to examine the essential difference
between two typical forms of statement—for example, “it is
raining” and “I promise”—relying on the above distinction.
52
Cf., e.g., Austin ‘Performative Utterances’ and Alexander Sesonske
‘Performatives’ The Journal of Philosophy 62 (1965), pp. 459–468. From the
rich literature concerning its legal aspects, cf., e.g., Dennis Kurzon It Is
Hereby Performed... Explorations in Legal Speech Acts (Amsterdam &
Philadelphia: John Benjamis Publishing Co. 1986) 81 pp. [Pragmatics &
Beyond: An Interdisciplinary Series of Language Studies VII:6].
53
Cf., e.g., G. E. M. Anscombe ‘On Brute Facts’ Analysis 18 (1958) 4,
pp. 69–72 and John R. Searle Speech Acts An Essay in the Philosophy of
Language (London: Cambridge University Press 1970) vi + 203 pp.
54
“Brute facts, such as, e.g., the fact that I weigh 160 pounds, of course
require certain conventions of measuring weight and also require certain
linguistic institutions in order to be stated on a language, but the fact stated
is nonetheless a brute fact, as opposed to the fact that it was stated, which
is an institutional fact.’ Searle, p. 51, note 1.
Old237-309 11/12/19 9:22 Page 297
Our initial foreknowledge on the first seems obvious. What is constative

Thus, the statement of “it is raining” truly describes some- can be verified
thing given that exists and happens anyway, regardless of the
act of description. In consequence, our statement merely
makes the otherwise existent conscious. Accordingly, it may
as well happen that we are mistaken.The issue of whether we
are right or wrong here and now can be clarified by scrutin-
ising the truth-value in the epistemological sense of our
statement, ‘verifying’ or ‘falsifying’ it.
The second example, the utterance of “I promise”, What establishes an
appears artificial indeed, because it establishes an institution institution brings
and in so much generates some sort of reality. Hence, as about a framework of
opposed to propositions of an epistemological value, here we convention(s)
ought to state that
· what it is about is (and can only be) established by a
s p e e c h - a c t , being unable to prevail without it;
· what is brought about by the speech-act cannot be
formed in isolation but only within some kind of
c o m m u n i t y . (Of course, the question instantly
arises: what is the case when we make the promise in a
prayer whispered to ourselves? The scholarly response
will presumably point at the symbolic role of the prayer,
and will argue that regardless of how much the act of
praying is performed in isolation, praying basically
means the initiation of a dialogue with whom the prayer
is addressed to. In consequence, the promise made
while praying will be a common one, albeit distinct in
nature and importance with regard to the addressed
being);
· the meaning and significance of what we ‘promise’
can only be conceived and construed within an
institutionalised framework, a s t h e c a s e o f
s o m e t h i n g , as one of the classified cases of an insti-
tution called ‘promise’;
· the institution, on the other hand, of which our mani-
festation (or the concrete institutionalisation resulting
from it) is a case, can be brought about exclusively
as the product of constitutive rules
which establish the institution concerned; consequently
Old237-309 11/12/19 9:22 Page 298
· we have to proceed i n a c c o r d a n c e w i t h
p r e v i o u s l y e s t a b l i s h e d r u l e s (and must
carry the rule-framed procedure through) for the
concrete institutionalisation (constitutable according to
the constitutive rules) to incur, for that the institution
will ‘materialise’ and ‘come into being’.55
5.2.2. Social institutionalisation

Institutionalisation as Recognising the nature of speech-acts has at least two conse-
socialisation: quences when generalised for the overall social dimensions.
On the one hand, the process of institutionalisation is
i r r e v e r s i b l e . For any institutionalisation will give
birth to further institutionalisation (at most, but necessarily
in the case of perfection), and each institutional character-
istic displayed in a set of relations will unavoidably confer
institutionality on the entire set of relations taken as a total
whole. In other words, the set of relations of any institution
and the network of its components become themselves insti-
tutional out of necessity. On the other hand, as deriving from
this process (or, quoting GEORGE LUKÁCS’s term, in the irre-
versible progress of the process of “socialisation”56), the
separation of ‘institutional’ features from ‘non-institutional’
ones (for instance, in the case of facts, the separation
of ‘brute’ facts from ‘institutional’ ones) is gradually
becoming—due to the irreversible progress of the process of
socialisation—a function of comparison, that is, fully rela-
tive. Prospectively, institutionalisation is endless. In the final
55
[terminological games This may also assert itself the other way round. As, for example, in the
may ensue in function United States a ‘war’ can set in exclusive result of a Congress declaration,
the military actions in Korea in the 1950s were, in want of such declaration,
of constitutivity]
referred to as ‘Korean conflict’ or ‘UN Police Action’ only. And the expla-
nation is simple: “Since the phenomenon did not satisfy the X term for
imposing the status-function, the Y term »war« was not applied”. John R.
Searle The Construction of Social Reality (London: Penguin 1996) 256 pp.
[Penguin Philosophy] on p. 89.
56
György Lukács A társadalmi lét ontológiájáról I–III [Zur Ontologie des
gesellschaftlichen Seins] (Budapest: Magvetô 1976). Cf., by the author, The
Place of Law in Lukács’World Concept (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó 1985
[reprint 1998]), passim, especially at para. 5.1.2.
Old237-309 11/12/19 9:22 Page 299
analysis, there will hardly be more left from ‘brute’ facts than
what we declare to be such by abstraction.
Yet, the institution is also a product of constitutive rules. it is abstraction
Therefore, it is by no means independent of norms and of produced by
meeting the criteria set by them. So, the very fact of speaking constitutive rules &
of ‘institutions’ is itself a pure abstraction. Since, as we have realised in fluctuation
seen, an institution requires for its being brought about a
rule defining that institution, an act complying with the
criteria set by the rule, as well as the institution-creating
(actualising) intention of at least one of the parties to the
institution according to the rule in question—in so far as this
can, under the rule, be activated also one-sidedly (e.g.,
‘providing food’ for an inert old person); or of the joint
declaration of will by the parties—in case the institution is
built not only to some external behaviour to be manifested
(e.g., uttering the ‘yes’ consenting to ‘marriage’) but to a
consensus involved as well (distinguishing the contracting of
a marriage both from the learning of how to contract a
marriage and from its being acted out on the stage). At the
same time, what we usually think to be an institution (e.g.,
‘practice of parental right’ in the natural connection with the
child, or natural human communication within the field of
the ‘practice of the freedom of speech’ but without entering
the field of ‘defamation’) can only exist in form of an infinite
number of individual ‘embodiments’, that is, in the form of
the most varied kinds of attempts at materialisation and, of
course, its accomplishments as well. In consequence, its
existence can be nothing other than continuous f l u c t u -
a t i o n (passive and active) by, in the course and as a result
of, which a given institution is s t r e n g t h e n e d , l e f t
u n t o u c h e d , or eventually w e a k e n e d in its quality
of an institution. The majority of acts we can isolate for
further analysis (by tearing them out of social practice) are
barely of an intermediate nature. For however much a given
institution is strengthened, left untouched or weakened by
such acts, the same act will still necessarily refer, affect and
exert a determining influence on other institutional
networks—approaching them, distancing from them, or
simply coming to a reflectable relationship with them.
Old237-309 11/12/19 9:22 Page 300
with identification When analysing the dilemmas of understanding the

achieved also as a norm,57 the turning point in our reasoning was provided by
process in dependce the possibilities of formulating criteria for normality and
on practice order.The issue at this point will be the criterion-like formu-
lation of institutional character and framework (the
“constitution”). In terms of methodology, however, we are
facing exactly the same dilemma: how can something be
unchangeably identical with itself if it does not emerge and
is not identifiable in unchanged identity with its self but only
in a certain way, sense, respect, and hypostatised tendency?58
through The theoretical significance of the problem is defined by
re-conventionalising that the sole medium of linguistic manifestation—speech,
conventions on the one hand, and acts carried out through speech, on the
other—means the uninterrupted process of the societal
p r a c t i c e o f c o m m u n i c a t i o n (mediating the
meanings by making them comprehensible to the partners,
as a rule). Communicational practice is, on its turn, the
continuous preservation, re-confirmation and actualisation
of its underlying conventions, that is—nolens volens—
the r e - c o n v e n t i o n a l i s a t i o n of already existent
conventions by the series of individual acts of communica-
tion.
Communication is Can there be anything else that could generate society? Is
dependent on praxis: there anything else we could rely on? And, what could be our
meaning + point of reference at all? As we have just seen, nothing else is
institutional practice left for us but
· the m e a n i n g that can be confirmed and trans-
mitted to our partners in communication through
communicational feedback, therefore being itself
conventional; and
57
[example: ‘promise’] Cf. para. 4.3.1.
58
To the question of what ‘promise’ actually is we might find an answer
in the definitions provided by dictionaries or textbooks, but this kind of
definition will by no means be a substitute for the ‘promise’ proper. As
known, in reality not even a “type” or “average” occurrence of ‘promise’ can
occur.What can actually be perceived is a mass of events that can be put into
a variety of different conceptual networks and sets of relations, providing
almost infinite opportunities for conceptualisation, from among which we
may name some ‘promises’ in the practice of communication serving our
own interests and displaying a certain consistency.
Old237-309 11/12/19 9:22 Page 301
5.3. AUTOPOESIS AND SYSTEMIC RESPONSE 301
· the i n s t i t u t i o n a l p r a c t i c e established by a
large mass of communicational acts, which may show
constant fluctuation when viewed from a given (institu-
tional) level, but on a higher selective (institutional)
level it is already defined—by us, participants at social
communication—as a (given) institutional materialisa-
tion, that is, as the case of an institution taken as known
and received as given.59
We have thus arrived back to the relative identity and Σ: institutional
mutual interdependence of linguistic communication and character is referred
institutional existence. From the perspective of philosophy, to linguistic
we are back at the statement that language and institutional reconventionalisation
character are merely the mutually projected aspects of one
another. For institutional existence can only be charac-
terised as one that
· can be construed exclusively as performed (by language
or by proper, indicative behaviour), and
· can be actualised exclusively as a process similarly to the
way in which the re-conventionalisation of (linguistic)
meaning is obtained.
5.3. AUTOPOIESIS AND SYSTEMIC RESPONSE
Two natural scientists from Chile, FRANCISCO J.VARELA and “Black box”: a process
HUMBERTO R. MATURANA, after long years of research transforming in-put
conducted in cellular reproduction, discovered a method- into out-put
ological idea prevalent within molecular cytobiology. They
sought to comprehend what happens inside a cell during its
reproduction. Since from a mass of data at their disposal
they could clearly conclude that the process behaves like a
system already at the level of individual cells. The answer
59
When acting in everyday civil or professional life, we usually “make
the promise” instead of just contemplating the conceptual contents and
extension of a ‘promise’. On the level of analysis, however, if our action
requires closer control or even external (moral, professional or legal) eval-
uation for whatever reason, the promise will then be classified as the
realisation of the conceptual class of ‘promise’.
Old237-309 11/12/19 9:22 Page 302
always slipped out of their hands independently of whether

they attempted to explain this phenomenon by describing it
as a c l o s e d system, within which the reproduction of
cells takes place at any time according to a certain code
without alteration, or whether they conceived it as an o p e n
system, in which it was the environment that shaped the
process of renewal. A solution was finally brought forth by a
new conception of systemicity. Taking the initial situation
(input) and the final outcome (output) into account, they
described the process in terms of the statistical-method-
ological analysis of what the process generated and from
what it originated (Figure 12).
”black box”
cell 1 cell 2
Figure 12.
Reproduction is MATURANA and VARELA found—and this is what the

secure, on the basis formula above suggests—that the c o m p l e t i o n o f
of self-regulation r e p r o d u c t i o n is the sole thing that can be considered
as a secure point of reference. Whatever happens inside
the process is wholly s e l f - g o v e r n i n g , s e l f -
creating, referring and referred to its
o w n s e l f , because—and this was the conclusion of their
research in cellular biology—the medium, boundaries, inner
laws and ways of reproduction are all defined by the system
itself by and during its operation. For the system keeps
continuous contact with the outside world, in the course of
which it produces the conditions of its own reproduction, re-
establishes the limits of its range of motion, and eventually it
reproduces itself together with all of its components. The
genuine methodological novelty in this realisation was that
self-creation, functioning in a black-box-like way, does by no
means give evidence of some epistemological deficiency or
gap, vacuum or chasm. Nonetheless, as it was pointed out,
neither is it a mistake that we had no previous knowledge of
Old237-309 11/12/19 9:22 Page 303
its regularities; nor does it mean the admittance of agnosti-

cism (i.e., the impossibility of knowledge and cognisability)
if we feel—justifiably—that we could not have known about
it earlier. The novelty lies exactly in that priorly there was
nothing to know about because everything that occurs
during reproduction (including its limits, inner laws and
ways as well) is created by the system itself from case to case,
from step to step.60
This is autopoiesis proper, a ‘self-creation’, since the Autopoiesis:
system organises its present in the process, as well as the self-generation,
framework, limits and ways for its future self-reproduction, generating its
furthermore, it produces (selects, organises and operates) all regularities, too,
the components to be later reproduced, thereby necessarily by and during the
reproducing its self-identity in the process of self-creation.61 process
As usually happens when a new creative thought is formu- Society is also
lated, trends and schools are soon to follow to generalise the self-organising
original idea philosophically, by exploiting its potential self-regulation
socio-theoretical readings and consequences. Accordingly,
as a by-product, the once liberating effects have led to
doctrinaire debates and schematisations, sometimes carried
60
For a classical summary, see Humberto R. Maturana & Francisco J.
Varela Autopoiesis and Cognition The Realization of the Living [De
Máquinas y Seres Vivos (Santiago de Chile: Editorial Universitaria 1972)]
(Dordrecht, Boston & London: Reidel 1980) xxx + 141 pp. [Boston Studies
in the Philosophy of Science 42]; Francisco J. Varela Principles of Biological
Autonomy (New York: North Holland Elsevier 1979) xx + 306 pp. [The
North Holland Series in General Systems Research 2]; and Humberto R.
Maturana ‘Autopoiesis’ in Autopoiesis A Theory of Living Organization, ed.
Milan Zeleny (New York & Oxford: North Holland 1981) xviii + 314 pp.
[The North Holland Series in General Systems Research 3].
61
For a philosophical summary, see Humberto R. Maturana ‘Man and
Society’ in Autopoiesis, Communication, and Society The Theory of Auto-
poietic Systems in the Social Sciences, ed. Frank Benseler, Peter M. Hejl &
Wolfram K. Köck (Frankfurt am Main & New York: Campus 1980) 229 pp.
and especially at p. 29, admitting that all of this is just a late reformulation
of the original realisation by CLAUDE BERNARD, father of experimental
medicine, which he outlined in his Introduction à l’étude de la médicine expéri-
mentale (Paris & New York: Baillière 1864) 400 pp.
Old237-309 11/12/19 9:22 Page 304
through with an almost Prussian rigour.62 In the under-

standing of human cognition and social action—giving and
gaining meanings63—, the idea of autopoiesis may inspire
a methodological renewal. All it suggests is that in the long
run we can trust social processes that appear to be free from
in-built laws and rigid paths, moreover, these processes
do set frameworks and boundaries in their motion, which
allow us eventually to distinguish the autopoietic system-
regeneration—i.e., the system’s constantly renewing
rebuilding (through s e l f - p r e f e r e n t i a l , s e l f -
o r g a n i s i n g , s e l f - g o v e r n i n g , and, ultimately,
s e l f - p r o d u c i n g processes)—clearly from anarchical
libertarianism and limitlessness.
LUHMANN: normative The recently deceased German sociologist, NIKLAS
c l o s e d n e s s LUHMANN presents autopoiesis in his macro-sociological
64
within the theory as the duality inherent in any social (sub)system
o p e n n e s s of under the parallel restraint of (normative) c l o s e d n e s s
receiving information and (cognitive) o p e n n e s s . Accordingly, closedness
in the processes offers self-identity for the given (sub)system’s (re)produc-
of social tive processes, whereas openness enables the (sub)system to
Ausdifferenzierung function adequately within the social totality by communi-
cating with other (sub)systems through interaction with
them. So, the (cognitive) openness of systemic organisation
of any given time gives meaning to its existence, while the
(normative) closedness provides the framework for its exis-
62
For the best collection of papers before the movement had come to
exhaustion, see Autopoietic Law A New Approach to Law and Society, ed.
Gunther Teubner (Berlin & New York: de Gruyter 1988) viii + 380 pp.
[European University Institute, Series A, 8]. For an early professional
stand, cf. Agostino Carrino ‘Autopoiesi dell’ordinamento dinamico diritto
e sociologia in Kelsen’ Sociologia del diritto XVII (1991) 2, pp. 13–42.
63
For the term, see Ch[aïm] Perelman ‘Avoir un sens et donner un sens’
Logique et Analyse (1962), No. 5, pp. 235–250.
64
Cf., by Niklas Luhmann, Die Wissenschaft der Gesellschaft (Frankfurt
am Main: Suhrkamp 1990) 732 pp., ‘Legal Argumentation: An Analysis of
Its Form’ The Modern Law Review 59 (1995) 3, pp. 285–298, Das Recht der
Gesellschaft (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp 1997) 598 pp. [Suhrkamp
Taschenbuch Wissenschaft 1183] as well as, in a synthesis, Essays on Self-
reference (New York: Columbia University Press 1990) 245 pp.
Old237-309 11/12/19 9:22 Page 305
tence, by decomposing [LUHMANN marks it with the term

‘Ausdifferenzierung’] social totality into sets of social
(sub)systems, which are functionally separated but still co-
operating (identifiable in retrospect, from the perspective of
the outcome of processes).
Thinking the bases and consequences of similar develop- feedback through
ments through may convince us that the recognition in the sub-systemic
autopoietic concept of a system may purport more than competition
what other concepts do. Accordingly, autopoiesis does not
rigidify the internal complexity of social totality, but gener-
ates c o m p e t i n g p a t h s within it.Thus, (sub)systems
themselves, by internally closing the motions that start from
within, not so much rigidify but rather make them f e d
b a c k by the actual processes, that is, they confer the ways
of how the criteria of closure evolve onto functions of various
motions competing to determine the system’s reproduction.
Hence, what appears to be closedness in a static logical
description is the actual functioning from the perspective of
the process’ dynamics, in which closure can be seen by an
external, observing analyst at most. For this reason, every-
thing said so far about the recent re-interpretation of “fact”,
“notion”, “logic” and “thinking” in the latest developments
of cognitive sciences65 may find its view and reference
(rooted in the real world) in the autopoiesis of self-creating
processes (and thereby in the self-closure subjected to
logical reconstruction).
All earlier conceptions presented both humans and the Σ: instead of the
outside world as the sequence of independent entities. statism of the subject
Accordingly, in this “objective reality which is independent + object, a process
of consciousness”, certain regularities work and prevail with creating environment
the force of mechanical necessity, directing our casual by acquiring it,
encounters with the outside world when we, as “cognising” human practice is
subjects, penetrate the subject “to be cognised” in order to self-productive itself,
disclose its regularities by means of our own regularities, or with “check
at least, to reflect them in us, in our “consciousness”. As & balance” feedback
opposed to such simplistic conceptions (reminiscent of the
occasional romance of skittle-balls), present-day cognitive
65
Cf. para. 4.2.
Old237-309 11/12/19 9:22 Page 306
sciences suggest a more complex view. As if having learned

from autopoiesis, they truly construe the events as
p r o c e s s e s . Instead of postulating false or sham
dualisms (e.g., placing the one who is “cognising” and what
is “cognised” into the sequence of active subject and passive
subject), it rather sees a complexity of events in which those
acting do not simply cognise in interaction with their envi-
ronment but also c r e a t e t h e i r e n v i r o n m e n t b y
a c q u i r i n g it. Social reality is a human product, and
facts, notions, logic and thinking are merely parts of this arti-
ficially constructed human world. Among other things, man
construes his own language, through which he elevates the
environment into a part of his world. As to the minor details,
it may as well happen that we are just groping about in the
dark. Nevertheless, it is usually enough to trust the processes
with the f e e d - b a c k and s e l f - p r o d u c t i v e
f o r c e o f h u m a n p r a c t i c e . In the same way, we
know that our body is constantly re-organising as long as we
live, as our cells reproduce independently of our intentions.
The functions of “check & balance” and control are fulfilled
also by the process of reproduction within the framework of
autopoietic self-definition. This is similar to how priests,
physicians, lawyers and police officers in the enormous
human-built machinery of check and control watch the
protection of the limits of tolerable human deviance, so that
social reproduction should not exceed the limits regarded as
normal.
So, cells reproduce. And in retrospect we may be sure at
any given time that the self-regulation of the path that led to
the process’ end-point has definitely taken place. It offers a
fixed point especially by convincing us that falling into the
trap of opposite extremes can be avoided, particularly those
of naive realism and subjectivism.
Therefore, it is to be considered in what the liberating
effects of the autopoietic view consist, and where its
emphases should be put. For it is far from being merely inci-
dental that all these problems are being discussed here and
now when questions of meaning are involved. We have to
avoid the traps here as well and must sense the double clasp
Old237-309 11/12/19 9:22 Page 307
of the Scylla and Charybdis between the mechanical

character of lexical conception and the unrestricted licen-
tiousness of deconstructionism. Here we can only rely on
the process, feedback and long-term stability of human
commerce, taking into account all the available arguments
and considerations, even if they appear to be pushing us
towards uncertainty. For we know that giving a meaning is
not done by mere chance but is limited by internal balances
and interpretation is always performed in a practical
context; and any partial truth—at least in a systemic context
and in the long run—can be asserted only with regard to the
total whole. As we have seen it before, it is similar to how the
chasing of individual justice cannot outgrow proportions
that would threaten community existence and survival,66 the
playground for conventions and confirmations of meaning is
not boundless either, since it can prevail only within the
limits still tolerable by the community. It is the community
that sets the measures at all times, while we can become
deviants at an individual level only. More freedom is just an
illusion, because by being our own masters we are more
likely to become servants of our own affairs.The easiness of
external conformism is thus replaced by an internal under-
taking of responsibility, and we have awoken to the
consciousness that instead of being the puppets of deities we
are, all at an individual level, the repositories of our common
fate.
It is just one of the features of NIKLAS LUHMANN’s with the properties of
autopoietical theory that he originates the differentiation of closedness and
society into sub-systems from the point where the system openness
closes itself. He hit the bull’s eye when he sought the master- at the same time
example of autopoietic self-organising processes in the law’s
functioning. LUHMANN was right, since the most conspic-
uous with law is strainedness in reality of the relationship
between n o r m a t i v e c l o s e d n e s s and o p e n -
n e s s t o i n f o r m a t i o n . For law is a formalised
culture, hence normative closedness is its sine qua non
precondition. On the other hand, the openness to informa-
66
Cf., para. 2.3.1.8.
Old237-309 11/12/19 9:22 Page 308
tion provides reason for functioning. Since law is expected to

solve conflicts of interests in a manner that over and above
the unconditional primacy of strictly formal relevance it
should not push moral and other substantive considerations
into the background—at least not beyond the proper limits
and degree drawn by necessary differentiation.
“System of fulfilment” Let us have a closer look at what we understand by norma-
in law tive closure in law. Previously we have made it clear that law
is composed of n o r m a t i v e e x p e c t a t i o n s , and its
formal requirements are asserted through the law’s o w n
s y s t e m o f f u l f i l m e n t . Formalisation and logifica-
tion may create an axiomatic framework for formal logic
through deductive syllogism and normative subordination,
its victory, however, will remain Pyrrhic—ephemer, more-
over, necessarily turning backwards at a later time—,
because the old tensions, thought to have been suppressed,
between normative expectations and the social needs and
moral considerations (etc.) concerning the merits of the case
will again return in forms of processes called discrepancies
of the so-called law-application. And what could have been
formulated in the dilemma’s own terms within a non-
formalised medium, now takes the shape of logic, and will
be conceptualised as the “problem” of “subordination”.
Although, as a theoretical description, this will be nothing
more pretentious than pure false consciousness, since from
an ontological perspective, logical conclusion is one of the
necessary [or, as GEORGE LUKÁCS termed it in his social
ontology: ‘seinhaftige’] components of modern formal legal
arrangements.67
according to Having in mind the doubt-raising effects of what the arbi-
conventionalisation trariness of legal force means for a strictly logical pattern on
the plane of “construction”, and what the strongly auto-
poietical nature of gaining the meaning on the plane of
“functioning” means, we may realise that “normative
closedness” is concomitantly normative openness, since
“closure from within” can be a figurative expression at most,
which, if taken as an ontological statement, is necessarily
67
In greater detail, see para. 6.2.
Old237-309 11/12/19 9:22 Page 309
plainly false consciousness. Knowing that the meaning

is contextualised, it is of an open texture and defined
hermeneutically as (deconstructively) conventionalised by
the productive continuity of social processes, well, all things
considered, we can only conclude that the social complexity
of meaning may introduce further fields of (conceptual) play
into legal processes without the chance of closing them
through formal definition.
The ultimate message of autopoiesis may suggest that Dependence of social
whatever the contents or form, s o c i a l e v e n t s are still quality on qualification
the t r a n s p o s i t i o n or p r e s e r v a t i o n of social
q u a l i t i e s as “social” by means of non-refuted (or nulli-
fied) reference aimed at the “social”.68
68
Cf., from the author, ‘Judicial Reproduction of the Law in an Auto-
poietical System?’ in Technischer Imperativ und Legitimationskrise des Rechts
ed.Werner Krawietz & Antonio A. Martino & Kenneth I.Winston (Berlin:
Duncker & Humblot 1991), pp. 305–313 [Rechtstheorie, Beiheft 11] &
Acta Juridica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae XXXII (1990) 1–2, pp.
144–151; ‘European Integration and the Uniqueness of National Legal
Cultures’ [1992] in The Common Law of Europe and the Future of Legal
Education / Le droit commun de l’Europe et l’avenir de l’enseignement juridique
ed. Bruno De Witte & Caroline Forder (Deventer: Kluwer Law and Taxa-
tion Publishers 1992), pp. 721–733 [METRO], reprinted in his Law and
Philosophy Selected Papers in Legal Theory (Budapest: ELTE “Compara-
tive Legal Cultures” Project 1994), pp. 399–411, as well as—and especially
—Theory of the Judicial Process The Establishment of Facts (Budapest:
Akadémiai Kiadó 1995), para. 5.4, pp. 157–164.
Old310-332 11/12/19 9:22 Page 310
310
6. PARADIGMS OF LEGAL THINKING
6.1. THE NATURE OF LAW
We usually think of law in a rather simplifying manner, and

this holds for common people, professionals and scholars
alike.
Law: an aggregate of According to its most common definition, law is the
rules of behaviour aggregate of rules of behaviour, with the coercive force of the
with the coercive state ultimately standing behind them. It is an issue of
force of the state underlying pre-understanding to decide whether such defi-
nition should be confirmed unconditionally or objections
should be emphasised concerning certain elements of this
definition. All this is also a matter of expectations.When we
regard the definition as one allowing us to accentuate some
of its presumably most important elements, we can probably
confirm the above definition. Whereas when we treat the
definition as expressing the notion of g e n u s that serves for
common foundations in a strict logical sense [genus prox-
imus] with those d i s t i n g u i s h i n g f e a t u r e s within
this concept of genus that specify the law [differentia specifica]
for a denotation applicable as a criterion, we are likely to give
free reign to our doubts. For example, can it qualify as a rule
of behaviour that has not yet been formulated, or that is only
existent as a culturally relative normative expectation, or as
the mere derivative of an otherwise recognised principle?
Can we regard something as supported by the coercive
power of the state if the state has no factual knowledge of it—
either because there is no state (then and there), or because
the state could exclusively learn about it passively and, what
is more, posteriorly (e.g., only after a certain procedure
becomes customised and also acknowledged as a custom is
Old310-332 11/12/19 9:22 Page 311
6.1. THE NATURE OF LAW 311
the state bound to recognise it as its own norm)? Well, inas-

much as such a definition is merely a sign of the way we think
and of how we approach notional dilemmas, the above ques-
tions will become irrelevant. That is due to the fact that the
definition itself can just as well be interpreted metaphori-
cally, its contents serving as mere signs and guiding
principles in the absence of anything better. In the reverse
case, however, if we treat the definition as conceptual demar-
cation excluding any other occurrence (omnis definitio
negatio est), then, and especially in borderline cases, we must
make a choice: do we rather agree to approve the conceptual
direction, laid down by the definition, or, instead, do we
appreciate the consequences of its criterion-generating
significance unavoidably excluding all different formations
(e.g., pre-state or extra-state norm-systems) from the sphere
of the notion?
“On the basis of the comparative study of legal cultures and allowing Law: global
for purely social considerations, I propose concluding: phenomenon
(1) Law is a g l o b a l p h e n o m e n o n embracing s o c i e t y embracing society as
a s a w h o l e . Accordingly, criminal gangs (mafia, Cosa Nostra), a whole
economic associations (guilds), secret societies (religious and/or political
as early CHRISTians, GARIBALDIsts), as well as other club- and party-like
organisations fall outside the domain of law in so far as society is
t e r r i t o r i a l l y organised and those groups are closed, involving
only so-called members. If social organisation is still p e r s o n a l , the
ground of separation between law and non-law is whether the given
organisation is exclusive and, if so, it theoretically involves all in compli-
ance with its personal categories.The next consideration I propose is:
(2) Law is a phenomenon able to settle c o n f l i c t s o f i n t e r - to settle fundamental
e s t s that emerge in social practice as f u n d a m e n t a l . In society conflicts of interests
law is supposed to be the prime check and control performing this func-
tion. Law is to regulate relations sufficiently fundamental so that it can
create society (by drawing structure of and boundaries to it). In Euro-
pean urban development, some guilds settled conflicts of interests
fundamental to society as a whole. If conflict-settlement is restricted to
partial relations (e.g., life within the guild, order of external relationship
relevant to guild activity), it can at the most be regarded as a set of rules
integrated into the law or parallel with it, but in any case as one of a
Old310-332 11/12/19 9:22 Page 312
312 6. PARADIGMS OF LEGAL THINKING
different kind. Or, in situations of transition (e.g., in times of the disso-

lution of state-organised power machinery), political parties can assume
a role amounting to function as the main controlling factor of society,
filling in the vacuum that has arisen. Lastly, in religious communities
having sect-like claims of exclusiveness and aiming at the assertion of
their own commands in all fields of common life, it may occur that,
organising themselves as self-supporting communities, they make use of
their own set of rules as a legal system.This was attempted, for example,
by Quaker communities withdrawing from civilisation (18–19th century
British emigrants) or separating within civilisation (19–20th century
settlers in America). And finally:
prevailing as the (3) Law is a phenomenon prevailing as the s u p r e m e c o n t r o l -
supreme controlling l i n g f a c t o r in society. Should several systems of norms assert
factor themselves in society, the law’s set-up is the one whose procedure can, in
a situation of conflict, be successfully resorted to in order to implement
and enforce ultimate solution.
It is to be noted, however, that procedural efficacy never asserts itself
in pure form. For instance, is the legal character of Estonian or Texas law
to be derived from a further source when Soviet or American federal law
has been superimposed on them, respectively? How is the supremacy of
the own procedure to be interpreted if there is a direct recourse to inter-
national legal authorities in minority or human rights affairs? How to
assess criminal gangs, secret societies, political or religious organisations
attempting to win acceptance for their claims by coercively preventing
(through assassinations, etc.) their conflicts from being presented to
external authorities? These social considerations are conceived of as
mutually reinforcing each other within a cluster. The more completely
they are manifested, the more probably one may talk about the presence
of law in a sociological-anthropological sense.”1
(example: bordering What to regard as other formations, as pre-state or extra-

issues of state normative systems, is a separate issue.2 Twentieth
state-frameworks)
1
Csaba Varga ‘Anthropological Jurisprudence? Leopold Pospíšil and
the Comparative Study of Legal Cultures’ [1985] in his Law and Philosophy
Selected Papers in Legal Theory (Budapest: ELTE “Comparative Legal
Cultures” Project 1994), pp. 451–452 [Philosophiae Iuris].
2
For one segment of it, cf., by the author, ‘From Legal Customs to
Legal Folkways’ Acta Juridica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 25 (1983)
3–4, pp. 454–459 & Tidskrift för Rättssociologi [Lund] 2 (1985) 1, pp. 39–48
Old310-332 12/2/8 9:20 Page 313
century East-European history has, for example, generated

the multitude of such entangled situations in which it could
occur, for instance, that a new statehood establishing itself in
the wake of foreign occupation would be condemned and
retaliated against by the successor returning to the status quo
ante, declaring the former’s institutional arrangement and
the legal effects of its administration null and void and never
even to have existed. In addition, this successor state may
have stigmatised and punished posteriorly any past contact
(indispensable for leading everyday life) on the part of the
civilian population under occupation with such statehood
declared never existent by the successor state, as if life under
occupation and the bare fact of having survived were done
for and within the framework of open collaboration with the
enemy.3
From the former Soviet Union, the Baltic states and the larger part of (example: military
the Ukraine were the first in World War II to fall under German occupa- occupation)
tion in the East. Firstly a partisan movement of nationalist drive was
formed, wanting to be freed by any means from Soviet occupation,
followed by a pro-Soviet movement, especially in the hardly controllable
swampy areas. The prevalence of local administration erected by the
German occupants (undisturbed sometimes only in daylight) was soon
challenged by the rising influence of (national and/or Soviet) partisans
(whose wishes and demands grew stronger and stronger with their ability
to get enforced during the nights). At the same time, other occupant
military administrations (the Hungarian one, among others), balancing
between the former two, tried to impose a counter-balance; insuring
itself, despite being in alliance with the Germans, by helping the local
population to survive and at times simply to live, and concomitantly
maintaining a reasonable relationship with the partisans, acknowledging
as well as ‘Theory of Law – Legal Ethnography, Or the Theoretical Fruits

of Inquiries into Folkways’ Sociologia del Diritto [Milano], XXXVII (2010)
1, pp. 82–101 {abstract pp. 222–223} & in <http://www.francoangeli.it/
riviste/Scheda_Riviste.asp?IDArticolo=39637&Tipo=Articolo%20PDF&
lingua=it>.
3
After-WWII Yugoslavia of TITO is the prime example.
Old310-332 11/12/19 9:22 Page 314
their factual presence as a brute reality. All local efforts notwithstanding,

the Soviet power, once re-imposed after the war, immediately declared
every “politik-real” a treason when screening the local survivors, and
stigmatised entire populations of territories which had ever fallen under
German occupation as unreliable, excluding them for this reason even
from the Soviet-type of advancement (eligibility for positions of confi-
dence, including both foreign service and travel to the West).4
(example: renewal in In the former Yugoslavia, after the dismemberment of the Kingdom
partisan movements) and the German occupation of the decomposing state, various partisan
movements with different national inclinations and networks of political
connections were born and began to control the territories next to their
base with varying chances and continuity. By the end of the war, one of
the existing dozen partisan movements rose above the others.This move-
ment one-sidedly announced all the others traitors and the entire law
prevailing under the occupation to have never existed according to its
own right as well as all relations and cases that developed and occurred
during the war between the subjected population and local administra-
tions and jurisdictions legally to be non-instituted and therefore ex tunc
null and void so far as their legal consequences were concerned, and
branded personal relations as collaboration with the enemy.
Anglo–American Confusion, unilaterality, simplification and conceptual

judicial declaration of narrowing in the conception of law were, however, primarily
the law & continental caused by the fact that legal ideologies determining the
rule-positivism equally motility within law and the particular way of professional
covered argumentation characteristic of individual legal cultures,
stepped beyond their own sphere, thus dominating the
general (everyday and scholarly) approach to law as well. In
the English–American legal culture (Common Law), for
instance, in the realm of precedents, the above definition
could be accepted since their practice (according to which
establishing what the law actually is is ultimately performed
by the judge proceeding in the name of the law and under the
authorising seal of the state) was compatible with the
conceptual sphere of the prevalent ideologies. This practice
regarded anything else (statutory instruments, administra-
4
Exemplary of the biass of local feeling, either Ukrainian or Hungarian,
no published report is available on its details to date.
Old310-332 11/12/19 9:22 Page 315
tive decrees and local governmental acts, as well as the

previous jurisprudence of courts) as the mere antecedents of
the judicial function of actual decision-making, to which
precedents may afford a brute medium requiring actualisa-
tion at the most. However, the legal cultures of continental
Europe (Civil Law) could accept the same definition as well,
for they disposed of proper grounds to understand it as
meeting their requirements, for their underlying concept
was one of tracing back the law to the textual manifestation
of some previously established rules. From our methodolog-
ical perspective, it is worthy of attention above all that such
an allegedly concise and unambiguous definition could
provide the background for such almost antagonistic
conceptions as well.5
Beyond this, legal positivism, solely prevalent (especially Statutory positivism:
in Europe) from the end of the 19th century on, and particu- the law is originated
larly its most narrow off-spring, the so-called s t a t u t o r y by positivation
positivism (recognising statutes as the only forms of law),
did the most for our conception of law to have a reified and
static phenomenon suggested for law. Actually, all cultures
that recognise law exclusively in the form of previously
enacted statutes utterly dissolve the ius into (by deducing it
from) the concept of the lex. (A definition of this kind is one
which conceives of law as an exclusive aggregate of rules
created through a procedure recognised, and in the way
prescribed, by the law—if and insofar as “recognised” proce-
dure and “prescribed” way are to be interpreted as the
operation of a formal institution defined by a constitutive
5
Cf., by the author, ‘Varieties of Law and the Rule of Law’ Archiv für
Rechts- und Sozialphilosophie 82 (1996) 1, pp. 61–72 and ‘Rule and/or
Norm, or the Conceptualisibility and Logifiability of Law’ in Effizienz von
e-Lösungen in Staat und Gesellschaft Aktuelle Fragen der Rechtsinformatik
(Tagungsband der 8. Internationalen Rechtsinformatik Symposions, IRIS
2005) hrsg. Erich Schweighofer, Doris Liebwald, Silvia Angeneder &
Thomas Menzel (Stuttgart, München, Hannover, Berlin, Weimar &
Dresden: Richard Boorberg Verlag 2005), pp. 58–65 & ‘Differing Mentali-
ties of Civil Law and Common Law? The Issue of Logic in Law’ Acta
Juridica Hungarica 48 (2007) 4, pp. 401–410 & <http://akademiai.om.
hu/content/b0m8x67227572219/fulltext.pdf>.
Old310-332 11/12/19 9:22 Page 316
regulation, e.g., written constitution—as a criterion.

However, if and insfar as this “recognition” can also be
merely factual as arising from a posterior sociological
description of the actual functioning regarding the effects,
we are to return to the conceptual duality or ambivalence
inherent in any self-generating mental construction with a
sociological backing like law.6)
As is known, legal positivism builds primarily on the
lexical theory of meaning to substantiate interpretation.
Accordingly, the lex, comprising its meaning in a codified,
immutable and exhaustive manner, is identical with the
textual appearance of the statute. So, it is r e a d y - m a d e ,
as an objectification c o m p l e t e d , which stands in and
by itself. Thus, it is not a conceptual precondition to, or
element of, its very existence but eventual complement at
most that the lex may come to be applied at some later time.
This may prove good or bad, suitable or unsuitable, feasible
or unfeasible, regardless of the value of the lex itself. The
European culture of legal positivism still considers law a
static and self-sufficient entity, completed once and for all,
given and ready-to-take, the only thing we are expected to do
with which is to sense its existence and use it for legal
patterning whenever it is applicable.
Deontology: formed The theoretical experience drawn from such a reasoning
by the ideology of the drives us toward reconsideration. Science-philosophical and
legal profession methodological, cognitive and semantic considerations
encourage us to draw a more complex picture of the nature
of law. These considerations do not refute earlier truths,
although they still allow a more differentiated understanding
of the specificity of the law’s existence.They urge us to tran-
scend the reified and static view of law without denying
6
For the positivist and sociological concept-formation in and on law, in
the perspective of their feasible synthesis, cf., by the author, ‘Quelques
questions méthodologiques de la formation des concepts en sciences
juridique’ Archives de Philosophie du Droit XVIII (Paris: Sirey 1973), pp.
215–241 & Algunas cuestiones metodológicas de la formación de los conceptos en
ciencias jurídicas trad. Hortensia Adrianza de Casas (Maracaibo: Instituto
de Filosofia del Derecho LUZ 1982) 38 pp. [Cuaderno de trabajo 32].
Old310-332 11/12/19 9:22 Page 317
those ontologically significant elements that determine legal

functioning in the respective legal cultures, i.e., legal ideolo-
gies working in actual practice, which stand for the
d e o n t o l o g y of the legal profession.
In the following we will give an overview of some aspects Common features
of the existence, nature and ontological character of law,
despite the fact that they only contribute marginally at best
to our understanding of the nature of law. They are neither
definitions, nor are they intended to substitute definition. If
thus far we have attempted to provide instances of how we
can interpret a usual definition according to usually
acknowledged old paradigms that seem to stand all trials,
henceforth we shall investigate how the same definition can
be interpreted in the same valid and right way according to
a reconsidered view, to be formed on the nature of law and
the very paradigms underlying it.
6.1.1. Law as process

By definition and in accordance with its ontological stand- Process
ing, law is a process-like phenomenon.
Given that we must regard the textual body of the law as Legal positivation
sheer historical reference, as an open potentiality within a affords just a
given framework in order to be able to establish its meaning potentiality that may
through a posterior operation called judicial interpretation, be actualised through
it will become obvious that this textual objectification itself legal processes:
is nothing more than mere chance, which can become truly
law through actualisation. This actualisation takes place in
various social processes officially labelled and widely recog-
nised as legal.
This, however, goes against all former conceptions, since the law is not
it builds upon the recognition that law cannot be identified outcome of some
with any material manifestation or objectification of a per se materiality
dead subject.Therefore, as a more developed version of our
previous definition we can claim: only the social mediation
of the actual meaning of a rule of behaviour can serve for law
inasmuch as it is ultimately backed by the coercive force of
the state.Yet the social mediation of any kind of meaning not
only presupposes the existence of an alleged sign, but the
definition of its meaning(s) as well. For there are no mean-
Old310-332 11/12/19 9:22 Page 318
ings in general.They are ascertainable only in concrete situ-

ations as defined by a concrete context. And some forum
must establish the meaning in a concrete situation and
context at some time.
Law: an actualised In varying situations and contexts the same textual body
process-like may suggest variations of meaning intermediate to some
continuum extent—and so far continuously changing in space and time.
One consequence, however, is the following: since law is not
a t e x t u a l b o d y in itself, neither is it some sort of mere
r e f e r e n t i a l p r a c t i c e , but precisely the juncture of
these two—namely, the sequence of a c t u a l i s a t i o n s
at any time of a textual body by and through a practice
making reference to it—, so law should rather be conceived
as a process-like dynamic continuum, instead of being
reducible to a static reified entity. Law is obviously an aspect
generated by social processes that make use of it by referring
to it.Thus, when the coercive force of the state stands behind
such a social process, we ought to presume the existence of
law as well.
6.1.2. Law as a multifactoral phenomenon

Several process-like By definition and in accordance with its ontological
factors defining it: standing, law is a multifactoral process, that is, all of its
components are themselves processes.
practice + rule The question of what components can generate law is
+ decision defined through the history of society and the evolvement of
its culture. We may draw a conclusion from our known
history (and from the cultural and anthropological general-
isation of the result of sociological examinations),7
according to which law may—by eventually being backed by
the threat of the coercive force of the state—result from
(a) the pressure of c u s t o m a r y social practice, as
7
On the specific nature of Canon Law (with regard to both the organi-
sation of the Church as a special subject and the congregation as a
particular circle of addressees), see, e.g., Péter Erdô Teología del derecho
canónico Una aproximación histórico-institucional (Torino: Giappichelli
1996) xiii + 215 pp. [Collana di studi di diritto canonico ed ecclesiastico:
Sezione canonistica 17].
Old310-332 11/12/19 9:22 Page 319
well as from (b) so-called ‘law-making’ (including, above all,

l e g i s l a t i o n ) and (c) so-called ‘ l a w - a p p l i -
c a t i o n ’ (including, above all, adjudication, i.e., the
activity of j u r i s d i c t i o n , being successively and
compoundly made up of legally binding statements), dif-
ferentiating in time into separate functions within the
division of power as part of the institutionalisation devel-
oping along with the birth of the state (Figure 13).
“Thus, as regards its o n t o l o g i c a l e x i s t e n c e , law is a as having

complex phenomenon comprising the interaction, interpenetration and a legal quality
temporary separation, i.e., the complex motion, of at least three factors, more or less
namely: r u l e , a u t h o r i t y ’ s d e c i s i o n , and a c t u a l
b e h a v i o u r . Anyway, law is n o t a phenomenon h o m o g e -
neously or statically identical with itself.
Its quality of law may be r e i n f o r c e d o r w e a k e n e d ,
rendered m o r e o r l e s s l e g a l by the intertwining and/or sepa-
ration of its components, since ontologically a phenomenon supported
not only by its enacted nature but also by a state practice of coercive
measures taken in the name of the law and made accepted as such by
society by and large is obviously »more legal«. That is, the more
completely it comprises its three components, the more completely it
will display the features of law. At the same time, law is a dynamic factor
of reality; its components respond to external challenges in an ever
renewing manner and this brings about internal shifts of emphasis. Here
is the reason why law is not and cannot be identical with itself. It is in
a ceaseless and endless motion of internal change, oscillating between
the qualities of more or less legal between the extreme points of
b e c o m i n g l e g a l and c e a s i n g t o b e l e g a l . This
approach, on the one hand, avoids the danger of replacing one simplifi-
cation with another: the reduction to rules with the reduction to conflict.
On the other hand, it tries to make it clear that rule is not simply an
incidental element of law. Not so much its presence as its part played in
the whole complex is bound to change.”8
8
Varga ‘Anthropological Jurisprudence?’, pp. 443–445.
Old310-332 11/12/19 9:22 Page 320
Figure 13.
in origination of All components of this approach have one common char-

validity & in its acteristic. Namely, they count with the nature of legal
recognition as valid processes from the beginning. Notably, certain social
processes declare themselves to be of legal character, and as
it may turn out, none of the other components of law deny
this but most probably, just to the contrary, they accept it
and confirm it as such. Parallel to such a formal, hierarchical
and deductive o r i g i n a t i o n of v a l i d i t y ,
“lending/borrowing” the validity by breaking down the legal
system from its normative top serving as the basic norm, a
counter-running motion begins to consolidate itself as well.
This, relying on the self-qualification of the actual processes
declaring themselves legal, building from bottom to the top
and also along a horizontal plane, supports the legal self-
assertion done at all levels of mutual connection. Thus, the
formal origination of validity (advancing from the top down)
is complemented by an informal ascertainment of validity
(advancing from bottom to top and horizontally), providing
support by r e c o g n i s i n g v a l i d i t y . So there may
be an ideal scheme set up by the law’s self-positivation and
also ideologised as the normativism of statutory positivism
Old310-332 11/12/19 9:22 Page 321
in the deontology of the legal profession, in which the pre-

established rule is all-inclusive and makes validity to be
drawn according to the KELSENian theory of gradation, and
the actual motion joins—or complements or challenges, or,
under limiting conditions, even replaces—it by strength-
ening or weakening it, or eventually running on a path
parallel with it.9
Figure 14.
9
As to early forms of exemplifying the division of law into “droit
régulièrement émis, ne se réalisant pas / droit se réalisant sans être régulière-
ment émis / et droit régulièrement émis et se réalisant”, and, in
consequence, the distinction between “pratique de la création du droit
comme objet de l’approche dogmatique” and “pratique de l’application du
droit comme objet de l’approche sociologique”, cf., by the author, ‘Quel-
ques questions méthodologiques...’, in particular pp. 226–229.
Old310-332 11/12/19 9:22 Page 322
in circularity Let us repeat that this holds for all components: the
and horizontality recognition and enforcement as “legal” (i.e., as the imple-
mentation of “ t h e l a w ” ) of (a) the c u s t o m a r y
social practice, (b) the acts ‘ c r e a t i n g ’ norms, as well
as (c) the acts ‘ a p p l y i n g ’ norms. All these take place
through a double justification: through their origination by
hierarchical b r e a k i n g d o w n of legal validity
according to the theory of gradation, on the one hand, and
through the s e l f - q u a l i f i c a t i o n by and within
given institutional procedures, on the other. During such a
process, the self-assertion of (a) customary social practice,
as well as the official (b) law-making and (c) law-application
may equally present themselves as distinctively legal, while
other procedures claiming to be also legal themselves may
not refute this claim. In case of no counter-running motion
encountered or in case of a judicial decision gaining legal
force [res iudicata], this will build itself into the given legal
order. According to this picture, the actual driving force
of any one-way f o r m a l origination of
v a l i d i t y as a theoretical basis for reference is afforded in
such mutual supports by c i r c u l a r l e n d i n g /
b o r r o w i n g o f v a l i d i t y and h o r i z o n t a l
c o n f i r m a t i o n o f v a l i d i t y as well.10
with internal self- This statement involves an important recognition
description of the law: concerning the very nature and understanding of law,
its actual paths can namely that (1) it treats both the i d e o l o g y and the
be varying / through deontology of the legal profession
competing / with (thus, e.g., doctrines of law-positivism and rule-positivism
simultaneous in Civil and Common Law systems)11 merely as the
parallelity / in mutual
10
influence Werner Krawietz ‘Die Lehre vom Stufenbau des Rechts – eine säku-
larisierte politische Theologie?’ in Rechtssystem und gesellschaftliche Basis bei
Hans Kelsen ed. Werner Krawietz & Helmut Schelsky (Berlin: Duncker &
Humblot 1984), pp. 255–272 [Rechtstheorie, Beiheft 5].
11
(An ideological “In my opinion, in the case of communities identifying law with rules,
concept of law) an i d e o l o g i c a l concept of law can be put forward which conceives
of the boundaries of law as those covered by legal regulation, and of the
areas covered by actual behaviours and authority decisions in »realisation«
of the law as domains within itself. As it is a matter of the ideology of an
institutional system as well as of a profession called to its functioning, an
ideal is reflected in it.Theoretically, the realisation of that ideal is not impos-
Old310-332 11/12/19 9:22 Page 323
i n t e r n a l s e l f - d e s c r i p t i o n of law. This it
does independently of whether it sets criteria for the so-
called official and recognised ways and chances of the
generation of law as well as whether it is open to whatever
form and manifestation of law, including ones that can only
be enforced through long-term practices even if they are not
accepted by the officially recognised prevailing ones. It is
another important step to realise that (2) breaking with the
narrowly unifactoral and reified view of law, as well as with
the definitions afforded by normative conventionalisations
of the acceptable ways of generating the law, eventually it
recognises that the catalogue of acceptable ways of generat-
ing law cannot be previously codified as withstanding the
dynamism inherent in socio-legal schemes for once and all,
for example, as against the practices solidified in law
enforcement. Therefore, the opportunity to re-activate (re-
test by the prospect of re-conventionalisation) it,
geographically and historically v a r y i n g paths are
equally feasible and welcome to competition in principle.
Taken all these, in theory (3) it refuses to absolutise any
pattern rigidified as the exclusively sole, primary or distin-
guished way(s) of the formation of law. Instead, it leaves it up
to history, that is, to the self-assertive practice of society to
select and decide which of the c o m p e t i n g ways of
generating and forming phenomena to be accepted as legal
(and how and how much persistently) will come out as the
exclusive, primary, distinguished, recognised, or simply
tolerated one(s). In consequence, (4) it takes cognisance of
the fact that a v a r i e t y of ways of generating and
forming law may concomitantly prevail and assert them-
selves in the practice of society—of course, with varying
impact, effectiveness and persistence. On the final analysis,
it is a function of social self-regulation and feedback whether
one or more of these can become selected as dominant or
sible but in practice, due to the complex definitions prevailing in life, mostly
its approximations are to materialise.Thus, in communities identifying law
with rules, norms established and fixed in a given way are the preponderate
media and mediators of legal normativity.” Varga ‘Anthropological
Jurisprudence?’, pp. 442–443.
Old310-332 11/12/19 9:22 Page 324
“official” ways of the law’s formation—letting the rest freely

prevail, or maybe just tolerating, or attempting to exclude or
even ban either each and every of the rest, or at least some of
them. Simultaneously, however, (5) independent of how we
think of either of these ways of law formation, none of them
can prevail in isolation from the others: they function in
m u t u a l i n f l u e n c e upon all the others—strength-
ening or weakening, or parallel to, one another.
Multifactorality is As to its fundamental nature, law is a multifactoral
prevalent in each of phenomenon. Its specificity is provided precisely by the fact
its components that, in principle, its multifactorality can be identified, and
caught indeed, in any of its components. Multifactorality is
not simply a characteristic expressing consecutive (imagi-
nary or actual) phases, but is a characteristic truly prevailing
(pervasively and permeatingly) in every moment. For one
can reveal each and every legal phenomenon’s coming into
being in the originally dominant way, on the one hand,
somewhat coloured (strengthened, weakened, or providing
extra backing) by the parallelity with, or opposition to, other
paths and ways of generating law, on the other.
Σ: law is: dynamic / When defining the fundamental nature of law, we ought to
composed of various keep in mind the following considerations: (1) law is homo-
motions / geneous an entity that cannot be taken to be unchangeably
in this/that sense / (and in a static and reifying manner) identical with itself, but
being more/less legal is rather a changing and d y n a m i c concept expressing
or transforming into / the continuous process of social practice. Therefore, (2) we
withdrawing from cannot think of law as though it were some unity or solid
the law entity, because it is composed of v a r i o u s m o t i o n s
that support or weaken, or even neutralise (or extinguish)
one another by their parallelity or opposite direction. Conse-
quently, in this constant motion (3) we cannot from the very
beginning make categorical statements about either of the
components and whether they embody the ‘legal’ or ‘non-
legal’. Rather we ought to formulate the following in a more
subtle manner: it qualifies (or may qualify) as ‘legal’ or
‘non-legal’ in t h i s o r t h a t recognised or truly preva-
lent s e n s e of how law originates, and, respectively, it
qualifies (or may qualify) as ‘ m o r e l e g a l ’ or ‘ l e s s
l e g a l ’ in either of the above senses. Finally, (4) as law is
Old310-332 11/12/19 9:22 Page 325
an uninterrupted process, we cannot conceive of its totality

(“law taken in general”) at any given time as uniform and
complete and unchangeably identical with itself. Being a
phenomenon resulting (as woven together) from various
incessantly running and counter-running motions, it always
displays different sides, components and ways of legal
formation (with the potential of temporary conflicts and one
momentarily final outcome) at any moment in time. In
consequence, in every such and similar, recognised or truly
prevalent sense of the emergence of law, it continuously
features up and englobes the motions and measurable states
of t r a n s f o r m i n g i n t o and w i t h d r a w i n g
f r o m t h e l a w (always just in a relative and time-
depending sense, because it is measured to the
aforementioned levels of ‘more legal’ and ‘less legal’).
6.1.3. Law as building from acts

By definition and according to its ontological standing, law Actualised
is a multifactoral process composed of the sum of actualisa- in a sequence of acts
tions made in the sequence of various consecutive and
historically overlapping acts.
We may probably claim that this is some condition générale. of decision by
That is, it is a pervasive characteristic of legal development the authority
at all times, although only in the most recent times did it
become conspicuously criterion-like for the very description
of the nature of law. This shows that our social life is
becoming more and more controlled by law and pushed to
juridified channels: legal mediation and especially socially
widespread confidence (both popular and professional) in
relying upon the power of judicial decision-making have just
moved into the limelight primarily in more developed coun-
tries with a more complex and differentiated structure of
institutional building. Or, in more philosophical terms:
increasing socialisation and accentuating legal mediation in
social processes confer a stronger emphasis on selecting the
established ways of how law is originated upon the settle-
ment of conflicts by means of authoritative decisions and
upon the concrete official a c t u a l i s a t i o n of the
latent and potential abstract messages of the law.
Old310-332 11/12/19 9:22 Page 326
In sequence of Utilising symbolic images that might seem rather bizarre

customary practice at the first sight: (a) legal enforcement of the
→ regulation c u s t o m a r y s o c i a l p r a c t i c e may be reminis-
→ decisions cent of the roll of a stream, (b) ‘l e g i s l a t i o ’ as a
sequence of discrete motions may remind us of the advance-
ment of a huge walking excavator, and finally, (c) ‘j u r i s
d i c t i o ’—with the immense number of authoritative
(administrative, judicial and other) decisions, accumulated
consecutively in time—makes us think of the juice uninter-
ruptedly pouring out from the machine-line in a canning
factory.The demand for regulation has incredibly increased
in our days.12 Numerous situations require prompt deci-
sions, and this induces an incessant flow of actualisations
through the generation of laws.
within tradition At the same time, today’s cognitive sciences ascertain for
encountering novation us that—according to in-depth analyses—events of everyday
life, minor and major alike, are composed of nothing but
acts. Acts are performed within a conventionalised frame-
work. In a changing context, they undergo shifts of emphasis
and changes of meaning—maybe unnoticeable and also
unimportant in and of themselves—that can nevertheless
add up to changes in direction in the longer run. Accord-
ingly, t r a d i t i o n and i n n o v a t i o n , routine and
creation, fertilised by deep roots, on the one hand, and being
lost in ever reasserted tabula rasa limitlessness, on the other,
can intermingle in these processes into one organic evolve-
ment.
& culminating English–American and Scandinavian legal realisms as
in judicial events well as existentialist legal philosophies always put the
emphasis on the judicial event as the key for testing the law
in action, and this realisation may gain added meaning in the
light of what was said above. If the socialisation [‘Sozial-
isierung’ in GEORGE LUKÁCS’ social ontology] of societal life
12
Cf., by the author, ‘Joguralom? Jogmánia? Ésszerûség és anarchia
határmezsgyéjén Amerikában’ [Rule of law? Mania of law? Rationality
verging on anarchy in America] Valóság XLV (2002) 9, pp. 1–10 & <http://
www.valosagonline.hu/index.php?oldal=cikk&cazon=326&lap=0>
{reprinted in Az év esszéi [The essays of the year] 2003, szerk. Molnár
Krisztina (Budapest: Magyar Napló 2003), pp. 99–114.
Old310-332 11/12/19 9:22 Page 327
6.2. THE NATURE OF LEGAL THINKING 327
arrives at a stage where the actualised law is increasingly

becoming the sole variant of the law to bear genuine legal
meaning, then—independently of how we think of our life
under either precedential law or the traditions of legal
realism or existentialism—the ‘judicial event’ will be more
likely to truly create law and carry its actualised (if there is
any) message. (And, in turn, this may influence the theoret-
ical explanations through which we may reconstruct the
other ways of generating the law, that is, the specific integra-
tion, conferring legal validity, into the formal domain of law
of either the customary social practice or the law-making
significance of ‘legislation’, that is, the official positing of
abstract rules as the final source of the law.)
6.2. THE NATURE OF LEGAL THINKING
On the basis of the scientific pattern of thinking and of the All the ways of
legal profession’s thought patterns, it is extremely difficult— human thinking are
if not almost impossible—to draw conclusions utilisable in also found in law:
form of generalisable statements.The particular and distinc-
tive features of law almost get lost in the cavalcade of various
attemptable ways of mental operations in law, for everything
that human kind has developed over more than six thousand
years of recorded history—from induction to deduction,
from the temptation to mediation resolving conceptuality to
rigorous axiomatism, from fictions, metaphors, symbols and
various sorts of substitutions to narrations through
proverbs, precepts, allegories and parables—can also be
encountered within the domain of law.13 What is typical of
13
As also known in mathematics, it is the entire personality at all times
that takes part (by utilising all its psychical abilities and human facultases)
in most of actual problem-solving, irrespective of the specific form and
homogenisation that will be required by subsequent justification. Cf.
Jacques Hadamard The Mathematician’s Mind The Psychology of Invention
in the Mathematical Field [1945] (Princeton: Princeton University Press
1973) xix + 143 pp. [Princeton Science Library]. The philosophical
thought is from the outset also a matter of temperament—Thomas Nagel
The View from Nowhere (New York: Oxford University Press 1986) xi + 244
Old310-332 11/12/19 9:22 Page 328
law among these—in relation to which it can be told that

learning law does in fact amount to adopting a mode of
thought14—is mainly treated academically within the frame-
work of comparative studies on law by fields specialised on
comparative legal cultures and the comparative judicial
mind.15
all of conceptual Therefore, our most trivial conclusion can hardly be more
definitions & within the present methodological perspective than stating
operations that any kind of c o n c e p t u a l d e f i n i t i o n can
become law (at least to some extent) and, consequently, any
c o n c e p t u a l o p e r a t i o n can become the subject
of legal thought (at least to some extent). Accordingly, the
doctrinal study of law [Rechtsdogmatik] is not necessarily
more or less than the strict conceptual elaboration for legal
purposes (at least to some extent) of any kind of conceptual
definitions—by means of definition, classification and
systematisation.16
with definite legal So, we can hardly say anything more, because the condi-
culture in derivation of tions of what the ways and means of legal reasoning
validity & with definite
legal ideology in the
pp. and particularly at p. 10—as well as of practical experience and imagi-
background
nation. See Jeffrie G. Murphy & Jean Hampton Forgiveness and Mercy
(Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press 1988) xii + 194 pp.
[Cambridge Studies in Philosophy and Law] and especially at p. 186.
14
It is symptomatic that recent endeavours—as shown by Geoffrey
Samuel Epistemology and Method in Law (Aldershot & Burlington, V.T.:
Dartmouth 2003) xxvi + 384 pp. [Applied Legal Philosophy] and Gary P.
Bagnall Law as Art (Aldershot: Dartmouth) xii + 221 pp. [Applied Legal
Philosophy 7]—aim at proving that just as opera is not simply musical
score, law is not just the text of rules either, but professional performance
dedicated to reaching a given effect, in fact, a mode of thought.
15
Cf., e.g., Comparative Legal Cultures ed. Csaba Varga (Aldershot,
Hong Kong, Singapore, Sydney: Dartmouth & New York: The New York
University Press 1992) xxiv + 614 pp. [The International Library of Essays
in Law & Legal Theory: Legal Cultures 1] especially Part IV and Volkmar
Gessner, Armin Hoeland & Csaba Varga European Legal Cultures (Alder-
shot, Brookfield, Singapore, Sydney: Dartmouth 1995) xviii + 567 pp.
[Tempus Textbook Series on European Law and European Legal
Cultures], particularly Part II, pp. 87–166.
16
Cf., by the author, ‘Law and its Doctrinal Study (On Legal
Dogmatics)’ Acta Juridica Hungarica 49 (2008) 3, pp. 253–274 & <http://
akademiai.om.hu/content/g352w44h21258427/fulltext.pdf>.
Old310-332 11/12/19 9:22 Page 329
are—i.e., of how to o r i g i n a t e v a l i d i t y and of

how to d r a w c o n c l u s i o n s in a way acknowledge-
able and also made acknowledged in a given legal
order—will be defined by the legal order itself on grounds of
potentialities inherent in the underlying legal culture and
ideology (taken as a professional deontology) that would
help converting these into professional practice. What was
revealed indeed by the above survey is that neither law, nor
legal thinking can stand in and by itself: any formal carrier of
(and process of carrying) signs can only be interpreted in a
meaningful way within its own informal context and
medium. This environment provides the framework called
l e g a l c u l t u r e which, in turn, is rooted in the general
culture of society. Among others, legal culture is composed
of the ethos and values of the legal profession, its problem-
sensitivity towards law and its conceptualisation, the
conceptual and referential framework available in law (with
judicial and administrative skills and practices implied), as
well as the moral expectations toward the legal profession.
L e g a l i d e o l o g y , on the other hand, is mainly
composed of the image to be formed in the legal order on
how to ‘construct’ and ‘operate’ the law, that is, on the law’s
nature, sources, and criteria of validity, and on the condi-
tions of how a conclusion can be drawn in law and what
consequences that would imply.
Accordingly, the most general characteristic of law Σ: legal thinking is:
(present also in legal thinking) is that (1) law itself creates self-constituting /
the features of its own constitution with limits and criteria formal / dichotomic /
given thereby, (2) by strictly defining, with no dialectics or logically concluding
compromise solutions involved, the features of those formal with a closed system
facts that may constitute a case in law. In consequence, (3) of fulfilment / open to
law must select from the alternatives defined by its binary information
code17 regarding its construction, operation, and form of at the same time
manifestation, namely, that something is either inside or
17
NIKLAS LUHMANN’s expression. Cf. also, by the author, ‘On Judicial
Ascertainment of Facts’ Ratio Juris 4 (1991) 1, pp. 61–71.
Old310-332 11/12/19 9:22 Page 330
outside the law, and it qualifies as either legal or non-legal.18

(4) The conditions of making this selection are also estab-
lished by the law itself through its own “system of
fulfilment”.19 Therefore, (5) law is normatively closed while
being open to new information. Notably, anything and,
indeed, everything can be run through its filter to receive the
qualification of and by the law (as, qualifiedly, ‘compulsory’,
‘forbidden’, ‘permitted’ or ‘indifferent’), yet (6) this very
qualification can only be gained by means of logical deduc-
tion as the one previously codified (feasible or right) answer
of the law.
18
(qualification is “Qualification necessarily amounts to alternative exclusivity and to
not dialectical) the declaration of certain duality, since the subsumption of facts under
some defined notion(s) and the more or less automatic drawing of more or
less narrowly defined legal consequences therefrom can only be performed
unconditionally in exclusive totality, without any inclusion of the idea of
alternativity, division, decomposition, or reservation in regard of some
further potential qualification(s), of the qualification and the drawn legal
consequences. Therefore, providing that given facts have been duly quali-
fied, all provisions of the law relevant to the qualification of the facts in
question and the consequences issuing therefrom are to be cogently and
properly applied, while, on the other hand, the relevancy of any other provi-
sion is automatically excluded by the bare fact that the given qualification
in question is made—at least in the same respect: within the same system
and branch of the law and at the same point in time.” Csaba Varga ‘Legal
Logic and the Internal Contradiction of Law’ in Informationstechnik in der
juristischen Realität Aktuelle Fragen zur Rechtsinformatik 2004, hrsg. Erich
Schweighofer, Doris Liebwald, Günther Kreuzbauer & Thomas Menzel
(Wien: Verlag Österreich 2004), pp. 49–56 [Schriftenreihe Rechtsinfor-
matik 9].
19
(subsumption is a “Subsumption will get a particular shape owing to the fact that some
mere phenomenal teleological project (the law) is destined to produce another teleological
project (its application), and thus the already mentioned dialectic, the
form)
conflict of class interests that springs from this becomes the ultimate deter-
mining factor, and the logical subsumption is based on this only as a
phenomenal form.” György Lukács A társadalmi lét ontológiájáról II [Zur
Ontologie des gesellschaftlichen Seins: Die wichtigsten Problemkomplexe]
(Budapest: Magvetô 1976), p. 220 [for the manuscript in German, see
Lukács Archives and Library (Budapest) M/120, p. 124]. Cf. also, by the
author, The Place of Law in Lukács’World Concept trans. Judit Petrányi &
Sándor Eszenyi (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó 1985 [reprint 1998]) 198 pp.
on p. 145, note 300.
Old310-332 11/12/19 9:22 Page 331
What can still be said at this point for a generalisable Conflicts of interest
conclusion? Well, there is at least one common characteristic → conflicts within the
of the various legal ideologies, namely, the requirement that law → legal response
law should contribute to the resolution of social conflicts by
transforming (through refining and stylising) real conflicts process of
of interest firstly into a p p a r e n t c o n f l i c t s transformation /
w i t h i n t h e l a w , just for those actually administering through tensions
justice to be able to formulate—on basis of values, princi-
ples, considerations, references and perspectives recognised
as referable objects in law, that is, as based on the law and on
the conclusions drawn therefrom—their own response i n
t h e n a m e o f t h e l a w . Such responses will in turn
be presented as the sole and exclusive responses of the law,
strictly derived from the very propositions of the law.This is
a p r o c e s s o f t r a n s f o r m a t i o n which formal
analyses have for long attempted to formulate as the partic-
ular (yet theoretically and also formally inexplicable) casual
resolution of irresolvable conflicts (as gaps of “non conse-
quitur”) between law and logic, on the one hand, and fact
and norm, on the other.20 This duality stretches between two
20
“As far as law-application is concerned, those conflicts require judi- (with manipulation)
cial decision which themselves are socially real together with their
economic, political and moral implications. But in order to formulate
conflicts in his reasoning, the judge first has to convert them into conflicts
w i t h i n the law. Then, in the first phase of manipulation, the selection
and clarification of the facts of the case take place in conformity with the
choice and interpretation of the corresponding (‘relevant’) norms of the
legal system. The phenomenon which neo-KANTian legal philosophy used
to call the conflict between the abstract wording of the law and the concrete
facts constituting a case, takes place in this phase. It may also be revealed at
this time that there is a gap in the law or even a ‘critical gap’ (when a ‘legally
relevant’ norm is available but one that would have a socially undesirable
result), which the Anglo–American literature usually describes simply as
‘hard cases’. In the second phase of manipulation, the conflict thus
converted into a conflict within the law is dissolved, i.e., reduced to a false
conflict in legal reasoning. This is when the facts ‘constituting the case’,
already qualified from a juristic point of view, and the correspondingly
interpreted ‘provisions of the law’ are formulated, i.e., manipulated, so that
they make possible the presentation of the desirable decision as also a
l o g i c a l r e s u l t deriving from the ‘facts constituting the case’ as well
as from the law based on »legal reasoning«.” Varga The Place of Law, pp.
Old310-332 11/12/19 9:22 Page 332
poles—the own network of traditions, normatively recorded

propositions, recognised techniques and procedures of
argumentation, as well as referential practices within the law,
on the one hand, and the practical nature of the issue to be
decided and the demand for practicality of solutions, on the
other21—, the concrete resolution of which, i.e., the intensi-
fication of their tension through repeated confrontation,
followed by taking them to a point of rest, will be done in a
solely hermeneutically constructible situation and through
such a process.22
146–147. Cf. also, by the author [with József Szájer], ‘Legal Technique’ in
Rechtskultur – Denkkultur Ergebnisse des ungarisch–österreichischen
Symposiums der Internationale Vereinigung für Rechts- und Sozialphiloso-
phie 1987, hrsg. Erhard Mock & Csaba Varga (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner
Verlag Wiesbaden 1989), pp. 136–147 [Archiv für Rechts- und Sozial-
philosophie, Beiheft 35] as well as ‘Doctrine and Technique in Law’ in
<www.univie.ac.at/RI/IRIS2004/Arbeitspapierln/Publikationsfreigabe/Csa
ba_Phil/Csaba_Phil.doc> & Iustum Aequum Salutare IV (2008) 1, pp. 23–37
& <http://www.jak.ppke.hu/hir/ias/2008sz/02.pdf>.
21
(hermeneutics) It is precisely the hermeneutics of our explanation on the concept of
God that provides such characterisation of law (considered a parallel field,
therefore worthy of examination): “It is a task of understanding that derives
from the relationship between the sources of law and the tasks of jurisdic-
tion, in a way that traditionalised sources of the law can set the path leading
to present-time jurisdiction by becoming the source of understanding,
throwing light on problems of the present case in law […]. It is expected that
in encountering the present-day concrete case, the traditionalised text can
serve as enlightening, explanatory and guiding word, becoming the source
of legal interpretation and thereby also the source of jurisdiction.” Gerhard
Ebeling ‘Wort Gottes und Hermeneutik’ Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche
56 (1959) 2, pp. 224–251.
22
(with pressure As we have already characterised it before, “[t]his is FIKENTSCHER’s
& turning point) theory of the case norm, in which the hermeneutic pressure »pushes the
hermeneutic process to turning point«, which, at a time when »with the
given yardsticks of the object and the justice, neither the further specifi-
cation of the norm nor the further breaking down of the notions of the
facts that constitute a legal case is not possible any longer«—Wolfgang
Fikentscher Methoden des Rechts IV: Dogmatischer Teil (Tübingen: Mohr
1977) on pp. 100 & 198—will be reached.” Csaba Varga Theory of the Judi-
cial Process The Establishment of Facts (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó 1995)
vii + 249 pp on p. 115.
Old333-334 11/12/19 9:23 Page 333
333
7. CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
We followed a path that led to law from the paradigms of (Reliance upon
legal thinking, and from the self-assertion of legal formalism continuity of social
to its overall cultural determination.Yet, our human yearn- practice)
ings peeked out from behind the illusory reference of our
security and we could discover reliable, solid grounds only in
the elusive continuity of our social practice. In the meantime
it proved to be a process which we had thought to have been
present as a material entity and what we had believed to be
fully built up proved to build continuously from acts in an
uninterrupted series.
What we have discovered about law is that it has always Law being
been inside of us, although we thought it to have been out- inside of us,
side. We bear it in our culture despite our repeated and in our culture
hasty attempts at linking it to materialities.
We have identified ancient dilemmas as existent in our in ever-green current
current debates as well. We have found long abandoned dilemmas
patterns again. We have discovered the realisations of com-
mon recognitions in those potentialities and directions in
law which we believed to have been conceptually marked
off once and for all.
However, we have found an invitation for elaboration of with all us as actors
what has revealed itself as ready-to-take. Behind the mask, with responsibility
and in the backstage, the demand for our own initiation, to be borne
play, role-undertaking and human responsibility has pre-
sented itself. We have become subjects from objects, indis-
pensable actors from mere addressees. And, we can be con-
vinced that despite having a variety of civilisational over-
coats, the culture of law is still exclusively inherent in us
who experience it day by day. We bear it and shape it.
Everything conventional in it is conventionalised by us. It
Old333-334 11/12/19 9:23 Page 334
334 7. CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
does not have any further existence or effect beyond this.

And with its existence inherent in us, we cannot convey the
responsibility to be borne for it on somebody else either. It
is ours in its totality so much that it cannot be torn out of
our days or acts. It will thus turn into what we guard it to
become.Therefore, we must take care of it at all times since
we are, in many ways, taking care of our own.
Old335-345 11/12/19 9:23 Page 335
335
APPENDIX I.
LAW AND ITS APPROACH AS A SYSTEM*
1. TENDENCIES OF FORMAL RATIONALISATION IN LEGAL DEVELOPMENT
The category of f o r m a l r a t i o n a l i t y is the product of bourgeois

development. In the focal point of formal rationality there is a demand for
c a l c u l a b i l i t y , a demand which in its elementary forms manifested
itself in the organisation of the economy, relying on double-entry book-
keeping and, later, on the rational calculation of the use of capital. It was
MAX WEBER who made it clear that the whole organisation of bourgeois
society consisted of a set of formally rationalised structures. Beyond
economic organisation he discovered this type of structure in the adminis-
trative, judicial, military, ecclesiastic, and party organisations as well. He
revealed that i m p e r s o n a l i t y and d e t e r m i n e d n e s s by a
system of pre-established rules prevailing in the functioning of these struc-
tures had laid the foundations of bureaucratic rule and created the
bureaucratic complexity of bourgeois society.1 Thus, in the light of the
WEBERian exposition of bureaucratic organisation the demand for formal
rationality has become the stigmatic sign of capitalist society.
As GEORGE LUKÁCS has made clear, with reference to TAYLORism, this
most characteristic, though extreme, potentiality of the capitalist division of
labour, formal rationality is but the dissolution, i.e., the cutting up, of organ-
ically united processes, on the ground of the cognition of the interrelation of
their components, into a series of artificially interconnected partial
processes.2
* Chapters 2 and 3 of the paper under the same title, first published in Acta Juridica Acade-
miae Scientiarum Hungaricae XX (1979) 3–4, pp. 295–319 & [re-print] Informatica e Diritto
[Firenze] VII (1981) 2–3, pp. 177–199.
1
By Max Weber, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft (Tübingen: Mohr 1922), passim, in particular
at pp. 44ff and 467ff, and Staatssoziologie 2nd ed. (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot 1966), pp. 99ff.
2
Georg Lukács ‘Die Verdinglichung und das Bewusstsein des Proletariats’ in his Geschichte
und Klassenbewusstsein (Berlin: Malik 1923), pp. 99ff.
Old335-345 11/12/19 9:23 Page 336
336 APPENDIX I.
It is this structure that in feudal absolutism, advanced by the interests of

the enlightened absolute monarch as backed by the growing bourgeoisie,
became institutionalised as a consequence of the development of state
finances, state army, and of the state bureaucracy, which was created for the
former’s uniform operation—the fact notwithstanding that the structure in
question gained its decisive, typical and autonomous existence only in capi-
talist society.
Hence, formal rationality is a historically defined phenomenon, on the
one hand, but is by no means void of antecedents, on the other. Formal
rationality as a principle tending towards calculability is a characteristic
product of bourgeois civilisation, although it already appears in its germs at
an early stage of social development. As far as legal regulation is concerned,
formal rationality was the product of the coming into power of the bour-
geoisie as brought to fruition by feudal absolutism. In a wider sense, in its
elementary manifestations, formal rationality is, however, an indispensable
property, the sine qua non precondition of any conscious, planned, willed
and controlled, social influence.
As is known, there was a first and decisive change in the formal develop-
ment of law when law broke off from the body of customary laws forming a
unity with everyday social practice, and as written law became o b j e c t i -
f i e d as something distinct and externalised from customary law. It was
then that the n o r m - s t r u c t u r e of law also developed, i.e., the struc-
ture which turned the behaviour originally set as a goal and assigned as
instrumental to the result to be achieved, into something independent.
Abstracted from the result to be achieved, it set the behaviour itself as an
autonomous objective before the addressee. By defining both the behaviour
to be observed and the consequences of its observance or non-observance
in a formal way segregated from the factuality of social practice, law
has given a m e n t a l l y p r e - c o n s t r u c t e d n o r m a t i v e
p a t t e r n to social behaviour.
In order to see what points may have been decisive in the universal devel-
opment of formal rationality in law, we have to recall some of the most
important teachings afforded by legal history as outlined in some of my
previous papers.3 To begin at the beginning we have to note that for
MARXism the formal-technological metamorphosis of law, likewise with any
change in its contents, is by no means a random unmotivated act: processes
3
Assembled in a monograph by the author, Codification as a Socio-historical Phenomenon
(Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó 1991) viii + 391 pp., passim.
Old335-345 11/12/19 9:23 Page 337
LAW AND ITS APPROACH AS A SYSTEM 337
of both formal and informal change supervene in dependence on the change

of social-economic relations forming the real context of it.
As regards the first stage, I have in mind Mesopotamia before and subse-
quent to the second millennium B.C., this historically unique situation
when parallel to the transition to the wooden plough and the progress made
in metal-working, this favourably sited region of a fair climate embarked on
unprecedented development. The want of prime materials encouraged
trade, the construction of a system of irrigation and other public works
prompted to wars for territorial conquest and for capture of war prisoners
to become the slaves of their conquerors. All this, on the one hand, brought
about a proliferating bureaucracy, and, on the other, a rapidly spreading
empire, where the conscious establishment and empire-wide unification of
the laws, i.e., their recording in written form and so the very chance of their
uniform enforcement, had become the pre-condition of survival. In the
ensemble of rules known as the Code of Hammurabi norm-structures
appeared in an already mature, almost perfect form, presenting even their
system-like organisation in their objective consolidation and, partly, casu-
istic succession.
Be the role of Roman law and its consolidation by JUSTINIAN in view of
subsequent development ever so significant, in the technological formation
of law this had primarily a function in the conceptualisation of law, as well
as in its transformation into a phenomenon expressly established and
enacted by the profane, personal and, in principle, arbitrary will of the ruler.
Development meant thereby·the transformation of rites of law into a craft
relying on overtly practical rational considerations and manipulations.
Medieval development did not favour either central legislation or its ratio-
nalisation. The Germanic principalities springing up on the ruins of the
Roman Empire took trouble with the primary task of their organisation into
an independent statehood and of putting into writing the mostly barbarous
primitive law they brought with them. Centuries later, dismemberment and
permanent unsettled feuding between ruler and his feoffers threw obstacles
into the way of codification, and what anticipated subsequent development
had to pass off in towns.These were the early workshops of bourgeois civil-
isation. It was there where Roman legal tradition got “denationalised”
which, for want of other more applicable norms, meant the g l o s s a t i o n
of the classic surviving texts, i.e., their conceptual systematisation by their
coherent system-like organisation as adapted to the needs of trade relations.
This is what, at a later stage, became associated with the m a t h e m a -
tical, axiomatic, system-centred approach of
Old335-345 11/12/19 9:23 Page 338
338 APPENDIX I.
r a t i o n a l i s m , a development which again gave expression to the calcu-

latory exigencies of the bourgeoisie; then later with n a t u r a l l a w , an
ideological expression of the anti-feudal struggle of the rising bourgeoisie,
which on its turn led to the formation of ideal systems of law constructed
a r t i f i c i a l l y in a quasi-axiomatic way.
Feudal development led from necessity to the transcendence of particu-
larism. Enlightened absolute rulers got the upperhand of particularism at
first. As the means of their struggle they began to take into their own hand
the finances, to organise a regular army, to patronise industry and trade, etc.
The discharge of such functions called for a professionally trained bureau-
cracy and, in order to channel its activity in a uniform way, also for an
unequivocal, comprehensive set of rules, formulated with due regard to its
bureaucratic mass use. At this juncture both the ruler and his bureaucracy
demanded an enormous increase of the number of rules: the extension of
legal regulation to several new domains and, consequently and in view of the
calculatory needs, its re-establishment in a form that was easy to handle.The
old method of quantitative consolidation was inadequate for the purpose. It
was FREDERICK THE GREAT who made the first comprehensive attempt to
achieve any quasi-axiomatic trans-structuralistion of law. He meant formal
law rationalisation, as well as bureaucratic-military organisation, to become
his personal supports in raising his country to be a great European power.
Heated by the tyrannical passion of interference in everything and foresight
of everything, the Prussian Landrecht, however, resulted in a logically
coherent yet impracticably redundant and confused series of casuistic rules,
rather than in a system of norms of a truly rationalising effect, suitable to
pave a path forward.
The break-through took place with the rise of the bourgeoisie to power,
i.e., with the advent of the French Revolution. This was a consistently
carried out revolution in which, by abolishing the old law, a new one had
been institutionalised. The formation of a legal system as embodied by the
Code civil, the compound of a series of consistent sequences from more
general to ever more particular rules, sub-rules and exceptions to rules as a
formally rationalised optimum hierarchisation, took place in one single act,
heralding both national unification and a new, revolutionary start of law.
Formal rationalisation seems to be a companion, with a continually
growing impact, of legal development. Albeit a historical product of bour-
geois development, formal rationalisation as a moment of any actual social
influence has a by far more universal role.
Old335-345 11/12/19 9:23 Page 339
Law is the unity of two social functions, historically defined concretely at

any time. Its main function is to regulate social relations while being a tool
of, as integrated into, the exercise of power by the ruling classes. Obvi-
ously—as the jurisprudence of Soviet MARXism noted at its time—even if
the law’s class function withered away (as planned by the last two
Congresses of the Communist Party of KHRUSHCHEV’s Soviet Union as an
imminent development), the regulatory function would also insist on ratio-
nalisation.
Or, to take some examples from history, it is characteristic that even when
political structure (in feudal particularism) or legal tradition (in the coun-
tries of Common Law) precluded codification, social and economic
development could nevertheless enforce a minimum of formal rationalisa-
tion through the forced fulfilment of certain code-substituting functions. A
rationalisation of that kind was the practical use, as sources of law, of both
the collections of formulae compiled for didactic purposes and the compila-
tions of regional customs intending to be but mnemonic aids, as well as the
rejected or failed codes (as WERBÔCZY’s Tripartitum in Hungary) and the
ones drafted as private law-books in feudal development. Similarly, a ratio-
nalisation of that kind has been targeted by textbook-writing (arranging
case-law as a system of principles) and the codification of a mere persuasive
value (e.g., the Restatement of the Law) in Anglo–American development.
Moreover, such is the role of the official or unofficial collection of customary
laws, and of the doctrinal systematisation in the Afro–Asiatic territories
where there has been a reluctance to use codification or where the develop-
ment (or replacement) of the Islamic or tribal laws has simply been sought
by roundabout ways.
As shown by legal development, the tendency of formal rationalisation
stands for a codificational (or quasi-codificational) solution. Formal ratio-
nality comes to fruition in the highest degree when all its parts are organised
into a system. In the realm of law, the path of codification is the one which
lends itself most adequately for organisation as a system.
2. HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE APPROACH TO LAW AS A SYSTEM
From a survey of the most important stages of codificational development

it stands out clearly that formal rationalisation of law was not the product of
inner development: it was brought about by actual economic exigencies in
Old335-345 11/12/19 9:23 Page 340
340 APPENDIX I.
conformity with already dominant ideological and methodological tenden-

cies.
As is known, the 17th century was the age of definitive victory for the
s c i e n t i f i c c o n c e p t of the Universe over the scholastic thought
characteristic of the Middle Ages. It was the age which announced the
victory of human reason as an intellectual victory of bourgeoisie. By the way,
the scientific concept of the Universe appeared as the adequate expression
of middle-class economic interests.
The approach from the side of economic components will reveal that the
impact of both r a t i o n a l i s m and the idea of m a t h e s i s u n i v e r -
s a l i s was the organisation of partial systems belonging to various
structures as the elements of an all-comprehensive coherent system (by
subordinating such elements to regulating principles), that would render
both their interrelations and the response to questions put in respect of any
of such elements foreseeable and calculable, with the force of formal logical
necessity. “All logic is derived from the pattern of the economic decision or
[…] the economic pattern is the matrix of logic”, writes an economist on
analysing the ideological projections of capitalist economic development,4
whereas what corresponds to rational economic decision is the system-idea
translating philosophic rationalism into the language of logic, conditioning
an axiomatic-deductive world concept as well. It was therefore not solely the
domain of natural sciences where efforts were made for an a x i o m a t i c
exposition. Treatises on politics, ethics, and law (by HOBBES, SPINOZA,
GROTIUS, etc.) were equally built up more geometrico, in the axiomatic
method of EUCLIDean geometry with its notional coherence and certainty
of reasoning—or at least by having recourse to it as an ideal pattern. From
this it followed that intellectually constructed natural laws, born as tools in
the bourgeois struggle against feudalism but ideologically conceived as the
eternal laws of reason equivalent to nature, also took on an axiomatic form.
Moreover, this triumphant world concept led, in the enthusiastic exposition
by LEIBNIZ, to the birth of the idea that, in the course of continued develop-
ment, a stage would be reached where social and legal problems would in
the safest way be solved by the method of “Calculemus!”.5
4
Joseph A. Schumpeter Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy (London: Allen & Unwin
1943), p. 122.
5
Cf. Ernst Cassirer Die Philosophie der Aufklärung (Tübingen: Mohr 1932) and Wolfgang
Röd Geometrischer Geist und Naturrecht Methodengeschichtliche Untersuchungen zur Staats-
philosophie im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert (München: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
Old335-345 11/12/19 9:23 Page 341
The i d e a o f s y s t e m was that which manifested itself, ostensibly

on the JUSTINIANian pattern, in a variety of absolutistic legislations of wholly
different social media and ideological conditions, before all in the adminis-
tration and judicature of Prussia, characterised by its unrelenting attempt at
reducing anything of ius to the lex. In its pure form, this meant the limitation
of any and all law to the enacted, statutory form; the demand for a system of
norms bringing under regulation and foreseeing all, even in its most minute
details; a system which apart from the law-giver did not even tolerate any
interpretation, and authorised those responsible for its application only to
make decisions within the unconditioned servile and quasi-mechanical
dependency of a paragraph-automaton like a machine of deduction.
Beyond the extremities of the patriarchal-despotic style of enlightened
absolutistic ruling, it was the idea of system which, with a by far more lasting
historical validity, made its appearance in the codificational work of the
French Revolution, giving consolidated expression to the calculatory
exigencies of the bourgeoisie. As regards its feature, I think of the specific
dialectics guaranteeing sufficient free action in both directions, namely
dialectics embodied by a system of rules logically rendering it c l o s e d
while at the same time keeping it o p e n . Sure, the process of codification
was not a sudden breakthrough caused by the flood of the Revolution. It was
the mature product of numerous experimentations reflecting the many
waves, political tendencies and phases of the Revolution, advancing its
consolidation. Although in a manner bringing about a compromise, a
chance was thus offered to bring into prominence the practical feature of
codification without the illusions and excesses innate of necessity in the
intrinsic logic of revolutions.
With the dialectic unity of closedness and openness, codifiers were under-
stood to perform the extremely difficult task of objectifying law as a system
of higher degree.
1970) 246 pp. [Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-historische Klasse,

Abhandlungen 70]; as well as, by the author, ‘Leibniz und die Frage der rechtlichen System-
bildung’ [1973] in Materialismus und Idealismus im Rechtsdenken Geschichte und Gegenwart,
hrsg. Karl A. Mollnau (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag Wiesbaden 1987), pp. 114–127 [Archiv
für Rechts- und Sozialphilosophie, Beiheft 31] {reprinted in Csaba Varga Law and Philosophy
Selected Papers in Legal Theory (Budapest: ELTE Comparative Legal Cultures Project 1994),
pp. 219–232 [Philosophiae Iuris]}.
Old335-345 11/12/19 9:23 Page 342
342 APPENDIX I.
The Code could not, however, escape its fate: in the course of its practical
implementation it passed through a variety of its most extreme potentiali-
ties. As regards the first phase, the Code seemed to be the perfect expression
of the needs of a liberal economy to the extent that, reinforced by the psychic
components of the French gloire, it was before long conceived of as an almost
sacred text, the sole and exclusive expression of the French civil law. Its
appraisal as definitive and completed went together with the quite natural
claim to have its provisions applied in their immediateness in judicial prac-
tice. In this manner at the beginning of the l9th century its exceptionally high
adequacy with prevailing social conditions and the socially defined (yet epis-
temologically false) consciousness of its exaggerated valuation provided the
social-economic foundations of its e x e g e t i c application which, though
in a different manner and under different conditions, still structurally
similar to the Prussian solution, aimed at confining the judge to a deductive
machine within the system of administration of justice. Although the
exegetic method corresponded most directly to the axiomatic ideal and
coincided with the demands of philosophical positivism becoming the
dominant world-concept of the age, it could obviously only satisfy social
development temporarily, up to the limits of its inner adequacy. That is to
say, the exegetic trend of code-application seemed to embody a possible
alternative which in the fight against arbitrariness implied by feudal partic-
ularism and feudal privileges, formulated the bourgeois claim for security
and a genuine law and order in the field of administration of justice. As a
matter of fact it served as an optimum pattern of law-application adequate
for liberal capitalism, gaining admission throughout Europe.6 However, it
was unable to meet the exigencies of the inevitable development to monop-
olisation.
To meet the imperatives of the monopolistic transformation of the
economy it presupposed a far-reaching loosening of the whole—fixed—
framework of law.This was the period of internal crisis characterised by the
startling realisation that “la légalité nous tue!”, the period of the torturing
dilemma offering the alternative of either preserving revolutionary achieve-
ments or undertaking their jettison in order to go on in the name of further
progress. As a matter of course, it was economic interest that succeeded by
6
See, e.g., Zdenek Krystufek Historické základy právniho pozitivismu [Historical Founda-
tions of Lega1 Positivism] (Prague: Academia 1967).
Old335-345 11/12/19 9:23 Page 343
initiating, in the name of free law-finding [freie Rechtsfindung; libre recherche

scientifique], the loosening of enacted law. From a historical perspective,
however, it was eventually not a case of crisis of the rule of law principle itself
that amounted in Europe to the temporary swinging over from the one
extreme to the other, but it was the adaptation of the liberal capitalistic law
to the conditions of monopolisation that performed this function. In the first
decades of the 20th century, the ardour of the free law movement slowly
subsided, and although the adaptation of the law took place overwhelmingly
by way of judicial re-interpretation instead of codification, before long a
more solid bourgeois rule of law principle reborn, a principle performing
somewhat of a mediating role between the two extremes.
From the viewpoint of the system approach, this transformation can be
described as the replacement of the exaggerated conception of the closed-
ness, characteristic of code-system (in the case of exegetic law-application),
by the one of its openness (in that of the free law movement). This process
happened to go on until the flashover between the two extremes reached a
relative point of rest.
In this connection, however, we are interested in the historically condi-
tioned nature of the system approach rather than in capitalist development.
As a matter of fact, the s y s t e m a p p r o a c h , considered in its ideo-
logical and methodological foundations, is but the product of the 17th
century r a t i o n a l i s m and of the c l a s s i c a l i d e a o f c o d i f i -
c a t i o n with its demand for exegetic code-application. Of course, this is
by far not to be understood as if after this period, law objectification in the
framework of a system was void of any significance or failed to meet more
universal needs. It means merely that it was then that the system-character
of law reached its accomplished form. It was then that the objectification of
law within the framework of its systemic ideal had been established in its
purest, most theoretical and even doctrinaire form.
Still it is an ambivalent, Janus-faced situation we have to render account
of. Namely, the treatment of law as a system was born in an extreme form,
following the a x i o m a t i c p a t t e r n of geometry ad absurdum, i.e., in
a wholly impracticable way. It was therefore inevitable that subsequent
development should repudiate the results so achieved as truly illusory ones.
Nevertheless, all that had been institutionalised, continued to treat legal
axiomatism as some sort of an i d e a l . It conceived of axiomatism as an
ideal which, on the one hand, it tried to approximate as much as could be
done, while, on the other, it was aware of the fact that law as a decisively
practical system could not meet the exigencies of such an ideal.
Old335-345 11/12/19 9:23 Page 344
344 APPENDIX I.
It is the axiomatic ideal which to a by no means negligible degree shapes

the physiognomy of the ideology of law-application, generally prevailing
even today, and conceiving of the processes of motion, characteristic of law,
as bi-polarised ones, that is, as processes of two factors embodying oppo-
site functions. Namely, l e g i s l a t i o n which merely creates general
norms, whereas the a p p l i c a t i o n o f l a w relates them to individual
cases.
This pattern of the law-applying processes may in the best way be char-
acterised by the terms which MAX WEBER originally formulated as
postulates of the exegesis adequate for the conditions of the 19th century
free-trade capitalism:
“(1) Any concrete legal decision can only be the ‘application’ of some abstract provision
of the law to a concrete factual issue. (2) From the abstract provisions of the law in force,
a decision has to be derived for each concrete factual issue with the means of legal logic.
(3) The positive law in force has to be a ‘gapless’ system of legal provisions, overtly it has to
incorporate such a system or, at least for its application, it has to be considered as doing so.
(4) Anything that cannot be ‘constructed’ legally and rationally cannot be legally relevant.
And, generally, (5) man’s social activity has to be conceived of as either the ‘application’ and
‘enforcement’ or, alternatively, as a ‘violation’, of the provisions of the law”.7
This idealised and mostly fictitious concept is of an ambivalent nature

owing to the circumstance that the epistemologically distorted structures
are not necessarily ontologically distorted in the case of various objectifica-
tions called to life by social development. As GEORGE LUKÁCS developed the
interconnection in his posthumous Ontology, the mediating partial
7
Max Weber Rechtssoziologie (Neuwied: Luchterhand 1960) [Soziologische Texte], p. 103:
„(1) daß jede konkrete Rechtsentscheidung ‘Anwendung’ eines abstrakten Rechtssatzes auf
einen konkreten ‘Tatbestand’ sei, – (2) daß für jeden konkreten Tatbestand mit den Mitteln der
Rechtslogik eine Entscheidung aus den geltenden abstrakten Rechtssätzen zu gewinnen sein
müsse, – (3) daß also das geltende objektive Recht ein ‘lückenloses’ System von Rechtssätzen
darstellen oder latent in sich enthalten oder doch als ein solches für die Zwecke der Rechtsan-
wendung behandelt werden müsse, – (4) daß das, was sich juristisch nicht rational
‘konstruieren’ lasse, auch rechtlich nicht relevant sei, – (5) daß das Gemeinschaftshandeln der
Menschen durchweg als ‘Anwendung’ oder ‘Ausführung’ von Rechtssätzen oder umgekehrt
‘Verstoß’ gegen Rechtssätzen gedeutet werden müsse.” English translation is taken from Varga
Codification…, p. 294.
Old335-345 11/12/19 9:23 Page 345
complexes (language and law) can discharge their functions the better the
more independently they develop their specific particularity within the total
complex. If such complexes of mediation are formations adequate to their
social and economic conditions, even their possible fictitiousness will accu-
rately correspond to the just-so-being of the society where they are to
function.8 Or, it is exactly their total social determination that in their
apparent self-definition may find an eventually and tendentially adequate
expression.
8
György Lukács A társadalmi lét ontológiájáról [Zur Ontologie des gesellschaftlichen Seins]
II: Szisztematikus fejezetek [Systematic Chapters] (Budapest: Magvetõ 1976), ch. 11. As to its
jurisprudential interpretation, cf., by the author, The Place of Law in Lukács’World Concept
(Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó 1988 [reprint 1998]) 193 pp., passim.
Old346-352 11/12/19 9:23 Page 346
346
APPENDIX II.
IS LAW A SYSTEM OF ENACTMENTS?*
Law follows two models: one being ideological and the other actual. The
former represents the professional ideology, characteristic of modern formal
law. Nevertheless, according to the latter, formal enactment can gain social
meaning only through its social context in a semantic sense (when the total
law is termed as s y s t e m o f l a w ), and social existence through its
social context in a socio-ontological sense (termed as l e g a l s y s t e m ).
Theoretical field is characterised by a jurisprudential approach. The socio-
ontological approach promises, however, deeper theoretical perspectives.
Notably, the latter suggests that law is (1) a historical continuum, (2) an
open system, (3) a complex phenomenon that can be shaped either by its
actual interpretation or by its differing contexts alternatively, and (4) an irre-
versible process. All in all, law is more than a set of rules and even more than
a set of enactments: by its very definition it is exactly at the borderline where
legal research and social science are expected to meet.
1. THE WORKING MODELS OF LAW
According to its i d e o l o g i c a l m o d e l , law is the product of compe-

tent state institutions following established rules of procedure.
Consequently, only and exclusively what is enacted by given institutions in
given ways is to be considered law, independently of its actual contents,
formal coherence, foreseeable realisability, factual realisation, and so on.
This model has some definite deficiencies. Firstly, the qualification of an
institution as competent and the establishment of a rule of procedure are
both the function of legal enactment. It means that law is defined by the law
* First published in Theory of Legal Science ed. Aleksander Peczenik, Lars Lindahl & Bert van
Roermund (Dordrecht, Boston, Lancaster: Reidel 1984), pp. 175–182 [Synthese Library 176]
and Acta Juridica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae XXXIX (1984) 9, pp. 483–486.
Old346-352 11/12/19 9:23 Page 347
IS LAW A SYSTEM OF ENACTMENTS? 347
itself or, in other words, that the definition of the preconditions to the exis-
tence of any law is offered by its own self-qualification. Secondly, this model
has in view solely the law in books, without having any regard to its conceiv-
able or completed action.1 Thirdly, this model is not an image of reality. It is
the outcome of a definite type of wishful thinking, that is, the projection of
normative requirements. Nevertheless, in the legal cultures of the western
world in general and in professional practice in particular,2 the ideologically
working model has a primary role in identifying what ought to be regarded
in theory and treated in practice as distinctively legal.3 The model as such
holds as reasserted even if it proves to be imbued with clearly utopianistic
elements.
According to the a c t u a l m o d e l of law, the meeting of these norma-
tive requirements results, in practice, in an outcome which will necessarily
be more or less what the ideological model has suggested, and which will
differ in one or another feature from it. As outlined elsewhere,4 the self-
qualification of law as law seems in any case to remain the final criterion
even if a rigid distinction between the spheres “within the law” and “outside
the law” is no longer accepted; even if law is taken and treated as a
continuum in an unbroken motion; and/or even if the self-qualification of
law will only be understood within the boundaries of its actual social accep-
tance. Consequently, it is f o r m a l e n a c t m e n t (FE) that will serve as
a touchstone and also as a series of cornerstones in delimiting what is
considered and what is to be considered law. In the same way, it is again
1
For the distinction between “law in books” and “law in action”, see Roscoe Pound ‘Law
in Books and Law in Action’ American Law Review 44 (1910) l.
2
For the theoretical analysis of some common characteristics from a historico-comparative
point of view, cf., by the author, ‘Moderne Staatlichkeit und modernes formales Recht’ Acta
Juridica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae XXIV (1982) 3–4, pp. 413–417 and ‘Logic of Law
and Judicial Activity: A Gap between Ideals, Reality, and Future Perspectives’ in Legal Develop-
ment and Comparative Law Évolution du droit et droit comparé, ed. Zoltán Péteri & Vanda
Lamm (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó 1981), pp. 45–76.
3
For the first use of the term, see Philipp Selznick ‘The Sociology of Law’ in International
Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences ed. D.L. Sills (New York, etc.: MacMillan & The Free Press
1968), pp. 51ff.
4
Cf., by the author, ‘Macrosociological Theories of Law: From the »Lawyer’s World
Concept« to a Social Science Conception of Law’ in Soziologische Jurisprudenz und realistische
Thesien des Rechts ed Eugene Kamenka, Robert S. Summers & William Twining (Berlin:
Duncker & Humblot 1986), pp. 197–215 [Rechtstheorie, Beiheft 9], in particular ch. l, or, in
more details, his ‘Domaine »externe« et domaine »interne« en droit’ Revue Interdisciplinaire
d’Etudes Juridiques (1985), No. 14, pp. 25–43.
Old346-352 11/12/19 9:24 Page 348
348 APPENDIX II.
formal enactment that offers itself to be used and commands its own solely
decisive use as a starting point and also as a series of turning points in any
argumentation within a genuinely legal process. However, formal enact-
ment is not sufficient in itself at all for delimiting the realm of the law or for
channelling the process of legal argumentation. In other words, formal
enactment is not in a position to circumscribe the province of what is
considered and what is to be considered distinctively legal or to characterise
the law’s general trend, goal-orientation, value-commitment, etc., i.e., to
define in an operative manner—sharply and unambiguously—the formal
and doctrinal qualities (e.g. conceptual system, logical coherence) of the law
or its social potentialities and realities without taking into account its social
context as well.
2. THE SENSES OF CONTEXTUALITY IN LAW
In connection with law, contextuality has two main fields of action.

According to contextuality in a s e m a n t i c sense, a s y s t e m o f
l a w (SL) conceived of as a definite set of norms5 is formed partly by that
part of formal enactments which can be socially relevant and by the
s o c i a l c o n t e x t (SC1) in which the formal enactments are embedded.
It is the social context in question that defines the paradigmatic quality of
the formal enactments by giving their text a truly social existence. By social
context in a semantic sense I mean here all those presuppositions, precon-
ceptions, value choices, non-formal propositions and enactments, etc.
which have a major influence in a given society and which are, consequently,
instrumental in making formal enactments meaningful in a socially concrete
way and, thereby, interpretable and applicable in given (and not other) ways
in practice. Hence,
SL = FE + SC1
According to contextuality in a s o c i o - o n t o l o g i c a l sense, no

bare factuality, or the pure declaration or verbal reassertion thereof, can
stand for the totality (i.e., the inner potentialities, henceforth, the real signif-
icance) of any phenomenon. For instance, in the last resort both power and
5
For the differentiation between “system of law” and “legal system”, see Kálmán Kulcsár
‘Historical Development of the Law-applying Functions: Social Conditions and Legal Evolu-
tion’ in Droit hongrois — Droit comparé ed. Zoltán Péteri (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó 1970).
Old346-352 11/12/19 9:24 Page 349
law are backed by coercion, by the potentiality of making use of force, by the
guaranteed alternative to resort to “men with peaked helmets”, as MAX
WEBER specified it symbolically.6 However, it is neither the factual presence
nor the concrete actuality of coercion that is needed in ordinary cases. It is
rather the continuously renewed threat of coercion that matters. It is the
immanent possibility of resorting to it (a possibility which is imminent at any
time as backed by a whole normative, institutional and ideological appa-
ratus) that will be good enough to achieve a general compliance with law in
average cases. Or, returning to law: the question of whether or not there is
any legal possibility to turn anything ideal into real is a function of the
system of law concerned, i.e., of the socially accepted meaning of the law’s
formal enactments. Yet, the question of what and how much of this possi-
bility is to be and becomes eventually transformed into (as implemented in)
social reality (with the issue, with what result and by-effect and in what
manner will all this be done) is a function of the law’s s o c i a l c o n t e x t
(SC2), turning the system of law into a socially functioning complex, medi-
ating among social complexes. By social context in a socio-ontological sense
I mean here all those social considerations, political forces, power condi-
tions, etc. which have a major influence in a given society and, consequently,
are instrumental in making the expediency (inevitability of the practical
implementation of socially evident formal enactments) tolerated. These
then act as the driving force of and the responsible agent for the actual func-
tioning of the system of law in question. It is this actual functioning that is
termed l e g a l s y s t e m (LS) and conceived of as the sum of activities
carried out in the name (and which are socially accepted/tolerated as being
within the boundaries) of what is called distinctively legal. Hence,
LS = SL + SC2
3. JURISPRUDENTIAL APPROACH AND SOCIO-ONTOLOGICAL APPROACH
It is well known how much the allegedly self-evident question Professor

DWORKIN raised some decades ago, “Is Law a System of Rules?”,7 was of liber-
6
Max Weber Gesammelte Aufsätze zurWissenschaftslehre (Tübingen: Mohr 1922), p. 403, etc.
7
Ronald Dworkin ‘The Model of Rules’ University of Chicago Law Review 35 (1967), pp.
17ff, reprinted in The Philosophy of Law ed. Ronald M. Dworkin (Oxford: University Press
1977). For the whole range of problems concerned, see Ronald Dworkin Taking Rights Seriously
(London: Duckworth 1977).
Old346-352 11/12/19 9:24 Page 350
350 APPENDIX II.
ating effect to western legal thought in general, and how much it has become
one of the most challenging and promising theoretical reformulations of our
time. Though the assertion it has formulated seems to be a simple one: law
must be more than a set of rules (with other linguistic expressions of norma-
tive contents considered, too) in order to fill the gap between the rules
enacted and the judicial decisions reached. My question is not a reconsid-
eration of DWORKIN’s which, in the wave of repeated discussions, seems to
gain more and more strength and a reassertion of its foundations. I think
that my question is rather a continuation but with a change in underlying
assumptions. For DWORKIN’s question is fairly a jurisprudential one
conforming to the basic assumptions of the ideal type of modern formal law
as shaped in various ways by Common Law and Continental Law develop-
ment. By j u r i s p r u d e n t i a l a p p r o a c h I mean here the one which
starts from and arrives at the following assumptions: (1) law is something
identical with itself, consequently it is something defined and/or definable
in and by itself; hence (2) it has some definite boundaries making a clear-cut
distinction between the spheres “within the law” and “outside the law”;
therefore (3) the only question to be answered is how to enlarge the very
concept and/or texts of the law in order to be able to bridge the gap between
the officially fed in-put and the practically realised out-put of a legal process.
In addition to this but also confronted (at another level) with it, I argue for
a socio-ontological approach which reveals the purely postulated nature of
the basic assumptions of the ideal type of modern formal law and, while
treating them as components of the juristic professional ideology with a real
function in the law’s proper (ontological) existence, tries at the same time to
reconstruct the whole societal context they are embedded in and which
makes them function. Should some issues and tendencies of my earlier
investigations8 be confirmed, a socio-ontological approach concludes to the
following: (1) law is but a historical continuum defined through its actual
social practice; hence (2) in want of a priori given demarcation lines only an
a posteriori description of interactions (e.g. “differentiation” and “unifi-
cation”, “core” and “marginalia”) among the diverse homogeneous and
8
Cf., by the author, The Place of Law in Lukács’World Concept (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó
1985 [reprint 1998]) 193 pp., part 11, and, for the first concise formulations, ‘The Concept of
Law in Lukács’ Ontology’ Rechtstheorie 10 (1979) 2, pp. 321–337, ‘Towards a Sociological
Concept of Law: An Analysis of Lukács’ Ontology’ International Journal of the Sociology of Law
9 (1981) 2, pp. 157–176 and ‘Towards the Ontological Foundation of Law (Some Theses on
the Basis of Lukács’ Ontology)’ Rivista Internazionale di Filosofia del Diritto LX (1983) 1, pp.
127–142.
Old346-352 11/12/19 9:24 Page 351
heterogeneous impulses is feasible; therefore (3) the claim for control

through logical demonstration is replaced by a socio-ontological recon-
struction of all the factors which had a role to play, not negating but
constraining the one played by logical control.
Having in mind the manifold social conditioning of law, i.e., the fact that
both its objectification (system of law) and its use as a practical means (legal
system) can acquire social meaning only in their concrete social context,
allows us to state, by transforming the former definitions, that
LS = (FE + SC1) + SC2
It goes without further explanation that an exclusively socio-ontological

approach can be instrumental in coping with dilemmas that have remained
insoluble, untouched, or simply ungrounded within the framework of a
jurisprudential analysis.To take but a few instances: How is la jurisprudence
to be explained with its well implemented structures and institutions if it has
been made up from a consequential judicial practice on the sole basis of
some general clauses and principles of the law? (Ad 4.1.) How is the past
development in the formative era of the European law to be reconstructed
if fairly diverging national systems of law have grown up through the alleged
reception of the same body of classical and post-classical Roman law? (Ad
4.2.) How are the contradictory claims and trends of the various human
rights movements to be assessed today? Notably, how are cases to be quali-
fied when legal regulation seems to be perfected but meets no appreciable
fulfilment, and how are cases to be qualified when no declaration is made in
the law but practice proves to be as fulfilling as possible? (Ad 4.3.) And,
lastly, how are the limits of a change in the law to be drawn imposing even
on the power and arbitrariness of the law-maker with the effect that the
formal change he enacts cannot touch upon past achievements? (Ad 4.4.)
4. CONCLUSIONS
In the final analysis, from all the above at least four conclusions can be
drawn.
4.1. Law as a historical continuum

Law is a h i s t o r i c a l c o n t i n u u m in an unbroken process of forma-
tion. Because it has no social existence of its own without the context
Old346-352 11/12/19 9:24 Page 352
352 APPENDIX II.
making it interpretable (SC1) and setting it in function (SC2), it changes—

or may change—its social contents and impact incessantly even if there is no
change in its formal enactment.
4.2. Law as an open system

Consequently, law is an o p e n s y s t e m . It can only be treated as closed
in the interest of its historical reconstruction.The aim of such a reconstruc-
tion is merely to reveal which kinds of laws “in the books” and “outside the
books” may have been in play so as to make the reality of law in action
“deducible” therefrom or “traced back” thereto in the most consistent way.
4.3. Law as a complex phenomenon with alternative strategies

Law as a bipartite phenomenon organised from two distinct sources raises
the question of the character and composite nature of its instrumentality.
Namely, if law as a working system is composed of formal enactments and
social contexts making it interpretable (SC1) and setting it in function
(SC2), and if a change of any of its components may cause a change of the
law as a working whole, there is a perspective for a l t e r n a t i v e
s t r a t e g i e s offered to any actor involved. I thereby mean that a struggle
for the law can be fought through a struggle for confirming, reforming or
revoking its formal enactment and through a struggle for strengthening,
reshaping or loosening its social contexts as well, and that any of these alter-
natives can eventually lead to the same goal by serving the same final end.
4.4. Law as an irreversible process

The social existence of law is to be seen as an irreversibly progressing
process. It is i r r e v e r s i b l e because any enactment may easily be
revoked, but formal enactment is so thoroughly combined with and filtered
through its social contexts that something from the latter will undoubtedly
be left. Or, in other words, law cannot be manipulated in all its components
to the same depth.
4.5. The genuinely societal character of law

All these conclusions seem to suggest that law is something more than a set
of rules and it is even more than a set of enactments. By its very definition,
law is just at the borderline where legal research and social science are
expected to meet.
Old353-367 11/12/19 9:28 Page 353
353
APPENDIX III.
INSTITUTIONS AS SYSTEMS*
Notes on the closed sets, open vistas of development, and
transcendence of institutions and their conceptual representations†
1. A LOGIC OF SYSTEMS
1. Both institutions and their components are conceptually represented as

organised into some sorts of systems. This is the obvious outcome of the
c l a s s i f i c a t o r y nature of the use of concepts and conceptual repre-
sentations.
At the same time, human practice often abuses conceptualisation.
Namely, it often overgeneralises the reason why a choice is made, in order
to oversubstantiate the underlying claim. To reach such an oversubstantia-
tion, it puts the claims into a more general context than what is actually
justified.
Systems in operation, by and through which we live and manage our daily
or professional social practices, are c o n t i n g e n t and c a s u a l in their
basic character. Of course, this is not to say that the selection of their
* First published in Acta Juridica Hungarica 33 (1991) 3–4, pp. 167–178.

†
The draft version of the paper was presented as an invited commentary on the working
paper by Fabio Konder Comparato on ‘The Institution System of Liberalism and the New
Function of the Modern State’ at the Latin American Regional Institute of the American
Council of Learned Societies’ Comparative Constitutionalism Project, held at Punta del Este
(Uruguay) between October 31 and November 4, 1988. It is based upon earlier methodolog-
ical papers of the author, including his ‘Quelques questions méthodologiques de la formations
des concepts en sciences juridiques’ Archives de Philosophie du Droit XVIII (Paris: Sirey 1973),
pp. 205–241, ‘La séparation des pouvoirs: idéologie et utopie dans la pensée politique’ Acta
Juridica Academiae Scientiarum Hungariae XXVII (1985) 1–2, pp. 243–250, The Place of Law in
Lukács’World Concept (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó 1985 [reprint 1998]) 193 pp., [with József
Szájer] ‘Presumptions and Fiction: Means of Legal Technique’ Archiv für Rechts- und Sozial-
philosophie LXXIV (1988) 2, pp. 168–184 and ‘Law as History?’ in Philosophy of Law in the
History of Human Thought ed. Stavros Panou et al., II (Stuttgart: Steiner 1988), pp. 191–198
[Archiv für Rechts- und Sozialphilosophie, Supplementa 2].
Old353-367 11/12/19 9:28 Page 354
354 APPENDIX III.
elements and the way of their organisation is a gratuitous action within an

empty space, to be filled only by the wish and might of the day. For instance,
there is some connection between their taking shape, on the one hand, and
the factors that have been instrumental in shaping them, on the other—
although the presence of these factors as well as their actual impact may be
quite incidental from the point of view of the existence, and, moreover, from
the point of view of the emergence, of those systems as systems.
The constitutional system of liberalism as historically established is, for
instance, o n e of the several possible materialisations it could have had. It
is one of the possible outcomes of human efforts through centuries to over-
come contemporary misery by setting new framework for human action in
its relationship to law and the state.
2. At all steps, there is a close interconnection between the shaping of ideas,

on the one hand, and the available store of instruments and their reconsid-
eration at any time, on the other. Even the contents, directions and limits of
human imagination are a function of such an interaction. For in total social
process, each step and contributing component has a variety of meanings,
faces and links and developmental alternatives, and only later will the
effected events and connections decide which of them is to be actualised.
Or, this is a multi-faceted and multi-directional process with several
competitive chances; something that could only be broken down by a finalist
reductionism (believing that an ultimate breaking down will be reached) in
order to be traced back to a single, straightforward line of development.
In any case, to state that there has been some necessity in the course of
actions to take shape and reach a conclusion is by far not to state that there
has been a pre-existing universal idea that was to materialise in that way.
Even the ontological reconstruction of the factors in play in the social condi-
tioning of the course of events is a reconstruction of the road run by, and the
links bridging, the individual chain of that course of events, and not a state-
ment about the universal idea as having necessarily been materialised in this
or that historically concrete realisation.
3. To be more precise: when speaking of systems of institutions and their

conceptual representations, we have in mind at least four types, or levels, of
such systems. Notably, f i r s t , the actually existing concrete system,
which is a unit that functions as it is (e.g., the constitutional system of liber-
alism as practised in a given area at a given time, e.g., in the United States
nowadays) (type 1); s e c o n d , the historically developed concrete system
Old353-367 11/12/19 9:28 Page 355
INSTITUTIONS AS SYSTEMS 355
which is a unit that functions as it has been (e.g., the constitutional system
of liberalism as practised in a given area at a given period, e.g., in the United
States since the time it developed) (type 2); t h i r d , the generalisation of
the historically concrete systems as developed in our civilisation (e.g., the
constitutional system of liberalism as known and practised in our civilisa-
tion) (type 3); and f o u r t h , the core idea of the functioning underlying
all kinds of generalisation (e.g., the abstract universal formulation of the
ultimate principles of operation, of which the constitutional system of liber-
alism is but one of the theoretically possible forms of realisation) (type 4). As
to the origins of such an abstract-universal formulation, it may be either
gained by theoretical reconstruction or formulated as a preconceived idea,
in order to offer a basis for deducing justification of the historical realisa-
tion(s) from them.
As it can be seen, types 3 and 4 are not units functioning as they are or
have been. Type 4 is an idea(l) in which “laws” (i.e., effects, interconnec-
tions) of functioning may be observed in abstract generality on ideal
conditions. Type 3 is one of the former’s applications to, or materialisation
under, historically particular conditions.
4. All systems, ideas and realisations form an endless continuum.Type 1 to

4 are nothing but meaningfully definable stages of this continuum but by far
not its limiting points.This is the reason why almost all of them may display
almost all the properties that can characterise them at all.
abstractness internal coherence and

consequentiality
ideal
IDEAL TYPE
ideal of functioning
[type 4]
HISTORICAL TYPES
historically particular formulation
of the ideal of functioning
[type 3]
Old353-367 11/12/19 9:28 Page 356
356 APPENDIX III.
EMPIRICAL TYPES
historically particular
generalisation of the
developmentally defined sets of
concrete actual functioning
[type 2]
concrete actual functioning

[type 1]
real
concreteness contingency
Abstractness, internal coherence and consequentiality, as well as ideality,

are decreasingly, while concreteness and contingency, as well as reality, are
increasingly present in the line between the ideal and the actual functioning.
At the same time and to a decreasing degree, types 1, 2 and 3 are histor-
ical ones; and types 1 and 2 are concomitantly empirical ones as well.
Obviously, it goes without saying that there would be no sense in projecting
any ideal of functioning into a vacuum with no empirical background what-
soever. Consequently and at the same time, even empirical types may be
used as ideal ones. And, obviously again, neither abstractness nor concrete-
ness have end-points. For the question of whether or not I can define types
more abstract or more concrete than they actually are is one of expediency
in the determination of the levels of analysis.
5. Historically considered, only types 1, 2 and 3 do exist, representing histor-

ically characteristic typical configurations.They are at the same time needed
for theoretical description, as they hold the name of what is to be conceptu-
alised as existing. Ontologically, the existence of each of them can be
established. Albeit type 4 claims to be over and beyond history, the social
existence of the ideal representation it embodies can also be delimited
historically.
6. Human action is teleological by definition. Thelos as a model is at all times

working in it in order to direct it. However, it does not turn practice into
mere implementation.The ideal remains ideal, the practical practical. Both
the motive force and the criterion of practice are what is considered p r a c -
Old353-367 11/12/19 9:28 Page 357
t i c a l . Of course, consideration of what is practical may also set the

implementation of something ideal as target. But motive force and criterion
remain unchangedly that what is considered practical. Attributes of ideal, no
matter of what kind and weight they are, can only exert an influence when
filtered through the consideration of what is practical.
2. IDEAL TYPES AND HISTORICALLY CONCRETE MANIFESTATIONS
7. A notional distinction among the l e v e l s of systems, ideas and formu-

lations is a methodological requirement. Since the same l a b e l is often
assigned to differing levels and corresponding concepts, it is not excep-
tional that they are treated in an undifferentiatedly unified manner, which is
a common cause of confusion.
For instance, as to the doctrine of the division of powers, the only realistic
references are those historical manifestations which are commonly charac-
terised as realisations more or less distorted or imperfect (type 1). Those
imperfect realisations are seen as variations to a historical descriptive type
(type 2), which is in turn the implementation of a historical ideal type (type
3). In such a way, all practical measures taken in a historically concrete situ-
ation are in the final analysis traced back to a broad, well-defined
socio-historical context which, in this case, includes an immense variety of
things, from the fight for constitutionalism in England, via the way in which
MONTESQUIEU was to overcome absolutism in France by (mis)interpreting
English constitutionalism, to the achievement of the fathers founding the
Constitution of the United States, including the way in which they
(mis)understood both England, MONTESQUIEU and their own perspectives,
and also including the (mis)understanding, by all historical actors, of the
richness of the store of means available in principle. But is it really so that
the idea(l) of functioning underlying the doctrine of the division of powers
gets reduced to it? Obviously, without universalising the actually particular,
in theory I cannot respond affirmatively to this question. If I still do so,
which occurs too often in practice, it implies from the outset that I have
opted also for some methodological consequences. Let us see three of them.
7.1. U n i v e r s a l i s a t i o n can only be done through assuming
notional dichotomies between complementary concepts, C and non-C,
which, albeit antagonistic to one another, wholly cover the field. Thereby I
erect an artificially rigid two-poled scheme or bipolarity, only to exclude
dialectics and historical sensitivity.
Old353-367 11/12/19 9:28 Page 358
358 APPENDIX III.
For instance, it is a rather general pattern for contemporary political

philosophies to regard the “Third Road”-type searches for a way out from
continued crises in Central and Eastern Europe as by-products themselves
of the same crises, fallen into irrationality. Well, this critique is an assump-
tion of Capitalism and Socialism, offering in their historically developed
forms the only potentialities of the paradigm “capitalism/socialism” and,
thereby, also exclusive alternatives. Consequently, the universalistic
assumption in work here excludes questions like “Is it this and only this that
is capitalism/socialism?” “Is there indeed no choice in between these poor
kinds of representation?” “And no choice beyond them either?”
7.2 As to the second consequence, my approach will be prejudiced from
the very beginning if I can only count with the individual features of a
concrete historical manifestation (type 1) as distortions of some underlying
principle(s). If this is the case, it assumes the existence of something of
which such features are nothing but the individual realisation. Well, this is
also an assumption justifiable only by a finalist approach.
7.3 Finally, universalisation of the particular dispenses with the search for
identifying last principles (type 4). If there are no ultimate principles, then
what remains can only reflect historical types upon one another, which has
very limited profit, not transcending even the level of historiography. In
contrast, theory starts by reconstructing the basic function (type 4) which
makes it already possible to approach the historically particular formulation
(type 3) as an intermediary concretisation.
For instance, the classical doctrine of the division of powers is not an
empirical theory of development. MONTESQUIEU never claimed that power
came to being at any place or time as divided in a tripartite way. He simply
contrasted a positive Utopia to the negative one he had already had.
Notwithstanding this, his positive Utopia is usually treated as the final
formulation touching upon the topic. If this is so, no theory based on the
concentration of powers should ever be reconcilable with his doctrine of the
division of powers.
Well, the Bolshevik theory of the state has since long professed to be
antagonistic to western democratic traditions. But ideological claims, e.g.
for complete disruptcy and discontinuity, are not to be taken as a substitute
to theoretical analysis. In order to assess what the whole dispute is about,
even a historical reference may be revealing. In fact, Bolshevik theory was
launched as a revolutionary program of why and how to seize power, and the
Bolshevik criticism of MONTESQUIEU theorised about power at a time when
it was at the threshold of actually seizing it. In response to that confronta-
Old353-367 11/12/19 9:28 Page 359
tion, it too misinterpreted MONTESQUIEU, not to recognise anything from

his teaching but an antirevolutionary program of resigning, once and for all,
of the seizure of power.
Or, in sum, all this means that both adherents and critics have instru-
mentalised MONTESQUIEU’s positive Utopia by transforming his statements
into ideology. Western tradition has developed universalised terms which
can however be valid in their proper context exclusively, as opposed to the
Russian revolutionaries who have narrowed them only to mean the negation
of their very dreams.
The genuine problem is that, in fact, none of them has realised that what
they actually did was to intermingle different levels of analysis, and this is
the reason why they had to become mutually antagonistic.To be sure, none
of them stated something different on the same subject, but they launched
differing statements on differing subjects.
At the same time, it is to be noted that, in fact, a “division of labour” type
doctrine as applied to the power machinery was finally developed by the
Bolsheviks, pushed to offer (no matter how much imperfect it was, but, after
all, a kind of) an alternative to the western conception of the division of
powers. Presumably, the ensuing principle of the unity of powers with only
a hazy and weak “division of labour” within it will remain in force with them,
so long as a one-party-rule can impose itself upon society. On the other
hand, even a system of “division of labour” in the power machinery can
develop further with some—even if rather limited—potentialities.
As to the relationship of these conflicting approaches, mutual exculpation
qualifies itself as bare ideology.Theoretically both are levelled at type 3.
3. IDEAL TYPE AS A NORMATIVE IDEOLOGY
8. All the systems, conceptual representations and operations we have

surveyed thus far are of a descriptive character and function, called into
being as instruments to grasp conceptually what institutionally exists. In
short, they qualify as theoretical representations.
As it is known, theoretical activity is a specific terrain of homogenising
human activities, distinguished from both other domains of a homogenising
effect (e.g., custom, convention, such as speech, law, politics), on the one
hand, and the vast field of the heterogeneity of everyday life, on the other.
Still, it does not require that the various forms of objectification in one area
can not be made use of in other areas as well. Ontological investigation
Old353-367 11/12/19 9:28 Page 360
360 APPENDIX III.
suggests that all kinds of ideal representation and objectification—no matter

whether they are of a theoretical or practical character—can turn into
i d e o l o g y . All this can be done by putting them into another context and
making use of them specifically.
This is to say that (1) everything theoretical can be made a factor of prac-
tical action by putting it into a practical context; and (2) everything in a
given homogeneous field can be taken out from it and either lifted in another
homogeneous field (e.g., the linguistic, semantic or rhetorical aspects of law,
or the law’s political use) or merged into the heterogeneity of everyday life
(e.g., the uses of social conventions, language, law or politics in a way anni-
hilating their particularities)—well, in both cases with prior determinations
suspended, in order to let them act as adapted to their new environment.
9. Being adapted to a new environment is a change of memberships in/of the

relevant systems. In case of conceptual representations, a positive value-
judgement and/or a deontic operator attached to them can effectuate this
change. For a theoretical statement becoming a standard for practical action
is already an ideological use. It involves its transformation into n o r m a -
t i v e i d e o l o g y.
10. Systems may be used as normative patterns in three situations: (l) in case
of conflict with the systems’ idea in question, to m o d i f y the underlying
system in the given direction; (2) in case of an internal contradiction within
the underlying system, to r e s o l v e it in the given direction; and (3) with
no external or internal conflict provided, to p r e s c r i b e it the change as
needed or to d e f i n e the direction and substance of its further develop-
ment when and in the way it is needed.
11. One of the fields for normative ideologies to provoke change by defining
who is to act—and when, on what, and why and how—is the so-called
f i l l i n g o f g a p s . In such a sense and use, “gap” is a normative
concept, being the function of a normative framework (a) to qualify any
establishment within the system as a gap; in order to be able (b) to fill it (c)
in a given way, (d) with a substance taken from within the system to the
effect that (e) at least ideologically, the filling of such gaps will not imple-
ment any genuine modification in/of the system, although it strengthens its
individual position within and as a member of the system, as made to be
more conforming to the system.
Old353-367 11/12/19 9:28 Page 361
Filling the gaps is one of the most important factors to enhance the prac-
ticability of the systems, as it makes it possible to them to preserve their
identity while making them keep in pace with timely changing needs. Or,
there have always been two basic means of sublated innovation in institu-
tions: t r a n s p l a n t a t i o n (i.e., injecting something not previously
known in the system which is said to have already been implied by, as one of
the potentials of, the underlying system) and f i c t i o n (i.e., claiming that
what is in point of fact new in the system is nothing else but an implicit
extension as made in and to the system).
(In the field of law, it seems to be a commonplace that in addition to fiction proper, as the
earliest and most common and lasting instrument to provoke and, at the same time, veil
change, almost ninety-five percent of the four thousands years of recorded legal history was
dominated by innovative legislation, ideologically embellished as bare restitution of what the
“good old custom” of the country had been, in usage already in HAMMURABI’s Prologue to
his Law Book and surviving till the enacting clauses used as a formula up to the last French
king.)
And the reason for its success is easy to see: it has been a conveniently flex-
ible means, suited to meet two basic requirements contradicting one
another, that is, to e f f e c t u a t e c h a n g e as needed (i.e., to function
as re-adapted to the changing needs) while preserving t h e s y s t e m ’ s
i d e n t i t y (i.e., to reproduce its basic continuity over all the series of
actual discontinuities) within an apparent intellectual and conceptual
harmony.
12. In principle, each and every one of types l to 4 can be used as normative
ideology if reflected onto all the other ones of the same types. Even the
conceptual representation of the concrete actual functioning (type 1) can be
made a normative ideology by reflecting it on the conceptual representation
of its posterior functioning.
(Taking into consideration the open texture of concepts and the inherent fuzziness of argu-
mentation, we have to realise that there is a large room for transcendence both among the
undifferentiated concepts we use and among the undifferentiated systems we refer to. To
avoid transcendence is a question of the formulation of premises, an operation that has
nothing to do with reflection of one concept onto another in their normative usage.)
Old353-367 11/12/19 9:28 Page 362
362 APPENDIX III.
13.The normative use of ideal systems and conceptual representations is the

explanation why and how these systems and representations can be, or may
turn to be, a decisive factor of social processes, even if for a long period of
time they could at most be qualified as empty classes. Since they are norma-
tive (or normatively treated) from the beginning, and expectations about
them do not disqualify them, even if not met with success. Or, what is more,
even dead systems and representations can finally exert a decisive influence
in their way to overcome the inertia by pushing a process forward or turning
it backwards.
For instance in Hungary, the wish for implementing the Soviet-patterned
Constitution of 1949 into practice seemed for long an aborted idea from the
very outset. In the 1980s, the ever growing gap between words and facts
induced some constitutionalists to demand realism instead of illusionism,
i.e., the adaptation of its wording to prevailing practice, to the hard fact of
the one-party-rule. Luckily enough, this proposal failed by the fear that
thereby the only thing that remained, that is, the bare possibility of fighting
for more or truer parliamentarism through referring to a text enacted by the
Communists themselves, would also be lost.
4. OBJECTIVITY AND CONTINGENCY OF SYSTEMS
14. For a given historical actor in a concrete situation an immense amount

of social objectivations, conventions, institutions, etc. are given. They form
to him what we call t r a d i t i o n . All the components of tradition serve
to him as an objectively given framework, in respect to which he may have
only alternatives of following it or departing from it, but in any case he will
not be in a position to dispose of it quite freely.
Escaping from social bounds contradicts the very notion of social activity;
and, paradoxically, in modern society even the first attempt at escaping from
them is itself only conceivable through conventionalised social practices. In
short, socialisation—i.e., a very specific learning process—is the exclusively
available pattern for the individual in his relationship to social totality in
modern society.
At the same time, the individual is certainly not in isolation but is a
component part of the prevailing social totality.What seems to be objectively
given to him in individual situations has in fact no existence of its own, inde-
pendent of the total set of individual social practices in the same totality.
What social tradition is, is in the last analysis a function of the total sum of
Old353-367 11/12/19 9:28 Page 363
social practices, reproducing the tradition through practising it. Conse-

quently, reproduction of a given tradition is a continued learning process, in
which taking its cognisance will amount to re-adapting it, and its interpre-
tation, to reinterpreting it as part of social practices. In other words, every
human act establishing what we call h o m o g e n e o u s can only be
performed within the boundaries (and upon the basis and for the sake) of
(and, in the final resort, as subordinated to) what we call the h e t e r o g e -
n e o u s . In the same way: every human consideration to what we call
e p i s t e m i c can only take place within the boundaries (on the basis and
for the sake) of (and, in the final resort, as subordinated to) what we call
ontic.
15. In the light of an ontological description, the search for a practical solu-
tion is nolens volens a model-patterned reaction to a given situation—
independently of the agent’s subjective intention. At the same time and also
independently of any intention, that which is to come objectively out of this
will be something m o r e o r l e s s , or, in any case, o t h e r , than what
the original intention was. It will necessarily be a practical answer to a prac-
tical challenge as it was sensed and interpreted by the acting agent.Thus, it
will necessarily be an imprint of all the moments that have been present in
the situation, contingent from the point of view of the social totality.
There is a particular dialectic at play here. For the reaction—no matter to
what extent and how intentionally it is model-patterned—will be the issue
of practical considerations in a practical context. Even what is manifested as
non-practical is made so by practical consideration. And this applies to
everything. Anything claimed to be eternal is a function of practical interest
to project it as a fetishised issue. It is ideology that is at work in such and
other cases of overgeneralised interests.
To qualify a statement as i d e o l o g y is an ontological statement upon
actual use, and not a judgement upon foundation or value. As is known,
ideology is a form of consciousness called into being to influence practical
human (re)action. In contrast, t h e o r y is a form of consciousness called
into being to reconstruct the interconnections of any process, including its
ideology.
16. The theoretical reconstruction I have in mind can be nothing but

o n t o l o g i c a l . For the resultant e p i s t e m o l o g i c a l reconstruc-
tion arrived at may at most be a negative one, demonstrating, e.g., the false
conclusion reached by false inference from false premises—that is, its own
Old353-367 11/12/19 9:28 Page 364
364 APPENDIX III.
incompetence for thorough reconstruction. It is only ontological recon-

struction that can answer why the relevancy of epistemology is limited, why
it is so that forms of false consciousness can also be instrumental, and even
socially needed on occasion—i.e., offering as the sole alternative.
It is only ontological reconstruction that can offer an explanation of the
paradox of interpretation amounting to reinterpretation or misinterpreta-
tion, and of reproduction amounting to production or misproduction.
17. Systems are located in a c o n t i n u u m of a constant motion and

change.This is a continuum in light of both the way they are structured hier-
archically and their self-reproduction, in a continued process in social
totality.
To be more precise, to exist as placed in a continuum may have two
senses. O n t o l o g i c a l l y , it is a form of existence through constant
self-reproduction in an endless series of reinterpretation. (Reinterpretation
here is an ontic sequence of purposeful practical reactions, and not a critical
attitude, which is epistemic.) E p i s t e m o l o g i c a l l y , it denotes an
ideal existence necessarily having nothing but fuzzy conceptual boundaries.
These features are common to objects of social ontology. Nevertheless, I
wish to emphasise the considerable extent to which the links are epistemo-
logically loose among sequences in both the systems’ lines of development
and their hierarchic structures. The systems in question are historically
developed sets, in which all may have had alternatives to those actually
established (even if they did not). It is most plausible to realise it in limiting
cases at both the micro- (type 1) and macro- (type 4) level.
As, for instance, to the micro-level, each concrete, actually functioning
system of constitutional liberalism bears the imprint of the place and time
of its formation, i.e., characteristics that are only explainable in the context
of their actual shaping. As to the macro-level, the connection of ideality and
actuality is only explainable by their development exclusively. Let us assume
that I should have to invent the constitutional system of liberalism now. As
a matter of fact, I can by no means take it for granted that I would lay its
foundations by the same philosophical, anthropological, etc. assumptions as
it was done several centuries ago. And the same holds true vice versa as well.
I cannot be sure that any concrete system of constitutional liberalism that
has ever existed could be inferred from or justified by the assumptions
suggested by human inventiveness now. And we have to add that theoretical
variations are, in contrast to actual occurrences, endless in practice.
Old353-367 11/12/19 9:28 Page 365
The same loose contacts can also be characteristic of actual operating

systems. Theoretical reflection often groups systems of autonomous devel-
opment (e.g., ones in England or in the United States) together; the past of
which may count more centuries than the one of others—due to recent
transplantation or imposition (e.g., in the Federal Republic of Germany or
Japan)—may count in decades.
It is precisely due to such features that they may turn into genuinely
h i s t o r i c a l phenomena, both marking and being made by history. For
otherwise, if they were units unchangedly identical with themselves, their
history could only be quasi-history at the most, with mere alternation of
blocks in a mechanical world, that is, of entities of a complex made up of
discrete motions of discrete elements. To put it another way: the
c o n t i n u u m the systems embody is the outcome of their dialectic char-
acter. Their dialectic is one of sublation, that is, of unceasing preservation
and change.
18. It is also their existence as a continuum that makes it possible to under-

stand why their historical nature is so important from the point of view of
practical action as well. For their being a continuum in constant motion and
change is also a function of their environment, of their interaction within a
given environment they are shaped with. Or, the way they transcend them-
selves and by which their reproduction through their continued
reinterpretation is achieved is not only a function of them but of the general
culture and (political, legal, etc.) cultures of specialised fields as well. It is so
to such an extent that even the fight for them may have alternative actions
to take. Namely, an action directed at them may aim at their shaping in a
direct way (as, in the case of law, directed at its enacted text), as well as in an
indirect way, through the cultural context in the interaction with which they
may be shaped (as, in the case of law, with the mediation of or intervention
through legal policies and legal culture, made to be strong enough to be able
to have a genuine role to play).
5. LIMITS AND BONDS, CONSEQUENTIALITY AND PRACTICABILITY OF A SYSTEM
l9.The question of what properties, features and traits a system may develop
or take over by transplantation from another system is quite open an issue,
having no restriction from the point of view of social totality. It is not even
Old353-367 11/12/19 9:28 Page 366
366 APPENDIX III.
a system-related issue. It can only be raised as a question of the limits of law,

politics, etc. with a final resort for the ontological contexture: what can be
practicable, i.e., fulfilling a genuine function, in a social system?
On the level of abstract generality, the answer is rather vague. For, in point
of principle, there is no limit predetermining what can turn into instru-
mental or practicable in a social context, as, indeed, anything whatever can
do so.
It means that the possibility of systems coming into being as mixed is, so
to speak, endless. One could even state that only mixed systems are practi-
cable in practice, or that non-mixed systems are, without exception,
intellectual projections issued from or extrapolations gained with a theoret-
ical reduction.
20. Is there any precondition to the point that systems are identifiable as
such just because they have some definite elements organised into a system?
The question is directed at their own determination from within. Or, is there
any limit set by the systems, defining their own identity by minimum
contents as necessary and sufficient conditions for their existence? Or, is
there any self-imposing limit of the system which might of course be
ignored, but only with the consequence of placing itself out of the system?
This is a topical issue, with enriching debates in the western hemisphere
focusing upon them. Only to mention but few: expropriation versus privati-
sation; planning versus invisible hand; leftism versus rightism in the same
system, etc. This is a key issue of the contemporary crises of currently
existing Socialisms as well. Only to name but few: economic reform and
rigidified STALINist superstructure; bankruptcies of sham liberalisation; the
one-party’s crave for legitimacy without offering anything in return for legit-
imation, etc. The case of (now past) allegedly Socialist Hungary is a novel
proof for the hard bonds of a system. For economists claimed in the final
decades of the regime that partial reform, softened and extended over time
with no breakthrough in the political field, meant planning failure taken for
granted; and again, they were right. Later on, the same dilemma became
hardened: was the tabooing of party-rule by one party simply setting frame-
work for a reform, or was it a touchstone of the left for attempting to reform
from within, too much well-deserved?
21. To learn that, defying human imagination, the systems mankind has
established are only storehouses of contradictions yet they still function
well—well, this realisation is a shocking experience for the human mind to
Old353-367 11/12/19 9:28 Page 367
accept. Otherwise expressed, to expect that systems have developed with

maximum cohesion, consequentiality and freedom from contradictions is a
mere theoretical requirement, reflecting more the subject than the object,
which, due to the logical ideal of thinking, is limited in imagination. And
theory reflects, in addition to external world, its own homogenising princi-
ples, too.
In fact, systems function according to their own homogeneities, which are
far from the ideal of logic. As p r a c t i c a l systems, they are to cope with
practical problems resulting in c o m p r o m i s e s o l u t i o n s to the
detriment of the principles of cohesion, consequentiality and coherence,
that is, to the detriment of logic.
At the same time, contradictoriness with tensions in actual operation is a
basic fact of ontology. Instead of standing for the temporariness and defi-
ciency of anything humane after the first sin has been committed with its
actors ousted, it stands for a character present everywhere and at every time,
a character that may grow to be a burden but, in most cases of balanced
development, serves rather as one of the most powerful reserves for the
internal renewal of any system. Internal renewal is a way of making optimal
use of the systems’ own potentialities, in order to allow it to keep pace
(through its continuous re-adaptation through continued re-adjustments)
with overall development. This is the reason why systems process outer
conflicts into inner ones by forwarding competitive arguments in order to
solve them. This is the reason why systems develop conflicts through series
of temporary solutions, and this is the reason why stand-still is just a name
for the theoretical division line to be drawn between situations of conflicts,
in succession of one another.
Old368-383 11/12/19 9:29 Page 368
368
APPENDIX IV.
LEGAL TECHNIQUE*
1. LEGAL TECHNIQUE
The t e r m ‘legal technique’ first appeared in the vocabulary of legislative

theory in the 19th century, SAVIGNY1 being probably the very first one in our
age to distinguish the ‘technische Element’ from the ‘politische Element’ of legis-
lation. The further elaboration of the term and the underlying concept was
connected with the emerging ideology of modern formal law. Scholars in
Germany (particularly JHERING) laid down the theoretical foundations of
‘juristische Technik’ in the late 19th century. By legal technique, they meant the
whole set of professional skills, methods and means of elaboration, adapta-
tion and modification of the law. In the 20th century, French scholars
(particularly GÉNY) had the prominent role in contributing to a theory of ‘la
technique juridique’.
The m e a n i n g of the term has remained rather ambiguous.2 Not even
the notion can be found in most legal dictionaries and encyclopaedias. Some
consider the term itself unfit.3
* First published, as co-authored with József Szájer, in an earlier version in Rechtskultur —

Denkkultur Ergebnisse des ungarisch-österreichischen Symposiums der Internationale
Vereiningung für Rechts- und Sozialphilosophie 1987, hrsg. Erhard Mock & Csaba Varga
(Stuttgart: Steiner 1989), pp. 136–147 [Archiv für Rechts- und Sozialphilosophie, Beiheft 35].
1
Karl Friedrich von Savigny Vom Beruf unserer Zeit für Gesetzgebung und Rechtswissenschaft
[1814] 3. Aufl. (Heidelberg: Mohr 1840), p. 12.
2
„La notion reste imprécise, non seulement chez auteurs qui l’utilisent en passant, mais
même parfois chez ceux qui ont entrepris d’en faire la théorie.” Jean Dabin La technique de
l’élaboration du droit positif Spécialement du droit privé (Bruxelles: Bruylant & Paris: Sirey
1935), p. 2.
3
„Le vocable de technique doit être réservé à certains procédés de métier, mais […] le droit
n’est pas une pure pratique.” Maurice Hauriou Précis de droit Constitutionnel (Paris: Sirey 1929),
pp. 61–62. Or, „Pour désigner cette tâche, l’expression ‘technique’ est mal choisie.” Jean Dabin
Theorie générale du droit 2e éd. (Bruxelles: Bruylant 1953), pp. 234–235.
Old368-383 11/12/19 9:29 Page 369
LEGAL TECHNIQUE 369
1.1. In a b r o a d e r s e n s e , legal technique is a complex phenomenon,

composed of all the methods, procedures, ways, skills and means that make
the functioning of law possible. It has a wide domain in which to assert itself.
GÉNY attributed to it „une telle place qu’elle absorbe à elle seule, ou peu s’en
faut, t o u t l e d o m a i n e d u d r o i t ”.4
As to its history, SAVIGNY was „le premier qui semble avoir décrit d’une
façon claire le rôle de la technique juridique”.5 SAVIGNY’s distinction
between the conscious technicalities used to elaborate a legal system and the
spontaneous designing of the law derived from his concept of ‘Volksgeist’.6
For the elaboration of a legal system „ist auf jeden Fall ganz technisch und
fällt als Solche den Juristen anheim”; therefore, all this „Geschäft zur juristi-
schen Technik gehört”.7
JHERING’s conception was rooted in SAVIGNY’S formulation. For JHERING,
‘juristische Technik’ was a legal methodology. He distinguished between
m a t t e r and f o r m of law; legal technique targets the latter as its
subject.The form of law is expected to be adequate for its matter, that is, for
the inclinations of evolving popular feeling, i.e., the people’s spirit. Legal
technique as methodology has two sides, the theoretical and the practical.8
According to DABIN, for JHERING,
„l’idée de practicabilité […] n’est nullement pour suggérer que le souci de cette practica-
bilité devrait paralyser tout effort vers l’idéal théorique, qui est la rêgle conforme au bien
public selon les possibilités du milieu.”9
4
Léon Duguit Traité de droit constitutionnel 1: La règle de droit – le problème de l’Etat, 3e
éd. (Paris: E. de Boccard 1927), p. 105.
5
Alexandre Angelesco La technique législative en matière de codification civile (Paris: E. de
Boccard 1930), p. 5.
6
SavignyVom Beruf…, p. 12.
7
SAVIGNY, cf.Walther Hug ‘Gesetzesflut und Rechtssetzungslehre’ in Gesetzgebungstheorie,
juristische Logik, Zivil- und Prozeßrecht Gedächtnisschrift für Jürgen Rödig, hrsg. U. Klug, Th.
Ramm et al. (Berlin, Heidelberg & New York: Springer 1978), p. 8.
8
„Die gesamte Tätigkeit der juristischen Technik läßt sich auf zwei Hauptrichtungen oder
Hauptzwecke zurückführen […] 1. die möglichste Erleichterung der subjektiven Beherrschung
des Rechts — das Mittel dazu ist die quantitative und qualitative Vereinfachung des Rechts —
2. die mögliche Erleichterung der Operation der Anwendung desselben (Praktikabilität des
Rechts).” Rudolf von Jhering Geist des römischen Rechts auf den verschiedenen Stufen seiner
Entwicklung, 2.Teil (Leipzig: Breitkopf und Härtel 1858), p. 340.
9
Dabin Theorie générale…, p. 233.
Old368-383 11/12/19 9:29 Page 370
370 APPENDIX IV.
The operations that are characteristic of legal technique are the following:
‘juristische Analyse’, ‘logische Konzentration’, and ‘juristische Konstruktion’.10
All three are necessary to serve the optimum practicability of law.
GÉNY’s concept of legal technique sought to cover the whole field of law.
Its philosophical foundations are provided by postulating a distinction
between ‘le donné’ and ‘le construit’, the subject of legal technique being ‘la
construction légale’.11 The substance of the former, “the given”, is at any given
time expected to be adequate for the previously given ‘donné de l’ordre
juridique’. Consequently, „un ensemble de procédés ou de moyens pratiques
apparaît nécessaire, qui représente la part spécifique de l’art ou du métier
dans le Droit et qu’on peut appeller sa technique”.12 The elementary mech-
anisms of this technique are formalism and publicity, legal categories and
legal construction, fiction, presumption, and legal language.
DABIN reconsidered some of the propositions GÉNY formulated. His
concept is socially more sensitive, and it covers both the t e c h n i q u e o f
p o s i t i v e l a w and l a w c o n c e i v e d o f a s a s o c i a l
t e c h n i q u e , by realising that „en même temps, que le droit a une tech-
nique il est une technique”.13 For him, technique and law were to be
considered in a wider socio-philosophical context. He considered it too
narrow if appreciation of differing kinds of activities is reduced to their prac-
ticability. He proposed a distinction between two types of techniques
instead: on the one hand, the s o c i a l o r p o l i t i c a l t e c h n i q u e
„qui fournit la matière des règles” and, on the other hand, the l e g a l
t e c h n i q u e proper which is „proprement réglementaire mettant la
matière en forme de règle positive”.14 For, while the former item is
10
Jhering Geist des römischen Rechts…, pp. 358–384.
11
„[L]a technique représente, dans ensemble du droit positif, la ferme opposée à la matière,
et cette forme reste essentiellement une construction largement artificielle du donné.” François
Gény Science et technique en droit privé positif Nouvelle contribution à la critique de la méthode
juridique, III (Paris: Sirey 1923–1930), p. 23.
12
François Gény, ’La technique législative dans la Codification civile moderne: A propos
du Centenaire du Code Civil’ in Le Code Civil 1804-1904, Livre du Centenaire, 2 (Paris: A.
Rousseau 1904), p. 991.
13
Dabin La technique…, p. 7.
14
Ibid., p. 36.
Old368-383 11/12/19 9:29 Page 371
LEGAL TECHNIQUE 371
„de nature sociale et politique, – de nature s o c i a l e , parce que le droit a pour matière
et vise à ordonner les rapports sociaux entre les Etats; de nature p o l i t i q u e , parce que
cette ordonnance doit avoir lieu sous l’inspiration et dans le cadre de la politique, interne et
internationale,”15
the latter, „la technique juridique proprement dite […] ne concerne que la
mise en forme praticable”.16
RUSSO also found it „indispensible de distinguer deux sens du mot tech-
nique: l’un qualifiant le caractère du moyen employé”.17 During the same
period, DABIN enlarged the concept. According to him, „tout, dans la règle
juridique, quelle qu’en soit la source, y compris la coutume, est construc-
tion et en ce sens oeuvre de technique”.18
For contemporary authors, legal technique is an expression of social
experiences as well. According to a Hungarian definition, for instance, “the
technical elements of law represent definite social contents crystallised into
methods of technical solutions”.19
1.2. In l e g a l p r a c t i c e , legal technique is identified with all kinds of

practical activities that aim to adapt legal norms to actual social needs. In
this sense, legal technique is nothing other than a socially oriented practical
operation with legal norms. This sort of functional approach concentrates
mostly upon the technical features of law-application. For instance,
EHRLICH spoke about „die juristische Technik, die Gesetz auf Fälle
anwendbar machen will, für die es keine Vorschrift enthält”.20 Or, legal tech-
nique is conceived of as a practice ensuring the realisation of positive law,
which is by no means finished in its enacted form.21 Consequently, the moti-
vational power of legal technique is not pure logic; it is social interests
[Lebensinteressen], for
15
Ibid., p. 234.
16
Ibid., p. 235.
17
François Russo Réalité juridique et réalité sociale Étude sur les rapports entre le droit et la
sociologie et sur le rle du droit dans la vie sociale (Paris: Sirey 1942), p. 61.
18
19
Kálmán Kulcsár Politikai és jogszociológia [Political and Legal Sociology] (Budapest:
Közgazdasági és Jogi Kiadó 1981), p. 186.
20
Eugen Ehrlich Freie Rechtsfindung und freie Rechtswissenschaft (Leipzig: Rotschild 1903),
p. 19.
21
„Die Rechtstechnik hat wie jede Technik auch der Unvollkommenheit und Unvoll-
ständigkeit des Materials abzuhelfen.” Josef Kohler Lehrbuch der Rechtsphilosophie 2. Aufl.
(Berlin & Leipzig: Breitkopf und Härtel 1917), p. 89.
Old368-383 11/12/19 9:29 Page 372
372 APPENDIX IV.
„Die Beziehungen zwischen einzelnen Sätzen und dem Leben durchaus nicht durch feste
Logik gegeben sind […]. Die Rechtstechnik hat sich also nach der Richtung des Inter-
essenschutzes in der Interessenabwägung zu gestalten.”22
Or, in another formulation, „(m)it der wirklichen Logik hat die juristische
Logik nichts gemein als den Namen. Sie ist überhaupt keine Logik, sondern
eine Technik”.23
This is to say that legal technique is to be defined as „l’art de concilier les
intérèts avec des mesures plus exactement adaptées au but”, its task being
„d’adapter le droit aux circonstances imprévues de la vie”.24 It involves a
function to
„agrandir la sphère d’application des règles édictées par le législateur pour un cas particulier
[…] puis en utilisant les principes ainsi découverts pour la solution des cas nouveaux que
fait naître la pratique.”25
Or, it may also be said that its function is simply „la plus complète réali-
sation du droit”.26
1.3. In l e g a l s c h o l a r s h i p , legal technique is defined as a logical

operation with legal norms, in order to achieve the elaboration of a coherent
system of legal notions, frameworked in and by a legal doctrine.This version
of the concept was formulated with respect to the doctrinal study of law.27
The subject of such an operation is positive law; its user is jurisprudence,
although it may also be of help for legislation. Legal technique is used in
order to make out of the body of law a conceptual unity, consistent and
coherent, by re-establishing it in its notional context and framework.
HOLTZENDORFF separates ‘Rechtsphilosophie’ from ‘Wissenschaft der Technik
22
Ibid.
23
Eugen Ehrlich Die juristische Logik (Tübingen: Mohr 1918), p. 299.
24
R. Demogue Les notions fondamentales du droit (Paris: A. Roussseau 1911), p. 39.
25
Edouard Cuq Les institutions juridiques des Romains Envisagées dans leur rapports avec
l’état social et avec les progrès de la jurisprudence: L’ancien Droit (Paris: Plon 1891), p. 717.
26
Istrate Micesco La personnalité morale et l’indivision, comme constructions juridiques Thèse
(Paris: Impr. de Bonvalot-Joure 1907), cf. Angelesco La technique législative…, p. 3.
27
„Das Recht […] ist einer selbständigen wissenschaftlichen Bearbeitung fähig. Die
Vollführung dieser Aufgabe ist Sache der technischen Jurisprudenz.” Rudolf Stammler
Wirtschaft und Recht nach der materialistischen Geschichtsauffassung Eine sozialphilosophische
Untersuchung, 3. Aufl. (Leipzig:Veit 1914), p. 155.
Old368-383 11/12/19 9:29 Page 373
LEGAL TECHNIQUE 373
des Rechts’, the latter being destined for the systematic elaboration of the
notions of law.28 For „die Begrifflichkeit des Systems und das logische Ideal
des rechtswissenschaftlichen Positivismus” had a primary role to play in 19th
century German jurisprudence; without it not even the doctrinal prepara-
tion for codifying the Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch would have been conceivable.29
For STAMMLER, legal technique is a skill useful to shape law as a formal
expression: it is „die Art und Weise, in der rechtliches Wollen nach Außen
hin auftritt”.30 On the other hand, it is used to give the law a shape is made
by and for, and through, definite social considerations. It is “the creation of
logical structure that will enable the rules of the law to be so interrelated and
so effectively and concisely stated that they may be more easily grasped,
applied, and developed”.31 As all this implies that law is expected to serve
social interests through the systematic elaboration of the positive law. Its
effects are to be realised
„dans les résultats de détermination, de concentration, de systématisation logique des

règles, aboutissant à une double simplification du droit; qualitative pour le contenu des
règles, quantitative pour leur nombre.”32
1.4. The broadest concept of legal technique equalises it with l a w

conceived of a s a s p e c i a l t e c h n i q u e . According to this view,
legal technique is described as a means of influencing human behaviour. Its
most extreme variant is KELSEN’s identification of law with ‘special legal
technique’.33 Or, if law itself is regarded as a technique, legal technique will
be nothing else than law itself, considered in its practical working. Generally
speaking, “law is a social technique which consists in bringing about the
desired social conduct of men through threat of coercion for contrary
28
Franz von Holtzendorff Enzyklopädie der Rechtswissenschaft in sysematischer Bearbeitung
1, 7. Aufl., hrsg. Josef Kohler (München, Leipzig & Berlin: Duncker & Humblot 1913), p. 16.
29
Hug ‘Gesetzesflut…’, p. 10.
30
Rudolf Stammler Theorie der Rechtswissenschaft (Halle:Waisenhaus 1911), p. 563.
31
George Whitecross Paton A Text-book of Jurisprudence 3rd ed. D. P. Perham (Oxford:
Clarendon Press 1964), p. 235.
32
33
“The specific technique of the law […] consists in the very fact that it attaches certain
measures as consequences to certain conditions.” Hans Kelsen ‘The Law as Specific Social
Technique’ in his What is Justice? Justice, Law, and Politics in the Mirror of Science, Collected
Essays (Berkeley, Los Angeles & London: University of California Press 1971), p. 244.
Old368-383 11/12/19 9:29 Page 374
374 APPENDIX IV.
conduct”.34 On the other hand, the technique of law is an aggregate of

special techniques.
“The penal technique makes conduct the condition of sanctions to the delinquent. The
administrative technique stipulates that coercive measures should be taken […] without any
particular conduct by the person against whom the measures are applied being laid down as
a condition. The civil technique stipulates as the conditions of coercive measures both the
conduct of delinquent and the decision of some party to sue.”35
2. ON LEGAL TECHNIQUE
2.1. Definition and function

As to its most significant characteristics, legal technique is a historical
product, closely related to the law’s level of development at any given time.
It is the innermost component of the legal arrangement of a given society,
characterising both its range of instruments and professional culture. Legal
technique is in itself a complex phenomenon. It is an aggregate of skills,
methods, ways and procedures, organised into one functioning unity. It is an
instrumental phenomenon, established in order to make the law’s operation
possible in a way that is considered socially desirable, by properly shaping
both the understanding of its norms and their practical implementation.
Since proper functioning of the law presupposes formal rationalisation and
logical arrangement—to a certain degree—of both legal enactments and the
terms and concepts used in them, one of the tasks of legal technique is to
make a legal system out of the body of laws.
Or, we can formulate this position by saying that legal technique is an
intermediary link between legal policy and the law. For legal policy defines
what is to be done; legal technique provides the specification of how it can
and should actually be done, and the law offers the instrumentality through
and with reference to which the whole action is operated. Since in our
culture of modern formal law the law is regarded as identical with texts, i.e.,
with meaningful linguistic signs carrying norm-structures, legal technique
is nothing more or less than a technique of conceptualisation, that is, a tech-
34
Ibid., p. 235.
35
James William Harris Legal Philosophies (London: Butterworths 1980), p. 61.
Old368-383 11/12/19 9:29 Page 375
LEGAL TECHNIQUE 375
nique of making and operating, in a conceptual way, the texts that make up
the law.
One can even make a generalisation by stating that at each stage of devel-
opment, law is a product of legal technique. Or, formulated in another way,
legal technique is also a factor of, and a medium for, the law’s dynamics. For
legal technique is the medium for filtering all impetuses, theoretical or prac-
tical, cognitive, evaluational or volitive, that may exert an influence on the
law’s development. As a consequence, legal technique is the prime factor of
the law’s practical existence (that is, of its implementation, formation and
transformation) in the short run as well as in the long run. Retrospectively,
legal technique and law cannot be separated from one another as the contri-
bution of the former is continuously built into the latter as its product.
Prospectively, however, the game is open with alternatives to compete. At
each stage, new filtering media can be added externally to the process of
interaction. If we consider all factors, favourable traditions in, and opera-
tions with, the means of legal technique can ‘improve’ even ‘bad’ laws,
transubstantiating them into reliably inspiring sources, whilst even ‘good’
laws can be kept from touching upon actual practice sensitively, if treated
and processed through by unfavourable ones. In sum, legal technique is the
medium of processing legal norms, both in practice and in doctrine.
Although its end-product at any given time can only be justified in terms of
logic, by using logic as the theoretically exclusive relevant standard to assess
it, both practical operation with, and doctrinal processing of, legal norms are
practice-bound. Hence, the problem of contradictions between the strict
observance of the law’s own provisions and the optimum fulfilment of social
expectations does emerge.
This is so because
„la technique juridique elle-même peut constituer une aide ou un obstacle au développe-
ment. Cette technique juridique exerce son influence sur tous les aspects de la vie sociale;
les modalités de l’organisation judiciaire, les formes de la procédure, la nature des institu-
tions juridiques agissent sur l’organisation des entreprises, facilitent ou entravent les
échanges, immobilisent les structures sociales ou en accélèrent les transformations.”36
36
Edouard Lambert ‘Introduction’ in his La fonction du droit civil comparé I (Paris:V. Giard
& E. Brière 1903), p. 179.
Old368-383 11/12/19 9:29 Page 376
376 APPENDIX IV.
Or, to formulate it in another way, formal enactment is so thoroughly

combined with, and filtered through, its social contexts that something from
the latter inevitably will be left. This is why a text standing alone is only a
dead component. Phrased in the logic of juridical process,
“law is not a logical corollary of the law but something being made repeatedly at all times
from, and through the instrumentality of, the law. […] The law has a social existence exclu-
sively due to its meaning which, in its turn, can manifest itself in a linguistic, as well as social,
context.”37
It is legal technique that creates an opportunity to resolve recurring

conflicts between the need to meet social expectations in practice and the
demand to fulfil the law. For any mediation through the law is hardly
anything other than the continued realisation of (by implementing) a formal
system of fulfilment. As WEBER defines it, the task of the legal specialist is
„die Feststellung, was an einem in typischer Art verlaufenden Gemein-
schafts- oder Einverständnishandeln r e c h t l i c h geordnet, also als ein
Rechtsverhältnis, zu denken seien”,38 that is, a task to be met only when
unbroken adaptive manipulation is the case.39 It is why LAMBERT states: „la
technique juridique est nécessairement conservatrice parce qu’elle doit
opérer des transactions entre les besoins contradictoires du changement et
de la sécurité”.40
2.2. Legal technique and legal cultures

Analysis of the function of legal technique may contribute to substantiation
of a statement about legal culture, determining—with final impact upon—
the whole practical life of law. For legal culture is a function of the set of
means (patterns, etc.) of legal technique characteristic of the culture in
question; a primary role can be played by legal technique both in developing
and in reasserting the given tradition.
37
By the author, ‘Logic of Law and Judicial Activity: A Gap between Ideals, Reality, and
Future Perspectives’ in Legal Development and Comparative Law ed. Zoltán Péteri & Vanda
Lamm (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó 1982) pp. 45–76 on p. 63.
38
Max Weber Rechtssoziologie hrsg. Johannes Winckelmann (Neuwied: Luchterhand 1960),
p. 101 [Soziologische Texte].
39
It is to be noted that ‘mediation’, ‘system of fulfilment’ as well as ‘manipulation’ are terms
used in the ontological characterisation of law by George Lukács’ Zur Ontologie des gesellschaft-
lichen Seins, cf. note 44, passim.
40
Lambert ‘Introduction’, p. 179.
Old368-383 11/12/19 9:29 Page 377
LEGAL TECHNIQUE 377
Legal technique is at the same time bound to actual praxis. Systems of

legal technique differ from each other according to place and time; sub-
systems of legal technique are developed within any particular system of law,
while also diverging from one another according to the branches of the law.
Legal culture provides the basic unit within which legal technique can be
defined in a reasonable way at all. Legal culture is compounded by positive
law and the legal profession responsible for making the law function, as well
as by legal technique handled by the profession in question. The available
means of legal technique primarily define, among others, flexibility, sensi-
tivity and responsiveness of a legal norm-system. This is why the quality of
any given legal culture is the function of its legal technique to a considerable
extent. General features of any particular legal technique may by and large
characterise a whole legal culture. For example, taking just two instances,
Roman law is „der Begrifflichkeit eigen und der Gedanke eines sachlichen
Normensystems zunächst fremd”41 while Asian laws are of the nature to
guide orientation rather than to rule behaviour.
Legal technique, as a characteristic of a given legal system, is at any given
time the product of historical development. Such factors as the patterns of
thought prevailing in society, the practical experience gained by the legal
profession or the patterns received from the past and/or the outside world
can be decisive in the forming and everyday shaping of legal technique.
However, one must take into account the fact that instrumental phenomena
are multifunctional. As a consequence, whichever variations of procedure or
form manifested in the history of civilisation are explored, it immediately
becomes clear that, under different conditions, any of them could success-
fully serve to fulfil any social function that the law has ever been able to
serve. This means that formation of any legal technique is the result of a
process of historical (self-)determination upon which all factors, including
the incidental and contingent, may have had their impact.
Legal technique may have an infinite number of components and vari-
ants. At the same time, no specific legal technique is established forever. As
an aspect of the social phenomenon and human venture called ‘law’, it is in
constant formation, shaping and reshaping. As a function of the endlessly
renewed needs and challenges of practice, legal technique will inevitably
throw some of its elements into prominence by transforming them into
institutions proper, independent and/or decisive, while other elements may
41
Niklas Luhmann Rechtssoziologie 2. Aufl. (Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag 1983), p. 179.
Old368-383 11/12/19 9:29 Page 378
378 APPENDIX IV.
wither away or simply be tolerated as implied alternatives, with these shifts

of emphasis resulting—after all, necessarily—in a change in the character of
legal technique, and also of legal culture itself, in the long run. Or, due to
the circumstance that social (self-)determination is a process of becoming
mutually determined through an endless series of interactions in social exis-
tence, self-reproduction gives rise to a concrete unity of identity and
non-identity in social practice; in response to challenges, various elements
of the system can become active (or activated) to a varying extent. In the
process of self-reproduction, this will necessarily bring about shifts or modi-
fications. In its turn, any shift or modification will either be levelled up to
preserve and reassert the prevailing tendency of development or cumulated
with other impacts so as to change the direction through the continued
accumulation of all the motions in one direction. As a matter of fact, as prod-
ucts of mere legal technique with no legal institution contributing to them
(moreover, with no established institution suitable to contribute to them),
such shifts of emphasis may provoke genuine changes in the law, activated
as a new, genuine source of the law.This may be so in the case, for instance,
of re-interpreting a political evaluation (enacted, e.g., in the Preamble to the
German Grundgesetz), the jurisprudence of clauses (developed, e.g., with
reference to the German Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch), or, on the pretence of
constitutionality, a practical revision of substantial provisions from general
provisions (e.g., constitutional ones) in want of detailed regulation.
The variety of legal technique is almost unlimited, efficiency of operation
being its only standard. And one must reckon with the fact that responsive-
ness and sensitivity of the entire legal arrangement are to a great extent
functions of legal technique. As a consequence, legal technique is in a posi-
tion both to offer and to block paths of further development. For the
potentialities of development of individual legal systems are by no means
boundless. As a practical matter, each individual system has its own choice
taken from and suggested by the stock of those means of legal technique that
are historically by and large established, having already stood the test of
practice and been incorporated by the system in question. Attempts at
renewal are selected and tested both by expediency and tradition.
The character (suitability, universality, etc.) of the means of legal tech-
nique of any individual legal system can be a decisive factor in the
development and historical destiny of the legal system concerned. There-
fore, it is by no means unimportant to what extent the means of legal
technique can exercise a catalytic effect. In general, „la technique offre
souvent une g r a n d e u t i l i t é pour le plein développement et l’exacte
Old368-383 11/12/19 9:29 Page 379
LEGAL TECHNIQUE 379
application du droit”.42 In another formulation, “legal technique leaves its

mark upon the life of the community, for the law operates through its
concepts”.43 For instance, it is due to the legal technique of ancient Rome
that its legal system could develop on an incomparably high level by realising
the ideal that could at all be met by law, that is,
“to arrange, define, systematise, etc., the socially vital conflicts in a system which can
guarantee the relative optimum for the solution of the conflicts in question in line with the
current level of development of the given formation.”44
And, again,
„[c]’est parce que le droit romain a découvert et merveilleusement appliqué ces instruments
de précision, ou plutôt de transposition, juridique, cette façon par conséquent de transposer
les faits dans le domain du droit.”45
In each legal system and in all instances of its development, alternatives

are offered. It is an open question to decide—among competing alterna-
tives—what established part will be activated as an impetus for change from
the body of tradition, what means of legal technique will be made use of
from its stock to channel the change as a legal change through the instru-
mentality of law and, consequently, what formal change will eventually be
brought about in the law. Of course, nothing occurs by pure chance. It is
well-defined social challenges, expectations and needs that stand behind
apparent alternatives. However, from the moment when one of the alterna-
tives becomes realised, it will, by the force of its new quality having become
a constituent part of the body of tradition, turn into one of the factors, and,
at the same time, the indicators, of further development.The transformation
of what has b e e n d e t e r m i n e d into a factor that i s d e t e r -
m i n i n g is particularly striking in the case of changes of direction in the
development of legal technique that, later on, prove to have been water-
42
Gény Science et technique… IV, p. 29.
43
J.Walter Jones Historical Introduction to the Theory of Law 2nd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press
1965), p. 266.
44
György Lukács A társadalmi lét ontológiájáról [Towards the Ontology of Social Being] 2:
Szisztematikus fejezetek [Systematic Chapters] (Budapest: Gondolat 1976), p. 484, cf., by the
author, The Place of Law in Lukács’World Concept (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó 1985 [reprint
1999]) 193 pp. at p. 131.
45
Raymond Saleilles ‘La réforme de la licence en droit’ Revue internationale de l’Enseigne-
ment 47 (1904), pp. 230ff, especially at p. 231.
Old368-383 11/12/19 9:29 Page 380
380 APPENDIX IV.
sheds.We have in mind changes of direction that have been determinant of

the diversification of law in the course of its regrouping into so-called fami-
lies of legal systems. As it is well-known that the conceptualisation of law was
completed for the first time in post-republican Rome, making the law
formalised so that it could serve as a basis of inference and/or reference. As
to the change through shifts of a long-lasting legal-historical importance, the
famous disputes between the SABINians and PROCULians in Roman
jurisprudence and between SHAMAI and HILLEL in the Talmudic practice of
the Synhedrion provide examples. The first, in Rome, concerned under-
standing law either in terms of its being embodied in a e q u i t a s , or
natural justice, and, hence, of a merely orientative role in resolving social
conflicts, or, as its exact opposite, which regarded the law’s conception as a
rational system of strict concepts and rules, taken as the sole normative
basis, standard and justification for settling those conflicts, with the law
reduced to a mere enactment as an instrument that can be freely operated
by the state, that is, ius, to lex.46 The second, in ancient Israel, had the histor-
ical task to decide whether laws were to be interpreted strictly and
restrictively, or whether the social interests that made the law liveable could
also be considered when interpreting laws. With HILLEL’s point prevailing,
flexible interpretation and the ensuing alternative nature of decisions were
accepted, but this was not a winning situation for anything in practice. For,
despite the open conflict between the diverging views, both kinds of legal
technique, proper to the antagonistic approaches, remained practicable
components of the same Talmudic tradition.47
2.3. Postulates of legal technique in the cultures of modern formal law

The legal policy of a particular legal order is instrumental if it proves to be
an effective tool to realise commonly shared values through the instrumen-
tality of law. As legal technique functions wedged between legal policy and
the legal text, its criteria of evaluation are also deducible from those of legal
policy.That is to say, legal technique is in the service of legal policy through
the instrumentality of the law.The boundaries of what is meant by ‘through
the instrumentality of the law’ are mostly defined by the positive law. At the
same time, this definition is supplemented by tacit presuppositions taken
and practised as given in the relevant culture, by presumptions that can only
46
Tony Honoré Gaius (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1962), p. 39.
47
Chaïm Perelman ‘Désaccord et rationalité des décisions’ in his Droit, morale et philosophie
(Paris: Libraire Générale de Droit et de Jurisprudence 1968), pp. 105–106.
Old368-383 11/12/19 9:29 Page 381
LEGAL TECHNIQUE 381
be articulated through their logical reconstruction within the doctrinal

study of law,48 and by other presuppositions rooted in the legal culture and
in the underlying ideology of the legal profession, gained from experience
accumulated in legal practice. All these postulates and presuppositions are
recurrently reasserted and re-established in the course of the self-reproduc-
tion of that culture. It is an exceptional occurrence only when they need to
be, or are actually, positively articulated by the law or formally defined by its
doctrine.
Legal technique, characteristic of the cultures of modern formal law, has
at least four basic postulates closely related to each other, which are the
following:
a) The principle of consequentiality In the cultures of modern formal law,

the judicial and administrative decision-making process is conceived by the
ideology of the legal profession to be a logical operation, in the course of
which the case in question is subsumed under some general norm(s) taken
from the aggregate of the previously enacted texts of valid law, while the
decision to be made is inferred from these norms. Accordingly, a legal deci-
sion is held simply to be deduced (or derived) from the positive law.
Notwithstanding this, the logical principle of consequentiality is inevitably
broken in practice. Nevertheless, whatever compromise is actually to be
reached, the principle has—as a basis of reference, of legitimation and/or
justification in the decision-making process—a definite role to play both in
channelling legal practice and in delimiting the directions and paths which
it is to take along its development.
b) The principle of coherency One of the specific functions of the proce-

dures operated by the means of legal technique is to harmonise the law’s
aspiration to relative completeness, closedness and coherence with the fulfil-
ment of the practical needs that recurrently break this harmony, in order to
institutionalise their casual fulfilment through re-establishment of the inner
harmony, completeness, closedness and coherence of the system, sublated
(i.e., preserved while transcending it) at any given time over and over again.
Of course, from the point of view of theoretical reconstruction, systems of
the law cannot be considered closed systems. Still, the legal specialist can
48
Leszek Nowak ‘De la rationalité du législateur comme élément de l’interprétation
juridique’ in Etudes de logique juridique III: Contributions polonaises à la théorie du droit et
de l’interpretation juridique, publ. Chaïm Perelman (Brussels: Bruylant 1969), pp. 65ff.
Old368-383 11/12/19 9:29 Page 382
382 APPENDIX IV.
only operate them by treating them as if they were relatively complete and
closed systems; both interpretation of the norms and establishment of gaps
among the norms are functions of such an artificially made presumption. At
the same time, there is quite a pragmatic need for formal rationalisation.
For, an unambiguous, manageable and predictable operation with, and
indeed the very administration of, the law is only conceivable when the prin-
ciple of coherence prevails, no matter how much it suffers from the
compromise solutions in fact needed. And the jurist can undertake a prac-
tical elaboration and processing of the large amount of legal texts,
accumulated in time and confused in sense again, only provided that the
system of positive law is gradually and continually organised into a system
of interrelated concepts and norm-propositions.
c) The principle of conceptual economy Conceptual economy is needed to

prevent the component parts of legal regulation from being broken into too
many pieces. According to this principle, basic structures are to be elabo-
rated both in legal regulation (in its formal shaping and doctrinal
arrangement) and in its judicial actualisation and continuous development
as well. If there is but one chance, then any further structure is to be built on
(as related to, as a branching off of, an exception to, or an analogy, fiction,
etc., of) such basic structures. Conceptual economy presupposes unam-
biguous and concise wording in regulations, with well-arranged and
clear-cut construction (accompanied by a series of references, allusions and
definitions) in the law’s formulation.
d) The principle of non-redundancy Redundancy is the lack of conceptual

economy with regard to several texts carrying the same message. Modern
law is formal in so far as it is the enacted text that is exclusively regarded as
carrying the law’s validity. As to its normative contents, the law’s function as
enacted is to define (by substantiating) any legal action. As to its normative
form (wording), its enacted text is the only justification for any such action.
As a consequence, any redundancy creates room for diversification in inter-
pretation and concretising actualisation, be it a case of duplication of text
(e.g., in a preamble in addition to the Act) or of overlapping with it (e.g., in
another Act).Taking into consideration the diverging contexts, repetition of
one and the same text (word, etc.) may risk grounding differing interpreta-
tions.
In the cultures of modern formal law, the particular function of legal tech-
nique is to mediate between legal policy and legal text. Legal policy, legal
Old368-383 11/12/19 9:29 Page 383
LEGAL TECHNIQUE 383
technique and the law can equally prove to have been poorly adapted to
meeting actually felt social needs. If this is the case, either fulfilment will be
blocked or timely needs will force their way through, even by overriding the
law. The most frequent response to such a challenge is that compromise
solutions will make use of legal technique so as to pretend to be legitimised
by the law—while they actually misuse such legitimation without any strict
observance of the law. In practice, half-way compromises happen more
frequently than desirable or justifiable on principle. In case of such practical
misuses, legal technique has the primary role of integrating all components
into one still functioning unity in the most consequential, coherent, concep-
tually economic and non-redundant way available. However, we must also
take into consideration the fact that legal technique can isolate partial
damage on these principles, but repeated substantial damage may eventu-
ally disorganise the established aggregate of legal technique and, thereby,
undermine the quality of the entire legal culture that has so far prevailed.
As a final conclusion, it can be established that the specific function of legal

technique is to ensure that the realisation of any legally relevant substantive
and material target will be effected through the law’s instrumentality. That
is, it is to ensure that basic goals will be reached by implementing all addi-
tional values and effects that can be gained through their distinctively
l e g a l m e d i a t i o n .49
49
Cf. also, by the author, ‘Moderne Staatlichkeit und modernes formales Recht’ Acta
Juridica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 26 (1984) 1–2, pp. 235–241 and [with József
Szájer] ‘Presumption and Fiction: Means of Legal Technique’ Archiv für Rechts- und Sozial-
philosophie LXXIV (1988) 2, pp. 168–184 {reprint of both in his Law and Philosophy Selected
Papers in Legal Theory (Budapest: ELTE “Comparative Legal Cultures” Project 1994), pp.
201–207 and 169–185 [Philosophiae Iuris]}.
Old384-390 11/12/19 9:29 Page 384
384
APPENDIX V.
THE INHERENT AMBIVALENCE OF A RATIONAL APPROACH*

(Is the human fullness of being to be destroyed as a price of progress?)†
Presuppositions, previously formed judgements, beliefs and convictions

treated as self-evident in themselves, routines and ways and habits—these
are the background handholds with which we achieve our progress in
thinking anyway. What is more, an even more radical statement could well
be made: from the outset, only that which seems hidden in us and that which
we have acknowledged at an earlier past can arrive as acceptable to us. For
this is what is embraced within the frames and in the channels of our
previous knowledge, in the world-outlook presumed by our f o r e -
k n o w l e d g e , and in the very conceivability of what can only be formed
in this way.
In those cultures of argumentation, judgement and conclusion (the prime
example of which is put forward by law), which are built on f o r m a l
r e f e r e n c i n g within formal thought processes by requiring formal
* First published—in a longer version—in Békés Imre ünnepi kötet A jogtudomány és a

büntetôjog dogmatikája, filozófiája Tanulmányok Békés Imre születésének 70. évfordulójára, ed.
Béla Busch, Ervin Belovics & Dóra Tóth (Budapest: [Osiris] 2000), pp. 270–277 [A Pázmány
Péter Katolikus Egyetem Jog- és Államtudományi Karának könyvei 2].
†
My first revelative experience on the final insecurity of rational constructions was encoun-
tered two decades ago when, as a guest of the University of Edinburgh Institute for Advanced
Studies in the Humanities trying to understand what eventual anchorage human under-
standing and certainty might have, I could only meet ‘epistemology’, ‘logic’, and ‘scientific
methodology’—i.e., pure theories armed with conceptualities constructed as models for an
artificially erected imaginary world never existed and practiced—for that such and similar
notional extrapolations might then provide pridefully clear and logically consequent explana-
tions. By chance, I found in its library the work of Seyyed Hossein Nasr, once lecturing
there—Knowledge and Sacred The Gifford Lectures, 1981 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University
Press 1981) ix + 341 pp.—, which offered an account of the self-narrowing of human compre-
hension by resigning from the fullness of human being, which had once prevailed at least in
human imagination, as a result of the development of exact sciences.
Old384-390 11/12/19 9:29 Page 385
THE INHERENT AMBIVALENCE OF A RATIONAL APPROACH 385
justification and/or motivation of their conclusions,1 we have to reckon from

the very start with the operation of some special “ s y s t e m o f f u l f i l -
m e n t ” .2 That is, this scheme of thought development presupposes an
alienating homogeneous/homogenised medium (the opposite of the hetero-
geneous complexity of everyday life), in which even the most apt, expedient
and/or adequate mental operations can only be justified in so far as (and in
the respect with which) they meet the normative criteria of legal operation,
defined by a set of compulsory formal provisions—without paying any
attention to further circumstances and/or considerations.
In the middle of the 19th century, once the cult of such a manner of
thinking had imbued the (exegetic) application of the great Civil Law codes
of the European continent, its limitations—namely, the reduction of any
scholarly treatment to conceptual jurisprudence [Begriffsjurisprudenz], the
artificial separation undertaken under the guise of professional deontology
and the hypostatisation of a “conceptual paradise” [Begriffshimmel] in
promising the law’s “completion by itself”, and, thereby, risking alienation
from reality—excluded both the law and its scholarly study from the fora of
social thought. It is not by historical chance if such and similar formalised
cultures for long time nurtured a deepening distrust on behalf of the
normality of the social majority (not initiated to the rituals of their conse-
crated clerics),3 who dreamed all along about a Utopian return to the lost
normality.4 Moreover, renewed efforts were even made to shake off such
shackles (e.g., via the free law movement [freie Rechtsfindung]) by finding a
compass able to control the law’s contingency (e.g., by again referring to
natural law or naturalness). Additionally, efforts were also made to resolve
strict adherence to mere conceptual patterns by building elements of rela-
1
Cf., e.g., by the author, Lectures on the Paradigms of Legal Thinking (Budapest: Akadémiai
Kiadó 1999) vii + 279 pp. [Philosophiae Iuris].
2
‘Erfüllungssysem’ in George Lukács Zur Ontologie des gesellschaftlichen Seins. Cf., by the
author, The Place of Law in Lukács’World Concept (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó 1985) 193 pp.
3
See the general tone in which the lawyerly activity was appreciated by, e.g., Martin Luther
The Table-Talk [Tischgespräche, 1546], paras. DCCLXXXV–CCCLXXXVIII in <http://www
.reformed.org/master/index.html?mainframe=/documents/Table_talk/table_talk.html>.
4
It is enough to refer just to the cult of simplicity and unmediatedness, targeted again by
both Bolshevist and National-Socialist ideologies in the past century. Cf., among others, by the
author, ‘Utopias of Rationality in the Development of the Idea of Codification’ Rivista Inter-
nazionale di Filosofia del Diritto LV (1978) l, pp. 21–38 {& in Law and the Future of Society ed. F.
C. Hutley, Eugene Kamenka & Alice Erh–Soon Tay (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag 1979),
pp. 27–41 [Archiv für Rechts- und Sozialphilosophie, Beiheft 11]}.
Old384-390 11/12/19 9:29 Page 386
386 APPENDIX V.
tive resolution into the system itself (e.g., through clauses in terms of which
the application of relevant provisions is preconditioned by the previous
weighing of underlying principles).
As a result of our progress in revealing the basic structure of thinking by
way of theoretical reconstruction, all that we could hitherto believe to be the
specific homogeneity of an alienated sphere has slowly changed into a
capital order, which has resulted in revealing the p r e c o n d i t i o n e d
n a t u r e o f t h o u g h t p r o c e s s e s themselves.
Is it otherwise possible to appreciate the recent turn in cognitive sciences
at all? Half a century ago, when general systems theory was drafted,5 all this
was considered a mere hypothesis. A quarter of a century ago, when closed
and open systems were differentiated in the sweeping methodological
advance generated by the birth of cybernetics in systems theory, all this still
stood for a conceptual game in reconstructive hypostatisation. An actual
breakthrough became imminent later on, when a viable form of systemicity
was recognised in both the structure of the world and the way in which we
humans do function, with simultaneously open and closed features. After
the framework and built-in regularities of cell operation (in the self-repro-
duction of living organisms) had been described,6 researchers realised that
more was indeed at stake here: the tentative formulation of a methodolog-
ical pattern, potentially of a path-breaking significance. What is the new
realisation here? It is of a system, self-organising and self-reproducing at the
same time.This is an operation called a u t o p o i e s i s , which defines its
own regularities in the course of its actual operation. Extended to the social
sciences, this system has been used to characterise the law’s operation as
5
Ludwig von Bertalanffy General System Theory Foundations, Developments, Applications
(New York: Braziller 1968) xxiv + 295 pp.
6
Humberto R. Maturana & Francisco J.Varela Autopoiesis and Cognition The Realization of
the Living (Dordrecht, Boston, London: Reidel 1972) xxx + 141 pp. [Boston Studies in the
Philosophy of Science 42] and Humberto R. Maturana ‘Autopoiesis’ in Autopoiesis A Theory of
Living Organization, ed. Milan Zeleny (New York & Oxfort: North Holland 1981), pp. 21–33
[General Systems Research 3], especially on p. 21.
7
By Niklas Luhmann, ‘The Self-reproduction of Law and its Limits’ in Dilemmas of Law in
the Welfare State ed. Gunther Teubner (Berlin & New York: de Gruyter 1986), pp. 110–127
[European University Institute A3] and ‘The Unity of the Legal System’ in Autopoietic Law A
New Approach to Law and Society, ed. Gunther Teubner (Berlin & New York: de Gruyter
1988), pp. 12–35 [European University Institute A8]; and by Gunther Teubner, Recht als
autopoietisches System (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp 1989) 227 pp.
Old384-390 11/12/19 9:29 Page 387
well.7 Then, extended again, it has served as a methodological principle

explaining society in terms of communication.8 According to the underlying
principle of autopoiesis, the system is open to information but closed in
every other respect, that is, in the way its (information) input is interiorised
and the (decision) output is reached. Accordingly, legal operation is effected
through the successive series of opening and closing within a given system.
Moreover, the self-definition and self-reproduction of societal (sub)systems
are carried out through such a series of opening and closing—from religion
to language, to money, to science.
As to p e r c e p t i o n , in its elementary acts marks that are formless in
themselves are featured as having a form themselves, once there is a frame-
work of interpretation available, within which such marks are processed as
one of the variations of some previously known and definitely arranged form
that the observer’s memory can easily activate. In short, perception
presumes something of an analogy to anything previously perceived. As is
well known, Gestaltpsychologie already realised in the interwar period that
instead of elementary components, it is always a whole form as a relative
total that is perceived. After a gestalt as a relative total, reminding the
perceiver of something already recorded and identified, it will be split into
elements that can only be analytically differentiated. Then, perception will
end with scrutiny of these elements one by one, as variations within the
given analogy.
Indeed, a similar previous filter is operated in c o n c e p t u a l i s a t i o n
as well. Nearly all the basic co-ordinating concepts of humankind can be
related to one another (at a certain level and to a certain depth, of course),
independent of the variety of the underlying cultures. According to cogni-
tive sciences, linguistic signs are to be taken at most as metaphors, created
by humans so that they can represent reality in a symbolic way, using the
mental instruments within humanity’s reach. Mental representation can be
seen as a fictive act with symbolic character and significance,9 which is
meant to stand for some reality, actual or imaginary. And all this is done by
humans using what they have biologically inherited and into which they
8
Niklas Luhmann Das Recht der Gesellschaft (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp 1995) 597
pp. [Suhrkamp Taschenbuch Wissenschaft 1183].
9
Hans Vaihinger Die Philosophie des als ob System der theoretischen, praktischen und
religiösen Fiktionen der Menschheit auf Grund eines idealistichen Positivismus (Berlin:
Reuther & Reichard 1911) xxxv + 804 pp.
Old384-390 11/12/19 9:29 Page 388
388 APPENDIX V.
have been socialised within a given culture. Accordingly, the basic co-ordi-
nates of human thinking are similar (at a certain level and to a certain depth,
of course) in that they follow some common basic trends.These express the
order lived by humankind, in both their generic nature [Gattungswesen] and
individual development.They all can be traced back to the basic experience
that lays the foundations for our individual development, gained from the
time during when we grew from helpless babies to adults, who are already
able to control themselves as well as their environment. In short, conceptu-
alisation is, through its basic units, built upon the co-ordinates lived through
elementarily in the childhood experience of how to orient ourselves in the
world.10
Or, the p e r s o n a l e x p e r i e n c e o f h o w t o o r i e n t
o u r s e l v e s i n t h e w o r l d is based on the gradually extended
awareness of our biological setup and the co-ordinates of our bodily avail-
able elementary moves, while embracing step by step acceptance of our
environment, including other humans as well. In this sense, life is just an
unbroken process in which humans learn the modalities of how to co-exist
with the given social environment. As a consequence, properly speaking it is
neither brute facts nor the hypostatisation of some freely fillable tabula rasa
that our language and conceptual world are being built on. Instead, we are
becoming “socialised” in the course of Sozialisierung, as an irreversibly
progressive process.11 Consequently, our thinking can only develop in our
social existence and within its total context. It is based on social presuppo-
sitions. Rephrased in terms of today’s science-methodological
reconstruction, we may claim that even at an elemental level, the acts and
mental products of human thought cannot qualify as merely descriptive:
they are weakly normative.12
10
Joachim Israel ‘Stipulations and Construction in the Social Sciences’ in The Context of
Social Psychology A Critical Assessment, ed. J[oachim] Israel & H[enri] Tajfel (London & New
York: Academic Press 1972), pp. 123–211 [European Monographs in Social Psychology 2]
and George Lakoff Cognitive Sciences and the Law [a paper presented at the Yale Law School
Legal Theory Workshop on April 27, 1989] [ms] 49 pp.
11
Cf. note 2.
12
See, by Joachim Israel, ‘Is a Non-normative Social Science Possible?’ Acta Sociologica
[Copenhagen] 15 (1972) 1, pp. 69–87 and ‘Remarks Concerning Epistemological Problems of
Objectivity in the Social Sciences’ in Research in Sociology of Knowledge, Sciences and Art I, ed.
Robert Allen Jones (Greenwich, Conn.:The Jai Press 1978), pp. 63–80.
Old384-390 11/12/19 9:29 Page 389
As a result of this, the s o c i a l ( r e ) p r o d u c t i o n o f r e a l i -

t y 13— often portrayed as the result of linguistic acts supporting the
emergence or maintenance of social institutions14 or, simply, as the mere
product of linguistic games15—has become one of the main functions of
language.This is truly expressed when we say that by the very fact of repre-
senting reality we do produce reality.Through the instrument with which we
represent reality we do—nolens, volens—interfere with the picture already
formed of reality and, thereby, we also actively shape reality, effectively and
creatively.
All this eventually concludes in the realisation of the relativity of any
conceptual foundation, due to the fact that logifying derivations may form
a castle in the air, that is, that the usual a r r o g a n c e o f i n t e l l e c -
t u a l i t y may prove barren. Otherwise speaking, r e a s o n fed back by
a sober assessment of the facts of h u m a n p r a c t i c e can still serve as
a reliable guidance in the basic issues of life, even if it cannot provide a firm
and exclusive basis by itself.
Where is r a t i o located in the very richness of our manifold human
facultases and abilities? Does it have the potential to represent the fullness
of the human being or can it —serving merely as an instrument—exclusively
touch and interfere with what it can reach and process through its specific
filter? Going further: is it true that filtering is synonymous with homo-
genisation, and homogenisation, in turn, with impoverishment, vaporising
both the fullness of being and the ontological undiscreteness and uninter-
rupted total interconnection? That is, is filtering synonymous with a
distortion, reducing anything to the capacities and requirements of our
instruments, which have in fact been invented/developed just to mirror the
outer world?
13
Peter L. Berger & Thomas Luckman The Social Construction of Reality A Treatise in the
Sociology of Knowledge (New York: Irvington 1966) vii + 203 pp.
14
John Austin How to Do Things with Words 2nd ed. J. O. Urmson & Marina Sbisá (London,
Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press 1976) x + 169 pp. as well as, by John R. Searle,
Speech Acts An Essay in the Philosophy of Language (London: Cambridge University Press
1969) vi + 203 pp. and The Constructon of Social Reality (London: Penguin Books 1996) xiii +
241 pp.
15
Joachim Israel The Language of Dialectics and the Dialectis of Language (Copenhagen:
Munksgaard 1979) xii + 263 pp.
Old384-390 11/12/19 9:29 Page 390
390 APPENDIX V.
Is it realistic to conclude that through expressing the indiscretely total

interconnection of the world using a finite series of “regularities”, we have
just happened to create an operational repetition of some impoverished arti-
ficiality, reducible to some simplified “laws”, out of this admirable unity of
the total existence? Is it conceivable to realise that, perhaps, we may have
become dominated as well as surpassed by those instruments we are accus-
tomed to apply with success in partial analyses? Is it acceptable that, after a
while, we become accustomed to thinking in terms of means exclusively,
which turn out to become over-dimensioned thereby?
The message of the past may easily prove to be in a position to inspire a
more nuanced and completed picture as compared to the self-confident but
unifactoral present mainstream. Methodological investigations into past
habits and experience may, therefore, perhaps promise a more complex and
far-sighted perspective.
Old391-413 11/12/19 9:30 Page 391
391
INDEX
actio 37 Ausdifferenzierung 305

adequatio rei et intellectus 133 autonomous / heteronomous 72,
administration, bureaucratic 50 124, 151
aequitas 380 – / – thought 160–161
aesthetic experience 201–203 autopoiesis 151, 156–158,
– –, objectivity / subjectivity of 203 301–309, 386–387
ambiguity, see axiomatism see also society; world-view
analogy 204 auto-regulation 264
angeli in eodem loco 134 axiom / theorem 62–64
anomy 205–206 axiomatic ideal / creative
“another new world out of uncertainty 145–146
nothing” 66, 69–70, 174 – reconstruction/rebuilding of
anthropological foundations sciences 178
10–11, 172, 269 axiomatism 105, 129, 135, 153,
– – without neutral language / 155, 337, 340
points of reference 270 –, excessive 343
see law in – in law 51
anthropomorphism / –, relevance in reality of 145
dysanthropomorphism 144–145 – / fertilising ambiguities 150, 151
anti-theories 286 see also Utopia
“applications” in theories 173–174
archetype, see book of law; ‘balance’ 143
recording beauty 201–202
army regulation 35 belief 90, 133
ars as art / craft 245 Begriffshimmel 385
arsenic murder epidemic in Begriffsjurisprudenz 385
Hungary 12–13 body / soul 226, 229–230
art of distinguishing 234 Bolshevik theory of the state 358
artistic production in a random book of law as archetype 25
manner 276–277 boundaries, see notions; notional
see also reflection theory breaking down norm-hierarchy
asha 31 288, 322
auditoire universel 179–180 bureacracy, see administration
Old391-413 11/12/19 9:30 Page 392
392 INDEX
calculability 335 commandments and prohibitions /

Calculemus! 140–141, 165, 340 love 135, 156
cancer 264 commensurability 142
canon law 318 Common Law, see Civil Law
capitalism / socialism 358 concept as essence of things 101
“casting light” 211 – – mask of intentions 101
casuistry in law 28, 53 concept formation in law, positivist
categorical imperative 153 / sociological 316
causality, stochastic / statistic 191 concepts 196
certainty in reliability of continuity – as culturally saturated 269–270
236, 333 –, class- / order- 221
chain-writing 291–292 –, classificatorily used 353
change of law alternativity –, culture- / nature- 221
280–281, 352 –, relational 197, 265
– – – through change of meaning conceptual economy 382
277, 279–280 – identification 111, 128
‘check and balance’ 143, 305–306 conceptualisation 245, 387
Chinese law 115–119, 233 – / lack of, in law 33, 46, 117, 337
civil disobedience 277 see also dichotomisation;
Civil Law / Common Law language; “tendential...”;
233–234, 272–273, 314–315 thinking
classification, see concepts; law- conclusion 75
application conflicts in law solved 331
clockwork as world’s metaphor see also dispute; law
142–144, 151 consequentiality 381
closed/open, see law; notional constitution / prevailing practice
boundaries; reasoning; system 362
codification 48 constitutional interpretation in US
–, classical idea of 343 158
–, quantitative / qualitative 48 constitutive rules 297
– as exempla Romanorum 51 see also institutionalisation;
cognition 105, 178–179, 197 language’s
– as function of naming 194 constitutivity of speech-acts 297
– completed 140 construction, legal 344
– interfered by instruments of construction / functioning
experimentation 270 229–230, 241–242, 278,
see also fact-finding; 308–309
“tendential...” – / operation 59, 203
coherency 381–382 construit, see donné
Old391-413 11/12/19 9:30 Page 393
INDEX 393
contextuality 252–265, 281 depersonalisation 128

– in law, in a semantic / socio- derivation, linguistic / logical 47
ontological sense 348–349 description as intellectual
continuum, see law; meaning modelling 194
contrat social 175 designation as practical task
convention 175–177 routinised 282
conventionalisation, see deviance; see also sign
evident determinism, historical 185
conventionality as component of development / progress 165, 167
societal existence 177, 243 deviance in function of
core / penumbra 252, 255 conventionalisation 258–262
corpus of meanings 266 dharma 31
correctness / uncorrectness 242 dialectics, see language
correspondence theory of truth dichotomisation, conceptual 221
101 dichotomy 103, 329
cosmos, understanding of, –, moral 171
patterned by legal order 259 see also legal
criteria-dependence in law 39 dictionary 243
cultural dependence 179 dika 31
customs in pre-revolutionary dikaion 25, 28–36, 37, 44, 233
France 289 discrimination 222
cylinder in steam-engines 264 dispute resolution / conflict
settlement 120
death 261–263 “distinctively legal” 231, 347
decision to be made after all 283, division of power 359
286–287 doctrinarism 149
deconstructionism 285–294 dogma 83
– as final relativism 291 donné / construit 14–15, 273, 370
deductive / inductive 83–84, 232
definitio negatio est, omnis 311 easy case as routinised in practice
– periculosa est 169 257, 265
definition with genus proximus / – – / hard case 253–255, 257,
differentia specifica 310 264–265
degree, question of 283 efficacity, see validity
“denial of justice” 57 enacting a text, purport of 273–274
denominating everything 111, 128 “End of History” 130, 292
deontology of having independent Enlightened absolutism 49
measure 27 epistemic, see ontic
– – the legal profession 317, 322 equality of rights 222
Old391-413 11/12/19 9:30 Page 394
394 INDEX
Eskimo penalty 11 Fiat iustitia, pereat mundus! 119,

Europe,Western/Eastern/Central 120, 125
184–185 fiction 361
events as processes 306 – theory 218
evident / conventionalised 16 see also “immemorial...”
evil eye/spirit 207–208 filo- / anti-types of sentiments 223
evolution / revolution 151 force of final judgment 287, 290
evolutionism 172–173 formal enactment 347–348
exegesis in law 57, 58, 342, 343 formlessness 100
existence, ontological prevalence of forms, see nature’s
229 “free law” movement 58, 343
existentialism’s dilemma 159 freedom 163
experience 388 fullness of human being 384
see also geometry functioning, see construction
experimental medicine 303 “functioning”, provided by
experimentation, see cognition repetitions 230
external behaviour aimed at by fuzzyness 361
legislation 275
extrapolation 144 gaplessness 134
gaps in law 152, 331
fa 116 – – –, filling 53–54, 360
see also li – – –, lack of 56, 58–59, 344
“face lost” 118, 124 – – –, law as nothing but 58–59
fact / norm 68 geometric exposition of law 58
fact-finding taken as cognition 12 geometry 61–67, 132
facts 196, 197–209, 214 – rooted in experience 219
– constituting a case in law 275, Gestalt psychology 41–42, 387
331, 332 giri 127
–, brute 296, 298, 388 God-proofs 132–134
–, judicially processed 12 God’s concept 332
–, limited variety of 210 – existence presupposed 137
–, statements about 199–200 good / bad 171
facultases homogenised, human goring of an ox 224–225
327, 389 Greek law, classical 20–28, 30–31
falsification, see justification; truth; Grundnorm 59, 288
verify gutes, altes Recht 361
“fantasy laws” 181
feedback 236 hermeneutics 265–282, 332
‘feudalism’ 168–169 heteronomy breaks own will 114
Old391-413 11/12/19 9:30 Page 395
INDEX 395
hierarchy 232 see also text; tradition

history in abstract generality interpreter as law-giver 27
164–165 invention, only when humans are
see also linearity; philosophy forced to 226–227
homogenisation 359–360, 363 inventory of judgments 140
see also law irreversibility, see
institutionalisation; law
ideal 343, 360 is / ought 68
idealism, subjective 217 -isms 81, 149, 150
ideology 360 Isreali law 94
–, legal 329 ius / lex 44, 125, 341, 380
–, normative 360
– / theory 363 Jacobinism 171
illness 263–264 Japanese mentality 127–129
“immemorial custom of the “Jewish telegraph” 121–122
Realm” as fiction 26 judge as mouth of the law 28, 48
inductive, see deductive judicial sabotage 44
infantile world-view giving basic “jungle, law of the” 123
co-ordinates 219–220 juristische Analyse / logische
inside / outside in humans 114 Konzentration / juristische
see also “within the law” Konstruktion 370
instance / proposition 113 just decision 107
institutional practice 301 justification / falsification 228
institutionalisation due to
constitutive rules in fluctuation knowledge in dependence of
298 positions 71
– through speech-acts 296
–, social 298–301 lag saga 232
–, –, irreversibility of 298 language dialectics 212–213
intellectuality, arrogance of 389 – rules 109
interpretation, affirmative / –, conceptual 105, 111–112
restrictive / extensive 249 –, English 219
–, grammatical / logical / systematic –, Hungarian 219
/ historical 247 –, Latin 138
–, static / dynamic 250 see also anthropological;
–, teleological 247–248 music; norms; philosophy;
– as text manipulation 244–245 thought
– prohibited 44 language’s constitutivity 213
– within tradition 268–269 – metaphoric nature 219–220
Old391-413 11/12/19 9:30 Page 396
396 INDEX
law as actualisation of some latent – settling fundamental conflicts

potency 325 311–312
– becoming legal / ceasing to be –, homogeneity of 324
legal 319, 325 –, ideological concept of 322–323
– – bilding from acts 325–327 –, matter / form of 369
– – closed / open 152, 341, 343 –, modern formal 346
– – culture of meanings 272, 333 –, universal definition of 311–312
– – given 28 ‘law-application’ 13, 246–247,
– – global phenomenon 311 275, 344
– – historical continuum 346, 350, law-application as art of
351–352 classification 40
– – irreversible process 346, 352 law-making / law-application 59
– – just 22–23 Law and Literature 158
– – process 317–318, 328 law’s ideal systems 338
– – multifactoral phenomenon – ideological/actual model 346–347
318–325 – integrativity in action and
– – open system 346, 352 responsibility 333
– – processual outcome 32 – dynamism 324
– – rule 328 – self-description 323
– – social technique 370, 373–374 – self-qualification 322, 347
– – springboard 32 Lebensinteressen 371
– – text actualised through legal cultures, see legal technique
referential practice 318 – phenomenon in dependence of
– – theorems 58 social environment 279
– – universal 22–23 – philosophy / legal argumentation
– – what is practiced 281 292
– composed of rule / authority – quality competed for through
decision / actual behaviour varying paths 323
319–322, 326–327 – technique 368–373
– in anthropological sense 11–12 – – / legal cultures 376–380
– – – – with technicality missing 22 – –, function of 374–376
– – Enlightened absolutism 49–54 – –, postulates of 380–383
– – more / less legal quality 319, legal / illegal dichotomy 344
324 legality / illegality / alegality 250
– – this / that sense 324 – conformity 118
– objectified 336 see also morality; socialist
– offering pigeonholes 39, 46 legislation as generation of
– prevailing as supreme control interpretational situation
312 274–275
Old391-413 11/12/19 9:30 Page 397
INDEX 397
–, technical / political element in measure gaining independence

368 20, 60
legism 116 see also deontology
Lesbos measuring rule 22–23, 60 measurement as symbolic value
lesson / teaching 75, 77 24–25
lex, completed / self-sufficient as – in unmediated directness 23–24
ready-made 316 measuring instrument measured
lexicality 238–252, 255, 257, 276, 24
281 – –, adjusted 23–24
légalité nous tue!, la 341 – –, solid 23
li 115 –, unmediated 28
– / fa 124–127, 233 mediation, complexes of 345
liberalism 354, 364 –, legal 383
linearity in history 168, 173 see also naturalness
logic 165, 196 Mesopotamia 337
– of problem-solving / justification metaphor, see clockwork;
152 language’s
logic / lack of in law 46, 77, 127, military occupation 313–314
344, 372 Missionaries in the Boat 269–270,
logic, situational 89 271, 273
love, see commandments modes of production 168
morality / legality 114
Machtgefühl 101 more geometrico, see mos geometricus
magic culture 207 mos geometricus 135–136, 144,
– of norm-setting 25 164, 340
Mandarin justice 123–124 music language 108
mathesis universalis 337, 340
meaning as continuum 294 naming, see cognition;
– re-contextualised 293–294, 307 denomination
– re-conventionalised 294, 300 nature’s forms 201
–, derived/extracted from text 246 Münchausen’s deed 164
–, socially constructed 294 natural law 126, 338
–, theories of 237–294 – – validity 136–137
see also contextuality; corpus; naturalness / mediatedness in
deconstructionism; society 129
hermeneutics; law; lexicality; necessity 192
open texture; sign; situationalism – / the world’s incidentality 137
“measure and number and weight” negation, in dependence of
142 affirmation 286
Old391-413 11/12/19 9:30 Page 398
398 INDEX
neoliberal credo 170 – naturae / rationis 143

nomodos 26 organon 155
nomos 20, 30 ought, see is
non consequitur 331
non-redundancy 382–383 parables 73–77, 78–80, 83, 84–85,
norm, see fact 92
normal unlimited/unregulated is paradigm 182–183, 186–188
pathologic 263, 264 paragraph-automaton, judge as
– / pathological 258–260 341
normality / abnormality 258 pathological, see normal
norm-structure 336, 337 peace 119–125
norms, linguistic 229 penumbra, see core
notions 215–228 perception 387
– as reflection 215 – as function of presupposition
– corresponding to reality 216, 209
228 performation through speech-acts
– with/without boundaries 295–296
215–216, 220–224, 284 periodisation 169
– –/– objective perspective on “permanent revolution” 116
reality 216 personal stand taken 113, 160
notional boundaries in function of – testimony 132
the discourse 227 philosophy of history 167–172
– –, open / closed 227–228 – – language 9, 218–219, 220
“no writ, no right” 37 philosophy of science 9, 145, 190
null and void, ex tunc 314 planning through law 46–47
numbers, trust in 144 poetry as appropriation of the
world 105
obiter dicta, see ratio decidendi “political correctness” 186, 188
objectivism / subjectivism / search positions, see knowledge; relativism
for compromise 189, 194, 215 positivism, scientific 172
see also aesthetic –, statutory 315–316
ontic / epistemic 363–364 practice 204
ontological reconstruction 354 practice’s self-productivity 305
ontology, see existence praetor’s law 37–40
open texture 282–285 precedents, legal 78–79, 108
operation, see construction; predicate, see subject
thinking prejudices 188
order, see ordo presuppositions 14, 175, 179
ordo 109, 117, 231,235 see also perception; projection
Old391-413 11/12/19 9:30 Page 399
INDEX 399
principles 108 –, – as to its sources 38, 44

see also rule –, open / closed 35
problematisation 16 re-conventionalisation 300
processes, instead of “things” 194 recording the law as archetype 25
see also events; law; reasoning; reductio ad absurdum 221
“things” reductionism 354
progress 184 reflection theory 196
prohibitions, see commandments – – in arts 106
projection of cultural see also notions
presuppositions 274 Reformation 81–83
‘promise’ 300–301 reformism, see socialist
proposition, see instance regola 33–34
Protestantism 147–149 regularity 192
psycho-analytical legal theory relational, see concepts
198–199 relativism, physical 270
psychology 172, 226 – with positional situations in
constant motion 270–271
qualification 330 see also deconstructionism
„quod dixit dixit” 49 relevance 38–39, 211
see also axiomatism
‘rabulistic’ 40–41 ‘religion’ 239–240
ratio 389 repetition of the law 26
ratio decidendi / obiter dicta –, ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ in 230
234–235 see “functioning”
ratio reached in decision-making reproduction, human,
166 understanding of 205–206
rationalism 71, 91, 340 resemblance 204
rationality 165 Resolution,The Great 154–155
–, formal 335 res judicata, see force of final
– / irrationality / arationality 102, judgment
104 responsibility in human autonomy /
– / overrationality 131 dignity 113
realism, greater 105–106 revelation, see speech
–, naive 190, 215 revolution, see evolution
“ reality, objective” 197, 305 rhetoric 86
see also notions; social; right 125
“tendential...” Roman law 28–38, 43–45
reason 165,389 routine 15
reasoning, limited processually 37 see also designation; easy case
Old391-413 11/12/19 9:30 Page 400
400 INDEX
Rta 31 speech as revelation about the

rule / principle 55 world 107
rules, see language; sign speech-acts 295–298
– in community 297
sacrality of law 29 see also constitutivity;
sagesse 92 institutionalisation; performation
science as description of the world spontaneity, Communist aversion
67 against 171
– – – – – – competitively 68 stars above us / moral law inside us
– – self-description 69 153, 159
see also axiomatic; philosophy state army / bureacracy / finances
security in adaptative flexibility 336, 338
157 see also Bolshevik theory
seinhaftig 308 structuralism 201
selection, human 204 Stufenbautheorie 59
self-production through self- subject / predicate 138
referentially self-organised subjectivism, see objectivism
self-governance 304 ‘subordination’ 308
self-regulation 302–303 subsumption 330
– in society 303 – as phenomenal form 330
shalom 121, 123–124 subsidiarity 35–36
sign / meaning 101, 243 syllogistic reasoning 131
– / – as determined/unchanged symbolic value, see measurement
239 synoptic unity, promise of 154–155
– / – / designated 238 system, practicality of 367
– / rule of use ascribed 241 – of fulfilment 308, 330, 385
situationalism of meanings – – law / legal system
292–293 346,348–349
‘slavery’ 168 –, closed / open 63, 302, 304–305,
social (re)production of reality 329
389 –, normatively closed / open to
– totality through competition 305 information 307–308
socialisation 175, 298 –, perfect / unchangeable 63–64
Sozialisierung 326–327, 388 systemic existence 353–367
Socialism practiced in Hungary – idea of law 51–52, 60, 343
16–19
socialist legality 146, 249 tabula rasa 388
– reformism 171 Talmudic reasoning 155,
society as issue of autopoiesis 303 232–233, 380
Old391-413 11/12/19 9:30 Page 401
INDEX 401
‘Talmudistic’ 40–41 tradition 362

Tao 31 – codified 95–96
Tatbestand 275 – observed/unobserved in function
taxonomy 97, 128, 129, 211 of interpretation 286
tālethes 211–212 – within culture 268
teaching, see lesson – / innovation 326
technicality, see law see also interpretation; text
“tendential unity” of cognition / transfer of laws 180–182
reality 217 – – – is only technical 273
– – – conceptualisation / reality 220 transplantation 361
tertium non datur 103–104, 113, truth 9, 79–80, 140, 140
243 – as function of selection 212
text within tradition 278 – in function of characters’
– / interpretation 244–245 substitution 138–139
see also enacting; interpretation; – / falsity 267–268
law; meaning see also correspondence
theorem, see law as type-constraint in law 43
theory formation, French / English type, ideal / historical / empirical
ways of 192 355–356
see also anti-; “applications”; typical / atypical 258
ideology typicality in law 42
thesaurus systematised 93
theses / corpus / doctrine 74, 78, 84 uncertainty, see axiomatism
thesmos 20 undefinedness, well-defined 240
“things” as process abstraction 194 uniqueness of life situations 98
thinking 196 universalisation 357
– as conceptual operation 138, 139 Utopia 358–359
– – constructive representation 161 – of final axiomatism 141
– dependent/independent of the Utopia, conceptual 139–140
thinker 179 Utopianism in human thinking 130
–, legal 329
Third Road 358 validity derivation as desideratum
thought dominated by language 290–291, 329
109–110 – origination / recognition
thought-processes preconditioned 320–321, 329
386 – –, statical / dynamical 287–289
totality’s total interconnection – – / eventual enforcement 231
191, 211, 220 – in/from diverse directions 289,
see also social; world as 290–291
Old391-413 11/12/19 9:30 Page 402
402 INDEX
– in itself 132, 137 warfare in US 298

–, formally originated / circularly Willen zur Macht 197
borrowed / horizontally wisdom 131
confirmed 322 “within the law” / “outside the law”
–, personal / territorial 311 347, 350
see also natural law world as totality 103
validity / efficacity 236 world-view, lawyerly 291
value-choices 158 –, mechanical / autopoietical 151
verify / falsify 297 world-view / fore-knowledge 384
Volksgeist 369
voluntarism 29 your culture interpreted by mine
271, 274
Old391-413 11/12/19 9:30 Page 403
403
INDEX OF NORMATIVE MATERIALS
Laws of Aethelberht (around 731 Ten Commandments 72, 235

AC) 51 The Holy Bible 142
Torah 156
BABILON Talmud 91–95, 232, 380
Code of Hammurabi (cca. 170 BC) The Babylonian Talmud 155
235, 337
Prologue 361 PRUSSIA
Allgemeines Landrecht (1794) 53,
CATHOLICISM 54, 338
New Testament 73–85, 112–113
doctrine of papal infallibility ROME
(1870) 82 Law of the Twelve Tables (Leges
Duodecim Tabularum) (449 BC)
FRANCE 26
Code civil (1804) 55, 57, 60, 84, Codex Justinianus (529) 44, 52, 54
341–342 Institutiones (533) 46, 225
§ 4, 57 Digesta (533) 44, 48
Code pénal (1810) 251, 252 1.2.2.41 34
50.17.1 33
GERMANY
Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch (1900) SOVIET UNION
373, 378 Constitution (1936) 147, 277
Grundgesetz (1949) 146
Preamble [Präambel] to SWITZERLAND
146–147, 378 Zivilgesetzbuch (1906) 272
HUNGARY UNITED KINGDOM

Opus tripartitum juris consuetudinarii Magna Carta (1215) 26
inclyti regni hungariae (1514) Lavery v. Pursell 39 Ch. D. (1888)
339 508
Constitution (1949) 362
UNITED STATES OF
ISRAEL AMERICA
Old Testament 72, 112–113, 232 Constitution (1787) 357
Old391-413 11/12/19 9:30 Page 404
404
INDEX OF NAMES
Aarnio, Aulis 157 Bartók, Béla 93

Abegg, Lily 127 Bartsch, Renate 229
Ackermann, Robert John 63 Bathen, Norbert 131
Aersten, Johannes A. 131 Beckel, Albert 36
Aesop 176 Becker, Hans-Jürgen 44
Albert of Brescia 155 Bede the Venerable, Saint 51
Alexy, Robert 157 Benedek, István 99
Alici, Luigi 88–89 Bennett, J. A. 142
Allen, Sir Carleton Kemp 27 Berger, Peter L. 389
Allott, Antony 43, 274 Bernard, Claude 303
Anderson, Kevin 191 Bernstein, Richard J. 144
Angelesco, Alexandre 369 Bertalanffy, Ludwig von 386
Anscombe, G. E. M. 296 Berze Nagy, János 93
Ansell-Pearson, Keith 100 Beth, Evert W. 61
Antal, László 241, 255 Bibó, István 184
Anthony [from Brescia] 155 Blackstone,William 26
Anthony, Lord Quinton 191 Bläsin, K. H. 144
Antonioni, Michelangelo 208–209 Bluntschli, Johann Kaspar 53
Aristotle 22, 23, 24, 29, 34, 131 Boas [Hall], Marie 142
Arnold, Robert M. 262 Boda, László 84
Athenaios/Athenaeus 26 Bodde, Derk 115
Augustine of Hippo [Aurelius Bodó, Béla 12
Augustinus Hipponensis], St. Bohannan, Paul 121
87–90, 131, 132, 146, 155 Bolyai, Farkas 64, 66
Austin, John L. 295–298, 389 Bolyai, János 61, 65–66
Avenarius, Richard 190, 193 Bonaventure, St. [Giovanni di
Ayer, Alfred Jules 192 Fidanza] 131
Bonola, Roberto 61
Bacon, Francis 33 Borsche,Tilman 88
Bagnal, Gary P. 328 Bowler, Peter J. 173
Balekjian,W. H. 214 Boyle, Robert 143
Balogh, József 88 Brady, James P. 117
Balmus, Konstantin I. 88 Brietzke, Paul 181
Balzac, Honoré de 106 Brinkman, Karl 271
Old391-413 11/12/19 9:30 Page 405
INDEX OF NAMES 405
Bronchorst, Everardus 34 Clanchy, M.T. 26

Brown, Robert 151 Clark, Maudemarie 102
Bruce, Alexander Balmain 74 Classen, Carl Joachim 86
Buddha, Siddhârtha Gautama Cohen, Robert S. 190
146 Cohn, Bernard S. 269
Bullock, Alan 183 Colp, Ralph, Jr. 173
Buridan, Jean 159 Comenius, Johannes Amos 40
Bury, John Baguell 172 Comparato, Fabio Konder 353
Bünger, Karl 125, 127 Comte, Auguste 172
Confucius, 116–119, 124, 146, 233
Calvin, Johannes 81, 146, Connelly,William E. 88
147–148 Cooper, Davina 122
Cambacérès, Jean-Jacques-Régis de Copernicus, Nicolaus 67, 182,
84 183, 187
Cameron, Euan 148 Cornford, F. M. 31
Campbell, Gonald T. 210 Cotta, Sergio 218
Canguilhem, Georges 262–264 Cottle, Basil 218
Capella, Martianus 26 Crossan, John Dominic 77
Caplan, Arthur L. 173 Cruz, Sebastião 31
Carnap, Rudolf 192 Cuq, Edouard 372
Caro, Heinrich Christian 119 Curley, Edwin M. 154
Carrino, Agostino 304
Carstanjen, Friedrich 190 Csányi,Vilmos 192
Carter, Stephen C. 97 Császár, Ákos 65
Cartright, Nancy 192 Cserháti, Márta 85
Casey, J. 24 Csoboth,T. Csilla 206
Cassirer, Ernst 107, 137, 220, 340
Caudwell, Cristopher 104, 106 Dabin, Jean 368, 369, 370–371, 373
Causeret, Charles 86 Daempf, Sándor 53
Cesana, Andreas 172 Dale, Peter N. 127
Chantepie de la Paussaye, P. C. 31 Daniels, Robert Vincent 163
Charondas 26 Danto, Arthur 193
Cheney, C. R. 26 Darwin, Charles 172–173
Chitty [Lord Justice] [Sir Joseph Dascal, Marcelo 138
William] 283 Daube, David 92
Christ, Jesus 73–78, 80, 85, 98, David, René 27, 130
112, 113, 131, 133, 135, 146, Dean, John 97
155, 159, 176, 267, 311 Dekkers, René 130
Cicero, Marcus Tullius 26, 86 Delorme, Jean 75
Old391-413 11/12/19 9:30 Page 406
406 INDEX OF NAMES
Delveille, Jules 172 Fabinyi,Tibor 78

Demogue, R. 372 Fainsod, Merle 17
Demosthenes 21, 30 Falk, Ze’ev W. 121
Derrida, Jacques 195 Favoreu, Louis 57
Descartes, René 144, 165, 167, Fenet, P. A. 84
262 Fikentscher,Wolfgang 332
Dijksterhuis, Eduard Jan 142 Fink, Adolf 119
Dimitrov, Georgi 106 Finkelstein, J. J. 225
Dodd, C. H. 85 Finnis, John 126
Dodds, Eric Robertson 173 Fish, Stanley 158, 292–293
Dorff, Elliott N. 121 Foster, Kenelm [O.P.] 132
Dorsey, Gray L. 115 Foucart-Borville, Jacques 251
Dostoevsky, Fyodor 97–99 Foucault, Michel 194–195,
Douglas,William O. 157 258–261
Dowler,Wayne 98 Francis of Assisi, St. [Giovanni
Drakon 21 Francesco di Bernardone] 129
Dronilly, Jean 97 Francois, Charles 139
Dubouchet, Paul 57, 58 Frank, Jerome 107, 198–200
Duguit, Léon 369 Frank, Manfred 266
Duham, Pierre 192 Frederick the Great [Frederick II
Duns Scotus, Blessed John 131 of Prussia] 44, 45, 47, 53, 54,
Durkheim, Émile 97, 206 171
Dühring, Eugen 190, 193 Freud, Sigmund 149, 198, 259
Dworkin, Ronald 158, 252, 253, Fuchs, Ina 98
291–292, 349, 350 Fukuyama, Francis 130, 292
Funk, Robert Walter 75
Ebeling, Gerhard 332
Eckhoff,Torstein 289 Gaius 46
Ehrlich, Eugen 371, 372 Gambaro, Antonio 58
Einstein, Albert 61, 70–71, 270 Garibaldi,Giuseppe 311
Engels, Friedrich 163, 169, 172, Garner, Richard 21, 31
190, 191, 193 Gáll, István 12
Ensberg, Peter 120 Geiger,Willi 146
Epicurus 159 Gernet, Louis 20, 21 25
Erdô, Péter 318 Gessner,Volkmar 328
Erne, Ruth 287 Gény, François 14–15, 368, 370,
Ess, Charles 134 378–379
Euclid 61, 62, 65, 66, 69, 135, Gianformaggio, Letizia 288
340 Giere, Ronald D. 173
Old391-413 11/12/19 9:30 Page 407
INDEX OF NAMES 407
Ginzberg, Louis 92 Hendrickx, Herman 75

Glenn, H. Patrick 10 Hendry, Joy 127
Goetze, Albrecht 225 Henry, John 143
Goldberg, Adele E. 218 Herman, József 241
Golden, James L. 167 Hero of Alexandra 143
Goldwater, Chaim I. 94 Herod 155
Gotoff, Harold C. 86 Hershenov, David 262
Graham, A. C. 116 Herskovits, Melville J. 210
Grande, Elisabetta 181 Hesselink, I. John 149
Grant,Verne 172 Hillel 155, 156, 380
Gray, Jeremy 61 Hittinger, John 72
Gray, John Chipman 27 Hoadly, Benjamin 27
Green, Jennifer 207 Hobbes,Thomas 185, 340
Green, John C. 173 Holdcroft, David 229
Grice, Hubert Paul 42 Holton, Gerald 190
Grimm, Ruediger Hermann 101 Holtzendorff, Franz von 372–373
Grotius, Hugo 46, 136–137, 138, Homer 22, 31
340 Honoré,Tony 380
Gui, Bernard 154 Honstetter, Robert 88
Gustafson, Richard F. 98 Horak, Franz 46
Horowitz, George 121, 155–156
Hadamard, Jacques 327 Höland, Armin 181, 328
Hadden, Richard W. 142 Hsia, R. Po-Chia 149
Haeckel, Ernst 173 Hug,Walther 369, 373
Haley, John O. 127 Hull, David L. 173
Hamlyn, D.W. 41 Hulsewé, A. F. P. 116
Hammurabi 235, 361 Hume, David 192
Hampton, Jean 328 Huntington, Samuel P. 185
Hamvas, Béla 99, 103–104 Huss, Roy 208
Harris, James William 374 Husson, Léon 58
Harris, Roy 229, 238
Hart, Herbert Lionel Adolphus Idema,W. L. 116
229, 252, 284 Iggers, Georg G. 163
Hartin, P. J. 73 Israel, Joachim 212, 388, 389
Hauriou, Maurice 368
Hägerström, Axel 25 Jackson, Bernard S. 121, 122, 225
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Jackson, Frank 42
102, 104, 163, 169, 183, 217 James, D. G. 182
Hempel, Carl G. 221 Janik, Allan 190
Old391-413 11/12/19 9:30 Page 408
408 INDEX OF NAMES
Jay, Margaret A. 173 Knights, L. C. 218

Jeanrond,Werner 266 Kodály, Zoltán 93
Jennings, Bruce 173 Koestler, Arthur 67, 192
Jepsen, Laura 98 Koffka, Kurt 41
Jeremias, Joachim 75 Kohler, Josef 371–372
Jhering, Rudolf von 368, 369, 370 Kolakowski, Leszek 191
Johnson, Mark 101, 218 Kopp, Mária 206
Johnson, Paul 82 Kosztolányi, István 73
Johnson,Walter Ralph 86 Krawietz,Werner 288, 322
Jolowicz, H. F. 33 Krings, Hermann 143
Jones, John Walter 20, 379 Kripke, Saul A. 16
Jones, Malcolm 98 Krystufek, Zdenek 342
Jonsen, Albert R. 156 Kud’ravtsev,Yuri G. [?hbq
Justinian [I] 43, 44, 45, 46, 51, 52, Uhbujhtdbx Relhzdwtd] 97
54, 224, 225, 341 Kuhn,Thomas Samuel 182–183,
186, 187
Kabat, Geoffrey C. 98 Kulcsár, Kálmán 171, 348, 371
Kalmár, Zoltán 163 Kurzon, Dennis 296
Kamenka, Eugene 117 Kuznetsov, Boris 162
Kant, Immanuel 68, 72,114, 153, Kuypers, Karl 88
189, 229
Kaser, Max 32 Labeo, Marcus Antistius 33
Kassai, Ilona 229 Lachterman, David R. 61
Katz, David 42 Lagerspetz, Eerik 177
Kádár, János 17 Lai,W.W. 115
Kedar, Benjamin 73 Lakoff, George 195, 218, 219,
Kelsen, Hans 27, 59, 231, 236, 388
287–288, 291, 321, 373–374 Lalande, André 38, 173
Kendal, George H. 41, 211 Lamarck, Jean-Baptiste 172–173
Kerner, George C. 152 Lambert, Edouard 375–376
Kettle, Arnold 267 Lampe, Ernst-Joachim 126
Khrushchev, Nikita Sergeyevich 339 Landesman, Charles 42
Kim, Hyung I. 115 Landy, David 207
Kipling, Rudyard 123 Langer, Suzanne 107–108, 111
Kirk, Irina 98 Laurand, Louis 86
Kissinger,Warren S. 75 Laurent 57
Klaus, H. Gustav 104 Lee, L.T. 115
Kleist, Heinrich von 119 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm
Kleisthenes 21 138–141, 165, 166, 210, 340
Old391-413 11/12/19 9:30 Page 409
INDEX OF NAMES 409
Lenin,Vladimir Ilyich 18, 105, Mann,Thomas 47

178–179, 190, 191, 193 Mao,Tse-Tung 116–117
Levison, Nahum 74 Markus, Robert Austin 88
Lewis, David K. 16 Martin, Norah Alison 107
Liard, Louis 58 Marx, Karl 104, 149, 152, 163,
Liddell, Henry George 31 164, 168–169, 171, 172, 173,
Linné, Carl von 128 174, 183, 189, 194, 217,
Lück, Gisela 101 239–240, 241, 247, 250, 336,
Lindal, Sigur∂ur 26, 232 339
Linksz, Arthur 122 Mates, Benson 138
Liscu, Marin O. 86 Maturana, Humberto R.
Livius,Titus 43 301–303, 386
Livy, see Livius Mauss, Marcel 97
Lloyd, G. E. R. 259 May, Reinhard 130
Lobachevsky 61, 65 Mayr, Otto 143
Luckman,Thomas 389 Márai, Sándor 153
Luhmann, Niklas 157, 304–308, Márton, László 122
329, 377, 386–387 McClain, Richard 82
Lukács, George 47, 58, 91, Medick, Hans 269
102–103, 105–106, 129, 137, Menski,Werner F. 117
145, 217, 240, 277–278, 298, Micesco, Istrate 372
308, 330, 335, 344, 345, 376, Middleton, Russel 206
379, 385 Migne, A. 45
Lukács, John 148 Miklós, Pál 110
Luther, Martin 45, 81, 146, Miller, J. Hillis 120
147–148, 385 Mills, C.W. 206
Lyons, David 253 Milton, Lewis 207
Mittica, Maria Paola 31
Macaulay,Thomas Babington 47 Melkevik, Bjarne 115
MacDowell, Douglas M. 21 Mendeleev, Dmitri Ivanovich 128
Mach, Ernst 190, 193, 219 Mohammed [Muhammad ibn
Mackenzie, Sir George 46 ‘Abdullāh] 146
MacLeod, Roy 207 Montesquieu, Charles de 48, 357,
Mackie, J. L. 123 358–359
Magnaud, Paul 250–252 Moore, George Edward 191
Maier, Anneliese 142 Morgan, Lewis Henry 172
Maimonides 95 Morgenbesser, Sidney 193
Mandeville, Bernard 185 Morioka, Masahiro 262
Mani 103 Morris, Bede 202
Old391-413 11/12/19 9:30 Page 410
410 INDEX OF NAMES
Morris, Clarence 115 Oswald Hanfling 229

Moses 32 Ostwald, Martin 21, 31
Moses ben-Maimon, see Otte, Gerhard 136
Maimonides
Moss, Bernard 163 Paksy, Máté 57
Murphy, Jeffrie G. 328 Paladini,V. 86
Murray, Alexander 45 Paoli, Ugo Enrico 30
Murray, R. H. 148 Pascal, Blaise 62, 141
Passmore, John 190
Nagel,Thomas 327 Paton, George Whitecross 373
Nasr, Seyyed Hossein 131, 384 Paulus 33
Neurath, Otto 190 Peczenik, Alexander 157
Newell, Allen 195 Peerenboom, R. P. 115
Newsome, Melba 188 Perelman, Chaïm 57, 166–167,
Newton,Warren 210 179–180, 304, 380
Nietzsche, Friedrich 88, 99–102, Perrin, N. 75
194, 197, 216 Peter, St. 81
Niiniluoto, Ilkka 140 Peter, Hans 37
Nino, Carlos 125 Petôfi, Sándor 201
Nisbet, Robert A. 186 Petrarca 64
Noda,Yosiyuki 127 Petzer, H. 73
Nonet, Philippe 117 Piccirilli, L. 26
Nowak, Leszek 381 Pilate, Pontius 79
Pilotta, Joseph F. 167
O’Barr,William M. 210 Pinckaers, Servais Th., OP 89,
Occam,William of [Guillemus 155
Ockham] 68, 228 Plato 31
O’Connell, Robert J. 88 Plekhanov, Georgi Valentinovich 191
Oestreich, Gerhard 149 Poellner, Peter 102
O’Flaherty, James C. 101 Polin, Raymond 163
Ogden, C. K. 238 Pombo, Olga 138
Oldenberg, Hermann 31 Pomponius, Sextus 34
Oppenheim, Paul 221 Porter,Theodore M. 144
Oppenheimer, Franz 175 Pospíšil, Leopold 11, 121
Oresme, Nicole 142 Pound, Roscoe 347
Orestano, Riccardo 32 Prékopa, András 67
Ortega y Gasset, José 141 Proclus, Diadochus [de Lycie] 62
Ortony, Andrew 218 Proculus 380
Osterley,William Oscar Emil 75 Putney, Snell 206
Old391-413 11/12/19 9:30 Page 411
INDEX OF NAMES 411
Quintus Mucius 33 Schiller, Ferdinand Canning Scott

38
Rahat, Ehud 218 Schimmel, Harry C. 121
Rahn, Guntram 127 Schleiermacher, Friedrich
Raisanen, Heikki 75 265–266, 267
Raz, Joseph 229 Schlick, Moritz 192
Recorde, Robert 62 Scholem, Gerhsom 93
Renan, Ernest 82, 83 Scholler, Heinrich 181
Rémy, P. 58 Schuling, Hermann 61
Réthelyi, János 206 Schulz, Gudrun 131
Révay, József 100 Schumpeter, Joseph A. 340
Richard, I. A. 238 Schwarz, Adolf 160
Ricoeur, Paul 75, 266 Scott, Robert 31
Rifkin, Ned 209 Scott,Walter 106
Roberts, Simon 124 Scotus, Duns 131
Rosett, Arthur 121 Searle, John R. 296, 298, 389
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques 87, 175, Segal, Eliezer 113
185 Segall, Marshall H. 210
Russell, Bertrand 191 Seidenberg, A. 24
Russo, François 371 Seidman, Robert B. 208
Rückert 73 Selznick, Philip 117, 231, 347
Ryle, Gilbert 230 Sendler, Horst 120
Sesonke, Alexander 296
Sabinus 33, 380 Shakespeare,William 201, 202,
Saccaro-Battisti, Giuseppa 218 267
Sack, Peter 120, 130–131 Shammai 155, 156, 380
Saleilles, Raymond 58, 379 Shapin, Steven 142
Saltman, Michael 208 Shestov, Lev 97
Samuel, Geoffrey 328 Silberg, Moshe 121
Sandmann, Jürgen 173 Simon, see Peter, St.
Sarlóska, Ernô 64 Simon, Josef 101
Sartre, Jean-Paul 152–153, 159 Siniavski, André 17
Saussure, Ferdinand de 229, 238, Smith, Norman 190
241 Solomon 142
Savigny, Eike von 136 Solon 21
Savigny, Karl Friedrich von 368, Sorel, Georges 173
369 Spinoza, Baruch 135, 154, 164,
Schapiro, Renie 262 340
Scheurich, J. J. 207 Stair, Lord 46
Old391-413 11/12/19 9:30 Page 412
412 INDEX OF NAMES
Stalin, Jossif Vissarionovich 47, Timocrates 21

146, 147, 168, 277–278, 366 Timur, H. 181
Stammler, Rudolf 372, 373 Tito, Josip Broz 313
Starr, June 181 Todd, S. C. 21, 30
Stein, Peter 34 Tolstoy, Lev 97–98
Steiner, George 43, 97 Toró,Tibor 66
Stendhal [Marie-Henri Beyle] 201 Toulmin, Stephen 156, 190
Stephanitz, Dieter von 136 Tóth, Imre 66
Stiller, Morgens 74 Tóth, Kálmán 75
Stirling, Paul 181 Turetzky, Marc David 182
Stone, Susanne Last 122
Strauss, Ernst 71 Ullmann-Largalit, Edna 232
Swartz, Norman 192 Umehara,Takeshi 262
Szabó, Árpád 62, 63 Vaihinger, Hans 218, 387

Szabó, Imre 247–249 Varela, Francisco J. 386
Szabó, Magda 90–91 Vanderlinden, Jacques 181
Szamuely,Tibor 17 van der Merwe, D. 34
Szántó, Hugó 190 Van Selms, A. 225
Szász,Thomas 258–262 Varela, Francisco J. 301–303
Szimonidesz, Lajos 83–84 Vatz, Richard E. 259
Szirmai, Imre 162 Várkonyi, Nándor 99
Szladits, Charles, Jr. 26 Via, Dan Otto 74
Szûcs, Jenô 185 Villey, Michel 29, 30, 32, 46
Villó, Ildikó 229
Takeyoshi, Kawashima 127 Vinogradoff, Paul 22, 30
Tanquerey, Adolph 156 Vlastos, G. 259
Tay, Alice Erh-Soon 117 Vogel, Ezra F. 127
Taylor, Frederick Winslow 335 Voltaire, François Marie Arouet de
Taylor,Talbot J. 238 50, 134, 289
Tedeschi, Guido 94
Teuwsen, Rudolf 131 Waismann, Friedrich 283–284
Thaeter, Jörg 98 Walicki, Andrzej 163
Thales 104 Walter, Robert 288
Thomas, Aquinas, St. 29, 87, Ward, Bruce K. 97
131–136, 141, 154–155, 160, Watson, Alan 46, 183, 224–227
161, 164 Weber, Max 335, 344, 349, 376
Thomas, Rosalind 26 Weder, Hans 83
Old391-413 11/12/19 9:30 Page 413
INDEX OF NAMES 413
Weinberg, Lee S. 259 Wittgenstein, Ludwig 16, 89, 192,

Weisberg, Robert 158 237, 284, 295
Wellman, Carl 125 Wood, Neal 86
Werbôczy, István 339 Woodings, R. B. 183
Wertheimer, Max 41 Wölfflin, Heinrich 220–221
West, Cornel 207 Wróblewski, Jerzy 250, 251
West, Robin 158
West, Roger 172 Zais, Dietrich 146
Westerman, Claus 75 Zhyong,Wang 116
Westfall, Richard S. 173 Zola, Émile 106
Westrup, C.W. 31 Zürcher, E. 116
Wett, Barbara 98
Weyl, Monique Picard 251 Yablon, Charles M. 16, 293
Weyl, Roland 251 Yaron, Reuven 225
White, James Boyd 111, 158 Yonemoto, S. 262
White, Lynn, Jr. 143 Yonry, Brad 75
Whitehead, Alfred 191 Young, M. D. 207
Wienbruch, U. 88 Youngner, Stuart J. 262
Williams, Georg Hunston 148 Yovel,Yirmishu 163
Williams, Glainville 283 Yunichiro,Tanizaki 127
Old414-418 11/12/19 10:02 Page 414
Old414-418 11/12/19 10:02 Page 415
415
PHILOSOPHIAE IURIS
redigit
CSABA VARGA
Csaba VARGA Law and Philosophy Selected Papers in Legal Theory (Bu-
dapest: ELTE “Comparative Legal Cultures” Project 1994) xv + 530 &
<http://drcsabavarga.wordpress.com/2010/10/25/varga-law-and-philoso
phy-%E2%80%93-papers-in-legal-theory-1994/>
Csaba VARGA Études en philosophie du droit / Estudios de filosofia del derecho
(Budapest: ELTE “Comparative Legal Cultures” Project 1994) xii +
332 & <http://drcsabavarga.wordpress.com/2010/10/24/varga-etudes-
en-philosophie-du-droit-estudios-en-filosofia-del-derecho-1994/>
Csaba VARGA Rechtsphilosophische Aufsätze (Budapest: ELTE “Comparative
Legal Cultures” Project 1994) x + 292 & <http://drcsabavarga.word
press.com/2010/10/24/varga-rechtsphilosophische-aufsaetze-1994/>
Csaba VARGA Ghfdj Ntjhbz b abkjcjabz [Law: theory and philosophy]
(Budapest: ELTE “Comparative Legal Cultures” Project 1994) xv +281
& <http://drcsabavarga.wordpress.com/2010/10/24/varga-pravo-teoriya-
i-filosofiya-1994/>
Csaba VARGA Transition to Rule of Law On the Democratic Transfor-
mation in Hungary (Budapest: ELTE “Comparative Legal Cultures”
Project 1995) 190 & <http://drcsabavarga.wordpress.com/2010/10/24/
transition-to-ruleof-law-on-the-democratic-transformation-in-hungary-
1995>
Csaba VARGA Lectures on the Paradigms of Legal Thinking (Budapest:
Akadémiai Kiadó 1999) vii + 279; The Paradigms of Legal Thinking 2nd
enlarged ed. (Budapest: Szent István Társulat 2011) {forthcoming}
Ferenc HÖRCHER Prudentia iuris Towards a Pragmatic Theory of Natural
Law (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó 2000) 176
Historical Jurisprudence / Történeti jogtudomány ed. József SZABADFALVI (Bu-
dapest: [Osiris] 2000) 303
Scandinavian Legal Realism / Skandináv jogi realizmus ed. Antal VISEGRÁDY
(Budapest: [Szent István Társulat] 2003) xxxviii + 159
Ius unum, lex multiplex Liber amicorum: Studia Z. Péteri dedicata (Studies
in Comparative Law, Theory of State and Legal Philosophy) ed. István
H. SZILÁGYI – Máté PAKSY (Budapest: Szent István Társulat 2005) 585
Old414-418 11/12/19 10:02 Page 416
416
Theatrvm legale mvndi Symbola Cs. Varga oblata, ed. Péter CSERNE et al.
(Budapest: Societas Sancta Stephani 2007) xv + 674 [also in: Biblio-
theca Ivridica: Libri amicorvm 24]
Csaba VARGA Comparative Legal Cultures On Traditions Classified, their
Rapprochement & Transfer, and the Anarchy of Hyper-rationalism
(Budapest: Szent István Társulat 2011) {forthcoming}
Csaba VARGA Theory of Law Norm, Logic, System, Doctrine & Technique
in Legal Processes, or Codifying versus Jurisprudentialising Law, with
Appendix on European Law (Budapest: Szent István Társulat 2011)
{forthcoming}
Contemporary Legal Philosophising Schmitt, Kelsen, Hart, & Law and
Literature, with Marxism’s Dark Legacy in Central Europe (Budapest:
Szent István Társulat 2011) {forthcoming}
[EXCERPTA HISTORICA
PHILOSOPHIAE HUNGARICAE IURIS]
Aus dem Nachlass von Julius MOÓR Gyula hagyatékából hrsg. Csaba Varga
(Budapest: ELTE “Comparative Legal Cultures” Project 1995) xvi +
158 & <http://philosophyoflaw.wordpress.com/>
Felix SOMLÓ Schriften zur Rechtsphilosophie hrsg. Csaba Varga (Budapest:
Akadémiai Kiadó 1999) xx + 114
István LOSONCZY Abriß eines realistischen rechtsphilosophischen Systems
hrsg. Csaba Varga (Budapest: Szent István Társulat 2002) 144
Die Schule von Szeged Rechtsphilosophische Aufsätze von István BIBÓ,
József SZABÓ und Tibor VAS, hrsg. Csaba Varga (Budapest: Szent Ist-
ván Társulat 2006) 246
Barna HORVÁTH The Bases of Law / A jog alapjai [1948] ed. Csaba Varga
(Budapest: Szent István Társulat 2006) liii + 94
Julius MOÓR Schriften zur Rechtsphilosophie hrsg. Csaba Varga (Budapest:
Szent István Társulat 2006) xxii + 485 [also in: Bibliotheca Iuridica:
Opera Classica 3] & <http://philosophyoflaw.wordpress.com/>
Barna HORVÁTH Schriften zur Rechtsphilosophie I 1926–1948: Prozes-
suelle Rechtslehre; II 1926–1948: Gerechtigkeitslehre; III 1949–1971:
Papers in Emigration, hrsg. Csaba Varga (Budapest: Szent István Társu-
lat 2012) {forthcoming}
Old414-418 11/12/19 10:02 Page 417
417
Also
by
CSABA VARGA
Authored
The Place of Law in Lukács’ World Concept (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó
1985, reprint 1998) 193 & <http://drcsabavarga.wordpress.com/2010/
10/25/varga-the-place-of-law-in-lukacs%E2%80%99-world-concept-
1985/>; 2nd reprint with a postscript (Budapest: Szent István Társulat
2011) {forthcoming}
Codification as a Socio-historical Phenomenon (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó
1991) viii + 391 & <http://drcsabavarga.wordpress.com/2010/10/25/var
ga-codification-as-a-socio-historical-phenomenon-1991/>; reprint with
an annex & postscript (Budapest: Szent István Társulat 2011) {forth-
coming}
A Theory of the Judicial Process The Establishment of Facts (Budapest: Aka-
démiai Kiadó 1995) vii + 249 & <http://drcsabavarga.wordpress.com/
2010/10/24/theory-of-the-judicial-process-the-establishment-of-facts-
1995/>; reprint with a postscript (Budapest: Szent István Társulat 2011)
{forthcoming}
Transition? To Rule of Law? Constitutionalism and Transitional Justice
Challenged in Central & Eastern Europe (Pomáz: Kráter 2008) 292
[PoLíSz Series 7] & <http://drcsabavarga.wordpress.com/2010/10/25/
varga-transition-to-rule-of-law-%E2%80%93-constitutionalism-and-tra
nsitional-justice-challenged-in-central-and-eastern-europe-2008/>
Edited
Tradition and Progress in Modern Legal Cultures / Tradition und Forschritt in
der modernen Rechtskulturen Proceedings of the 11th World Congress in
Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy in Helsinki, 1983 [hrsg. mit
Stig Jörgensen & Yuha Pöyhönen] (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag Wies-
baden 1985) 258 [Archiv für Rechts- und Sozialphilosophie, Beiheft 23]
Rechtsgeltung Ergebnisse des Ungarisch–österreichischen Symposiums der
Internationalen Vereinigung für Rechts- und Sozialphilosophie 1985
Old414-418 11/12/19 10:02 Page 418
418
[hrsg. mit Ota Weinberger] (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag Wiesbaden

1986) 136 [Archiv für Rechts- und Sozialphilosophie, Beiheft 27]
Rechtskultur – Denkkultur Ergebnisse des Ungarisch–österreichischen
Symposiums der Internationalen Vereinigung für Rechts- und Sozial-
philosophie 1987 [hrsg. mit Erhard Mock] (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner
Verlag Wiesbaden 1989) 175 [Archiv für Rechts- und Sozialphilosophie,
Beiheft 35]
Biotechnologie, Ethik und Recht im wissenschaftlichen Zeitalter Proceedings
of the World Congress in Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy in
Kobe, 1987 [hrsg. mit Tom D. Campbell, Robert C. L. Moffat &
Setsuko Sato] (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag Wiesbaden 1991) 180
[Archiv für Rechts- und Sozialphilosophie, Beiheft 39]
Theoretische Grundlagen der Rechtspolitik Ungarisch–österreichisches
Symposium der Internationalen Vereinigung für Rechts- und Sozial-
philosophie 1990 [hrsg. mit Peter Koller & Ota Weinberger] (Stuttgart:
Franz Steiner Verlag Wiesbaden 1992) 185 [Archiv für Rechts- und So-
zialphilosophie, Beiheft 54]
Comparative Legal Cultures (Aldershot, Hong Kong, Singapore, Sydney:
Dartmouth & New York: New York University Press 1992) xxiv + 614
[The International Library of Essays in Law & Legal Theory: Legal
Cultures 1]
Marxian Legal Theory (Aldershot, Hong Kong, Singapore & Sydney:
Dartmouth & New York: New York University Press 1993) xxvii + 530
[The International Library of Essays in Law & Legal Theory: Schools 9]
Coming to Terms with the Past under the Rule of Law The German and the
Czech Models (Budapest 1994) xxvii + 176 [Windsor Klub]
European Legal Cultures [ed. with Volkmar Gessner & Armin Höland]
(Aldershot, Brookfield USA, Singapore, Sydney: Dartmouth 1995) xviii
+ 567 [TEMPUS Textbooks Series on European Law and European
Legal Cultures I]
On Different Legal Cultures, Pre-Modern and Modern States, and the Transition
to the Rule of Law in Western and Eastern Europe [ed. with Werner
Krawietz] (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot [2003]) xi + 139–531 [Rechts-
theorie 33 (2002) 2–4: II. Sonderheft Ungarn]
Auf dem Weg zur Idee der Gerechtigkeit Gedenkschrift für Ilmar Tammelo
[hrsg. mit Raimund Jakob, Lothar Philipps & Erich Schweighofer]
(Münster, etc.: Lit Verlag 2009) 321 [Austria Forschung und Wissen-
schaft: Rechtswissenschaft 3]
Paradigms jo borito 11/12/19 9:01 Page 1
The author introduces the reader to reasoning in law through the possibilities, boundaries
and traps of assuming personal responsibility and impersonal pattern adoption that have
arisen in the history of human thought and in the various legal cultures. He discloses actual
processes hidden by the veil of patterns followed in thinking, processes that we encounter
both in our conceptual-logical quests for certainties and in the undertaking of fertilising
The Paradigms of Legal Thinking

ambiguity. When trying to identify definitions lurking behind the human construct of facts,
notions, norms, logic, and thinking, or behind the practice of giving meanings, he discovers
tradition in our presuppositions, and our world-view and moral stance in our tacit
agreements. Recognising the importance of the role communication plays in shaping
society, he describes our existence and institutions as self-regulating processes. Since law
is a wholly social venture, we not only take part in its oeuvre with our entire personality, but
are also collectively responsible for its destiny.
In the final analysis, anything can be qualified as ‘legal’ or ‘non-legal’ in one or another
recognised sense in which law can originate, but, as a relative totality, it can only be
qualified as ‘more legal’ or ‘less legal’ in any combination of the above senses. Being
formed in an uninterrupted process, neither the totality nor particular pieces of law can be
taken as complete or unchangeably identical with itself. Therefore law can only be
identified through its motions and computable states of ‘transforming into’ or ‘withdrawing
from’ the distinctive domain of the law. Thereby both society at large and its legal
professionals actually contribute to—by shaping incessantly—what presents itself as
ready-to-take, according to the law’s official ideology. For our initiation, play, role-
undertaking and human responsibility lurk behind the law’s formal mask in the backstage.
Or, this equals to realise that all we have become subjects from mere objects, actors from
mere addressees. And despite the variety of civilisational overcoats, the entire culture of
law is still exclusively inherent in us who experience it day to day. We bear it and shape it.
Everything conventional in it is conventionalised by us. It has no further existence or effect
beyond this. And with its existence inherent in us, we cannot convey the responsibility to be
born for it on somebody else either. It is ours in its totality so much that it cannot be torn out
of our days or acts. It will thus turn into what we guard it to become. Therefore we must take
care of it at all times since we are, in many ways, taking care of our own.
CSABA VARGA
CSABA VARGA — <http://drcsabavarga.wordpress.com> — is Professor of the Pázmány Péter Catholic
University, Founding Director of its Institute for Legal Philosophy (H–1428 Budapest 8, POB 6 /
varga@jak.ppke.hu) and Scientific Adviser at the Institute for Legal Studies of the Hungarian Academy
of Sciences (H–1250 Budapest, POB 25 / varga@jog.mta.hu)
CSABA VARGA
The Paradigms
of Legal Thinking

14657

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

14657

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

14657

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Paradigms jo borito 11/12/19 9:01 Page 1

The Paradigms of Legal Thinking

H–1088 Budapest, Szentkirályi u. 28 (visit)

SZENT ISTVÁN TÁRSULAT

The book is the translated version of the original Hungarian

© Cs. Varga 2012

ISBN 978 963 277 299 8

Szent István Társulat

2. Methodological directions in thinking 20

3. Science-theoretical questions raised by the philosophy of history 163

4. Paradigms of thinking 175

5. Dilemmas of meaning 237

6. Paradigms of legal thinking 310

7. Concluding thoughts 333

Appendix I. Law and its approach as a system 335

Appendix II. Is law a system of enactments? 346

Appendix III. Institutions as systems 353

Appendix IV. Legal technique 368

Appendix V. The inherent ambivalence of a rational approach 384

Subject index 391

Index of normative materials 403

Index of names 404

eties of human pressure, restriction and coercion in order to

control, when light fell upon the mass occurrence of premeditated

Operations by We ought also to learn about the philosophical and legal

process of administering justice implies complex operations

Finally, we are bound to put the question of what this

everyday life when absent-mindedly walking on the street or

violence with the subjected human beings—treating them as

possibility of an institutional consolidation11, those rank-

relieving, independent of whether or not we agree with the

2. METHODOLOGICAL DIRECTIONS IN THINKING

2.1. THE EXAMPLE OF LEGAL DEVELOPMENT

2.1.1. Classical Greek antiquity

2.1. THE EXAMPLE OF LEGAL DEVELOPMENT 21

22 2. METHODOLOGICAL DIRECTIONS IN THINKING

and sensibility in law in European civilisation, the same way

2.1. THE EXAMPLE OF LEGAL DEVELOPMENT 23

Despite the simplistic nature of this device, it signalled an

24 2. METHODOLOGICAL DIRECTIONS IN THINKING

applied to law, it immediately became obvious that it also

2.1. THE EXAMPLE OF LEGAL DEVELOPMENT 25

ness is the ancient condition, the protoform and once

26 2. METHODOLOGICAL DIRECTIONS IN THINKING

devoted to the r e p e t i t i o n o f t h e l a w , by which

2.1. THE EXAMPLE OF LEGAL DEVELOPMENT 27

However, judicial experience needs probably to add that

28 2. METHODOLOGICAL DIRECTIONS IN THINKING

Continental ideal Concerning the basis of this tradition of thought—

2.1.2. Roman legal development

2.1. THE EXAMPLE OF LEGAL DEVELOPMENT 29

The Roman jurisprudents were practical-minded profes- Law as a means

30 2. METHODOLOGICAL DIRECTIONS IN THINKING

challenging arguments13 have yet to be disproved by spe-

2.1. THE EXAMPLE OF LEGAL DEVELOPMENT 31

the ones whose task it is to achieve it.16 More precisely,

32 2. METHODOLOGICAL DIRECTIONS IN THINKING

freely avoidable, or—this being the advantage of constituted

2.1. THE EXAMPLE OF LEGAL DEVELOPMENT 33

ence to could serve as a starting point at the most, in ﬁnding