Multidisciplinary Legal History of Private Law Scholarship
Research Project
The history of legal scholarship is a classic field of German legal history. It deals with the study of legal doctrine, legal schools of thought and their leading proponents. The research project ‘Multidisciplinary Legal History of Private Law Scholarship’ builds on these traditions and expands them along multidisciplinary lines. As a multidisciplinary history of legal scholarship, it gives a key role to alternative methods and epistemological perspectives, i.e. philosophical, anthropological, sociological or economic approaches to law. In doing so, it always understands the history of legal scholarship as a history of reception. Its scope of interest goes beyond the portrayal of historical jurists and the emergence or development of legal doctrines. It chooses as its subject the historically established images of legal actors and of legal doctrine, conceiving of legal history as a history of reception and reflection.