About the Nature and Value of Conceptual Legal Scholarship

Guest Lecture (July 20) CANCELLED; a new date will be communicated in due course

July 18, 2022

Guest lecture by Prof. Christian Bumke (Bucerius Law School, Hamburg; Commerz­bank Endowed Chair of Foun­da­tions of Law) | CANCELLED (July 20); a new date will be communicated in due course.

Abstract:
The lecture pursues two goals. First, Christian Bumke aims to compare how German legal doctrine and a pluralistic ap­proach, known as the “New Private Law Theory” in the USA, can be used to think about and work with the law. Bumke will argue that, while there are considerable differences between the two, they can be understood as two variants of the same general approach towards legal scholarship, which he calls “conceptual legal scholarship”. His second goal con­sists in developing a reflection on methodology. For this purpose, he examines the differences within conceptual legal scholarship. He wishes to show that very different academic activities are pursued both within legal doctrine and New Private Law scholarship. Bumke will make a distinction between two different types of conceptual legal scholarship. On the one hand, there are approaches that aim to explain a certain legal phenomenon; on the other hand, one finds ap­proaches that aim to understand the law’s normative content. He will argue that differentiating between the two per­spectives is important because they respond to different expectations and have to conform to different standards.


Christian Bumke is a professor of law and holds the Commerzbank Endowed Chair of Foundations of Law at the Buce­rius Law School Hamburg. In 1997, he received his doctoral degree and title from the University of Cologne. In 2003, Bumke earned his post-doctoral lecturing qualification (Habilitation) from the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. He held research professorships at the University of Osaka in 2007 and 2014.

 

In cooperation with the Department of Political Science and Philosophy of Law at the University of Freiburg.

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