About the Nature and Value of Conceptual Legal Scholarship
Freiburg Lectures on Staatswissenschaft and Philosophy of Law
Directions
- Lecture is CANCELLED; a new date will be communicated in due course
- Date: Jul 20, 2022
- Time: 05:00 PM - 07:00 PM (Local Time Germany)
- Speaker: Prof. Dr. Christian Bumke
- 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.
- Location: Freiburg, Fürstenbergstr. 19
- Room: Seminar room (F 113) | Guests are welcome!
- Host: MPI-CSL in cooperation with the Department of Political Science and Philosophy of Law at the University of Freiburg
- Contact: c.hillemanns@csl.mpg.de
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.