Abstract
As an outline of German jurisprudence, the political and constitutional conditions in Germany are of significance. In this article, the genesis of the Historical School of Law, founded by Savigny takes into account the broader dimensions of Roman and German legal sources. The latter were formulated through historical, hermeneutical and terminological, systematological methods to solve legal problems in the developing bourgeois industrial society. Ultimately, German law gave in to a politically and sociologically founded legal science by incorporating organic reforms as opposed to a revolution. Savigny's concept of the evolution of law is based on the term "Volk", "people", as founded by Herder and developed in the Romantic period, on the idea that law originates in history rather than in systematic, rationalistic natural law. The original concept of the Historical School, which was to combine law with history and philosophy in a single education, which would have enabled jurists to structure law in the future, remained the tenet of this elite group and brought German legislation, legal and cultural politics around 1900 to a zenith, which was seen as an international example by many
Recommended Citation
Dilcher, Gerhard
(1994)
"The philosophical Foundations of Nineteenth Century German Jurisprudence: The Historical School of Law and Legal Positivism,"
National Law School Journal: Vol. 6:
Iss.
1, Article 4.
Available at:
https://repository.nls.ac.in/nlsj/vol6/iss1/4