Grotius in the Science of Law

1925 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 685-688 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roscoe Pound

It has been customary to take Grotius's book for the starting point of one of the best marked eras in the history of jurisprudence. Any account of the development of theories of justice is likely to begin the modern history of the subject with Grotius, and to put as a classical epoch a period designated as “from Grotius to Kant.” Any account of theories of law is likely to set off a period from the revived study of Roman law in the Italian universities of the twelfth century to Grotius, and another from Grotius to the breaking up of the eighteenth century law-of-nature school. In almost all accounts of the history of the science of law, Grotius stands as marking a turning point.

2021 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 332-364
Author(s):  
GREGORY F.W. TODD

This contribution, in two parts, addresses a long-standing problem in the history of geology: Was the geological theory of James Hutton derived inductively from observations and scientific knowledge, or was it derived a priori as a speculative system? Hutton’s own writings do little to clarify the question, and the conflict in interpretations has remained at an impasse. This contribution proposes to resolve that conflict by focusing on the two years Hutton spent as a young man studying chemistry in Paris. I argue that Hutton studied with one of the great chemistry teachers of the eighteenth century, Guillaume-François Rouelle, and that Rouelle’s teachings provided the foundations of Hutton’s geological theory. Part One of this contribution reviewed evidence that Hutton was a student of Rouelle’s, and concluded with a high degree of confidence, but less than certainty, that Hutton did study with Rouelle. In this Part Two, it is argued that Hutton adopted almost all the geological ideas found in Rouelle’s lectures. This Part Two also proposes a reconstruction of the development of Hutton’s cyclical model of Earth strata, taken as the starting point of his broader theory, to show that it developed from observations and inductions, and his study with Rouelle, and was not developed as an a priori system. That conclusion will require a new interpretation of Hutton’s theory, which should now be understood as part of a continuum of geological knowledge developing during the eighteenth century.


2002 ◽  
Vol 34 (4) ◽  
pp. 601-617
Author(s):  
Ussama Makdisi

The events of 1860 constitute a turning point in the modern history of Lebanon. In the space of a few weeks between the end of May and the middle of June, Maronite and Druze communities clashed in Mount Lebanon in a struggle to see which community would control, and define, a stretch of mountainous territory at the center of complicated Eastern Question politics.1 The Druzes carried the day. Every major Maronite town within reach of the Druzes was pillaged, its population either massacred or forced to flee. In July, Damascene Muslims rioted to protest deteriorating economic conditions, targeting and massacring several hundred of the city's Christian population. Although the reasons for the fighting in Mount Lebanon and the riot in Damascus were quite different, the Ottoman, local, and European reactions inevitably conflated both events.2 Following the restoration of order, the conflict of 1860 was the subject, effectively, of an Ottoman government mandate of silence—a desire to forget the events and proceed with administering the newly constituted Mutasarrifiyya of Mount Lebanon. At the same time, however, the sectarian violence prompted an outpouring of local memories that the Ottoman government could neither control nor suppress.


1991 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 233-264 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Otte

The ArgumentIn writing the history of science, the fluctuations between two meanings of the concept of style are of special interest: a simple or direct meaning of this concept referring to a means of expression and of presentation, and a philosophical interpretation of this term referring to “a world of objective spiritual order.” The last two chapters of this paper consider the perspective of the simple meaning of the concept, the first two chapters take the philosophical meaning as their starting point.The concept of style in its general epistemological meaning emerges within a conceptual space that becomes effective as a totality at the end of the eighteenth century and which is built up of further notions such as: individual, genius, expression, symbol, education, creativity, and others.The individual and, as believed, the nevertheless infinitely creative subject has taken the place that the concept of god had occupied within rationalism. But it is not only the subject as construction and will, but also the subject who reflected in a new way about the objective foundations of his conscience and tried to bring the object and the means of knowledge into a new relation.


Author(s):  
Pamela Barmash

The Laws of Hammurabi is one of the earliest law codes, dating from the eighteenth century BCE Mesopotamia (ancient Iraq). It is the culmination of a tradition in which scribes would demonstrate their legal flair by composing statutes on a repertoire of traditional cases, articulating what they deemed just and fair. The book describes how the scribe of the Laws of Hammurabi advanced beyond earlier scribes in composing statutes that manifest systematization and implicit legal principles. The scribe inserted the statutes into the structure of a royal inscription, skillfully reshaping the genre. This approach allowed the king to use the law code to demonstrate that Hammurabi had fulfilled the mandate to guarantee justice enjoined upon him by the gods, affirming his authority as king. This tradition of scribal improvisation on a set of traditional cases continued outside of Mesopotamia, influencing biblical law and the law of the Hittite Empire and perhaps shaping Greek and Roman law. The Laws of Hammurabi is also a witness to the start of another stream of intellectual tradition. It became a classic text and the subject of formal commentaries, marking a Copernican revolution in intellectual culture.


1971 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-67 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. H. Baker

Slade's Case is of such significance in the history of the common law that it has, quite properly, been the subject of more scrutiny and discussion in recent years than any other case of the same age. The foundation of all this discussion has been Coke's report, which is the only full report in print. The accuracy and completeness of Coke's version have hardly been challenged, and the discussions have assumed that it contains almost all there is to know about the case. This assumption must be discarded if we are to understand the contemporary significance of the case.


PMLA ◽  
1916 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 264-325
Author(s):  
C. A. Moore

One of the notable changes in English literature during the eighteenth century is a growth in altruism. It is a change which involves not only a breaking down of the old aristocratic indifference to the lower classes of society during the Restoration, but the establishment of a new ethical theory; literature displayed a broader human interest and assigned a new reason for its sympathy. It is usually assumed that the difference is due principally to the influx of French philosophy. This assumption at least minimizes the importance of a development which had taken place in the literature of England itself before the general interest in Rousseau. (The change, especially in poetry, is to be traced largely, I think, to the Characteristics (1711) of Lord Shaftesbury, whose importance as a literary influence in England has never been duly recognized. It has long since been established that his system of philosophy constitutes a turning-point in the history of pure speculation, especially in ethics; it has more recently been shown also that he is responsible for many of the moral ideas which inform the popular literature of Germany from Haller to Herder. But his influence upon the popular writers of his own country has received scant notice.


Author(s):  
Christopher W. Morris

It is often said that the subject matter of political philosophy is the nature and justification of the state. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel thinks that political science is “nothing other than an attempt to comprehend and portray the state as an inherently rational entity.” John Rawls famously understands “the primary subject of justice [to be] the basic structure of society,” restricting his attentions to a society “conceived for the time being as a closed system isolated from other societies,” and assuming that “the boundaries of these schemes are given by the notion of a self-contained national community.” Contemporary political philosophers often follow suit, disagreeing about what states should do, and simply assuming that they are the proper agents of justice or reform. The history of philosophy and the development of political concepts seem to be central to understanding the state. The influence of Roman law and republican government, and the rediscovery of Aristotle in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, are obvious important influences. The modern state emerged first in Western Europe in early modern times.


2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 377-382
Author(s):  
Dunja Fehimović ◽  
Ruth Goldberg

Carlos Lechuga’s film Santa y Andrés (2016) has enjoyed worldwide acclaim as an intimate, dramatic portrayal of the unlikely friendship that develops in rural Cuba between Andrés, a gay dissident writer, and Santa, the militant citizen who has been sent to surveil him. Declared to be extreme and/or inaccurate in its historical depictions, the film was censored in Cuba and was the subject of intense controversy and public polemics surrounding its release in 2016. Debates about the film’s subject matter and its censorship extend ongoing disagreement over the role of art within the Cuban Revolution, and the changing nature of the Cuban film industry itself. This dossier brings together new scholarship on Santa y Andrés and is linked to an online archive of some of the original essays that have been written about the film by Cuban critics and filmmakers since 2016. The aim of this project is to create a starting point for researchers who wish to investigate Santa y Andrés, evaluating the film both for its contentious initial reception, and in terms of its enduring contribution to the history of Cuban cinema.


Capital ◽  
2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karl Marx

The circulation of commodities is the starting-point of capital. The production of commodities, their circulation, and that more developed form of their circulation called commerce, these form the historical ground-work from which it rises. The modern history of capital dates from the creation in...


Author(s):  
Moshe Mishkinsky

This chapter describes a turning point in the history of Polish Socialism and its attitude towards the Jewish Question. In dealing with the concept of the Jewish Question, the intention is not, as is often the case, to dwell solely upon the legal status of Jews (emancipation) but to view the problems of Jewish existence in their diversity. According to one view, the dependence upon non Jewish society represents an integral element or, even a determinant, in these problems. In the context of Polish–Jewish relations from the historical perspective of the last hundred years, one may discern six aspects of the subject. These include the development of Socialist thought in its different versions as regards the Jews; the influence of the gradual growth and development of the emerging working class in Polish society; the influence of the relatively large involvement of Jews within the Socialist Labour Movement; the impact of the new processes which matured in the last quarter of the 19th century on the life of Eastern European Jewry in general, and on the Polish–Jewish area in particular; the growth alongside each other, but also in conflict, of two political and ideological movements — Polish Socialism and Jewish labour Socialism; and the tension between the Socialist and the national elements which was common to both yet different in its concrete content.


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