Abstract
Any comparative description of a social and cultural phenomenon, such as ‘law’ and its practice, requires a definition in order to identify the parallel elements in different traditions and societies which are to be compared. This is especially the case if we define ‘legal science’ in its strictest sense: the study of the content of legal norms and of their systematic order. In this chapter, an effort has been made to characterise ‘legal science’, as far as possible, from the internal point of view of several traditions and societies (Chinese, Indian, Roman, Greek, Mesopotamian, Egyptian, and Jewish). In this perspective, we will refer to both the set of activities carried out by ‘legal experts’, in the whole domain of law (legislation, adjudication, legal counselling and education), and the legal experts themselves, as far as they were regarded as such by their own societies
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Cambridge comparative history of ancient law |
| Editors | Caroline Humfress, David Ibbetson, Patrick Olivelle |
| Place of Publication | Cambridge |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press |
| Chapter | 3 |
| Pages | 73-145 |
| Number of pages | 73 |
| ISBN (Electronic) | 9781009452243 |
| ISBN (Print) | 9781107035164 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - May 2024 |
Keywords
- Legal science
- Legal training
- Legal literature
- Legal reasoning
- Nature and law