Exploring the jurist's frame of mind : constraints and preconceptions in civil law argumentation.

Each academic field and each profession has its own frame of mind. Generally, one is hardly aware of it, but it almost completely determines the way of thinking and acting nonetheless. Certain arguments and approaches are accepted and reproduced, others rarely or not at all. Why is that? What processes are at work here? This book is unique as it tries to gain insight into the frame of mind of jurists in civil law. To this end, it explores eight typical characteristics of arguing and reasoning in civil law. All characteristics contribute to revealing the enigma of the frame of mind, not through a step-by-step deduction - that is simply impossible -, but through experiments of an intuitive, exploratory, or even cubist nature. Each chapter describes one such experiment. In conclusion, a new way of arguing and reasoning in civil law is advocated: less dogmatic, more international, more open to balancing the interests and values at stake, and also more willing to integrate socio-legal and legal economic insights and arguments. In his conclusion, the author joins in the world-wide discussion on improving the academic quality of legal science, and on its far reaching consequences for the curricula of law schools everywhere.

Each academic field and each profession has its own frame of mind. Generally, one is hardly aware of it, but it almost completely determines the way of thinking and acting nonetheless. Certain arguments and approaches are accepted and reproduced, others rarely or not at all. Why is that? What processes are at work here? This book is unique as it tries to gain insight into the frame of mind of jurists in civil law. To this end, it explores eight typical characteristics of arguing and reasoning in civil law. All characteristics contribute to revealing the enigma of the frame of mind, not through a step-by-step deduction - that is simply impossible -, but through experiments of an intuitive, exploratory, or even cubist nature. Each chapter describes one such experiment. In conclusion, a new way of arguing and reasoning in civil law is advocated: less dogmatic, more international, more open to balancing the interests and values at stake, and also more willing to integrate socio-legal and legal economic insights and arguments. In his conclusion, the author joins in the world-wide discussion on improving the academic quality of legal science, and on its far reaching consequences for the curricula of law schools everywhere.