If one follows this path, one takes a step toward an area in which the methodology of comparative law is coupled with epistemological theories originating from natural sciences and empirical social sciences.7 This sort of scientia (Aristotle’s ἐπιστήμη) inspired comparative law writing is normally directed especially to those who are engaged with academic scholarship.8 Further, in comparative law, in monographs, textbooks and articles, scientia inspired writing actually expands well over its borders and concerns all those who deal with the subject. Those authorities who walk along this scientific path of comparative law normally have their own theoretical ideas about how comparative lawought to be done. Methodologists and theoreticians of this sort are usually searching for the Method while they make relentless attacks against those who carry out comparative law in what they consider to be the wrong way i.e. those who are not following the proposed methodological path.One telling example of this intellectual landscape is the following passage by John Henry Merriman: It is important to see that Merriman’s critique is based on his own methodological and theoretical diagnosis of academic comparative study of law. He basically argues that comparative law has been done poorly and that his ideas, should they be followed, would be a kind of remedy. Even though he does not state it openly, his argument is based on a dire cht swi s s e n scha f t al s j ur i st i sch e dok t r i n 108 gies in Comparative Politics 2nd edition (Chatham House Publishers, Chatham1990) pp. 3-22 (comparison as a search of sociological rules, need of articulated conceptual framework, search of functional equivalencies). 7 See Geoffrey Samuel, “Epistemology and Comparative Law: Contributions from the Sciences and Social Sciences”, in Epistemology and Methodology of Comparative Law, edited by MarkVan Hoecke (Hart Publishing,Oxford/Portland2004) pp. 3577. 8 Recent example of this is Oliver Brand’s idea to develop conceptual comparison which follows the lead of other comparative sciences. Brand struggles to get away from certain “impurities” and strives toward objectivity by formulating “a neutral reference system in the form of concepts” (at 436). Brand,“Conceptual Comparisons: Towards a Coherent Methodology of Comparative Legal Studies”, 32 Brooklyn Journal of International Law(2007) 405-466. 9 Merriman,“Comparative Law Scholarship”, 21 Hastings International & Comparative Law Review (1998) 771-784, at 784. Comparative law languishes in a narrow dungeon of its own construction, deprived of light and air by a perversely constricted academic vision, its growth stunted by a diet of rules while rich nourishment lies within easy reach.9
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