convergence in Europe. Be that as it may, there are other scholars with rather balanced general-views about comparative law who are also insisting that it is of importance to continue to develop scientifically rigorous methodology for comparative law.15 More importantly, in methodological and epistemological discourse on comparative study of law it is quite commonplace to express the epistemic urge to “fulfil the requirements of scholarly comparative research” as Esin Örücü formulates it.16 And, for a novice who starts from the very basic textbooks the same epistemic mentality is to be found in the most paradigmatic presentations of comparative law; one needs but to read Konrad Zweigert’s and Hein Kötz’s An Introduction to Comparative Lawwhere the dichotomous attitude can be found lying under the surface, not always visible, but it is there like a strong invisible current dragging the discipline along.17 It would be unjustified to claim that any single comparatist would have claimed to have actually found the Philosophers Stone of comparative law.And yet, while reading various influential academic comparative law literature, one cannot avoid noticing that there is an underlying dichotomy always lurking in the shadow: do comparisons like this (i.e. theoretically); be as scientific as possible; be rigorous; avoid un-scientific methods, use a rigorous theoretical framework; and so on and so forth. Obviously, there are a lot of other factors involved here too, but even so the dichotomous epistemological foundation is still lingering.18 More generally it looks as if, somehow, comparative law has lost its humanistically, utilitarian character of being practical knowledge or prudentia (Aristotle’s φρόνησμς) instead of scientia. In accordance with re cht swi s s e n scha f t al s j ur i st i sch e dok t r i n 110 15 See Ralf Michaels,“The Functional Method of Comparative Law”, inThe Oxford Handbook of Comparative Law, edited by Mathias Reimann and Reinhard Zimmermann (Oxford University Press, Oxford 2006) pp. 339-382 (developing the functional method further and claiming that “comparative law has not yet made sufficient use of the benefits of functionalism” at 381). 16 Örücü, “Developing Comparative Law”, in Comparative Law:A Handbook, edited by Esin Örücü and David Nelken (Hart Publishing, Oxford/Portland 2007) pp. 43-65, at 50. 17 See Zweigert and Kötz (1998) especially pp. 33-47 (searching for inspiration from realistic approaches i.e. sociology of law, setting hypotheses, building a system and – in general – using the functional method in order to be more scientific). 18 Of different paradigmatic phases in comparative law, see Annelise Riles, “Introduction:The Projects of Comparison”, inRethinking the Masters of Comparative Law, edited by Annelise Riles (Hart Publishing, Oxford/Portland 2001) pp. 1-18.
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