It would appear that macro-constructs serve the basic idea that, before the first contact with foreign law, it is beneficial for the micro-comparatist to stay epistemically far from the legal system under survey and to study it in its proper perspective.This is particularly important at the beginning of the comparative process.34 By putting it in perspective, the nuances can be kept under preliminary epistemological control, and a typified “pure type” can be resorted to by keeping distance from the abundance and immediacy of legal information.35 Such an ideal type is the culmination of fundamental features of some legal systems with certain similarities. From this viewpoint, a macro-construct is analytic rather than empirical in construction, although it is based on factual knowledge about the central contents of the legal systems being classified.36 Also Ugo Mattei’s concept, in his taxonomy-proposal, of “hegemonic pattern” includes pretty much the same basic idea.37 An ideal-typical macro-construct such as legal family assembles the most descriptive and fundamental characteristics of its type to say something essential, without being a one-to-one description.38 The foreign system under study can be conceived in the first stages of research by comparing it to the theoretic-hypothetical models constructed in macro-comparative law.A micro-comparatist sees macro-constructs as theoretical constructs i.e.“ideal-types”whose distinctive characteristics represent certain potential characteristics of individual systems. So, legal family or culture is mainly a conceptual and theoretical tool,with which the comparatist can, particularly in the first phases of research, outline the core content of a foreign law and illustrate the distinctive characjaakko hu sa 115 34 See, e.g., de Cruz’s (1995 pp. 232-235) blueprint for comparative approach and its stages 1 and 2 (identifying the problem and the legal family). 35 Against this background also the philosophical concept of Verfremdung (alienating distanciation) could be used. Of the (hermeneutic) function of distanciation see Paul Ricouer, Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1996) 131ff. (positive significance of Verfremdung which is a condition of understanding). 36 David (1969 at 23) says this very clearly:“La notion de famille de droits ne corresponds pas á une réalite biologique...”. Classification can be used to “...pour mettre en valeur les ressemblanches et les différences qui existent entre les différents droits.” 37 See Mattei (1997) pp. 15-16; 21. Cf. to Legrand’s (at 60) “cognitive structure that characterises” certain legal cultures. Pierre Legrand,“European Systems Are Not Converging”, 45 International and Comparative Law Quarterly (1996) 52-81. 38 Cf. Mattei (1997) p. 15“A legal system never corresponds perfectly to a legal pattern.”
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