neutrality or objectivity, it is an undeniable problem if the epistemological reference point is a priori fixed according to some form of ethnocentricity.Accordingly, some may say that these classifications actually tell more about the ideology ofWestern centred comparative law than about the systems that are supposed to be classified.46 Mutatis mutandis, if we could rid ourselves from ethnocentrism we might be able to build more reliable, i.e. more objective, macro-constructs. Another obvious problem has been the static nature of classifications. Even the dramatic collapse of socialist law does not appear to have been sufficient enough to genuinely provoke a change when it comes to the classification criteria and methods applied during the previous decades. To this extent, scholarly comparative law’s willingness to critically re-evaluate earlier propositions and drafts does not appear to have been particularly vivid. In other words, there seems to be too little serious scientific work done in this field i.e. comparatists largely seem to rely on the old classifications even though most comparatists are evidently aware of the obvious theoretical shortcomings of these macro-constructs. From the view-point of rigorous scientia inspired comparative law the difficulty is clear: Can any grouping, which is constructed from the paradigmatic point of view of macro-comparative law and its methodological tools, accomplish scientifically solid classification?47This author’s answer to this is rather grim: not likely. If this criticism is sound, it may as well be that the epistemology of scientia-driven macro-comparative law is simply not scientific enough.48The rationale in this appears clear: obviously, more could be done if the scientific problems re cht swi s s e n scha f t al s j ur i st i sch e dok t r i n 120 ticism. One of the most influential critiques has been put forward by Gunter Frankenberg (pp. 422-426) who has attacked the western-oriented dichotomous nature of classifications and groupings (“...Western legal culture at the top of some implicit normative scale” at 422). Frankenberg,“Critical Comparisons: Re-Thinking Comparative Law “, 26 Harvard International Law Journal (1985) 411-455. See also Mattei (1997) 10-12 (need for non Euro-American-Centric classifications). 46 Cf. Boaventura de Sousa Santos, Towards a New Common Sense: Law, Science and Politics in the Paradigmatic Transition (Routledge, NewYork 1995) p. 273. 47 Cf.Hoecke andWarrington (1998at 502) say:“It is doubtful whether the traditional ‘law as rules’ approach is able to offer sound basis for ‘legal family’ classifications”. 48 This does not, however, suggest that the whole attempt to classify and categorise would be pointless. Peters and Schwenke (2001 p. 826) sum up their discussion on post-modern criticism of categories and classifications as follows:“But all this does not mean that an outsider can never understand foreign categories and classifications and translate them (approximately) into his own categories and classifications, nor
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