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mological Anschauungen would open-up a more promising vision for the comparative study of law in the 21st century than remaining entangled in the all-or-nothing debate i.e. to be forced to choose between the Scylla and the Charybdis.We should celebrate a flexible understanding of the methodology of the comparative study of law instead of crude black-and-white dichotomies, so that legal pluralism could be taken into account.To build a dichotomous, one-eyed epistemology is futile because there are many kinds of comparisons i.e. it might be better to opt for a plurality of approaches paralleling the contemporary plural world of law.64 Clearly, the sketchy ideas and brief examples outlined in this paper cannot be much more than a tentative suggestion.Yet, the core argument appears defendable and poses serious questions concerning the nature of comparative law epistemology.To conclude, comparists might have to ponder why they compare and what they want to achieve by comparisons:Why should different goals produce similar approaches? It seems clear that there are more choices than just being theoretical/ scientific or un-theoretical/non-scientific just as there are many legitimate comparative law interests of knowledge too. In practice, to follow the methodological flexibility proposed here would also require to alter the course of comparative law fromscientia-path towards prudentia-path in the spirit of Aristotle’s practical knowledge (φρόνησις). Aristotelian epistemology was based on an idea according to which one should not require similar precision and certainty in different areas of knowledge.65This flexible path, nevertheless, would lead to conceiving comparative law as an intellectually demanding skill or an applicative form of knowledge rather than a genuinely scientific approach. Accordingly, this shift within epistemology would ultimately mean a move from science towards interpretation and argumentation i.e. a kind of hermejaakko hu sa 127 64 Cf.Marie-Claire Ponthoreau,“Le droit comparé en question(s) entre pragmatisme et outil èpistemologique”, 57 Revue internationale de droit comparé (2005) 7-27, pp. 21-23. 65 InΗθικά ΝικομάχειαAristotle says (Bekker line location1094b) that “precision is not to be sought similarly in all discussions” (“τὸ γὰρ ἀκριβὲς ἐν ἅπασι τοῖς λόγοις ἐπιζητητέον”) and that it would be as “stupid to accept probable reasoning from a mathematician than it would be to demand scientific rhetorical proofs”. (“παραπλήσ ιον γὰρ φαίνεται μαθηματικον̃ τε πιθανολογοῦντος ἀποδέχεσθαι καὶ ῥητορικὸν ἀποδείξεις ἀπαιτεῖν”). See also Ricouer (1996) p. 222. 5. conc lu s i on

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