Oleksiy Kresin. Formation of the comparative history of law as a scientific and educational discipline in the second half of XVIII – the first third of XIX centuries
Considered is the formation of the comparative history of law in the context of the general positive teaching on law differentiation idea in the second half of XVIII – the first third of the XIX centuries. The author argues that the first conceptualization of comparative (general) history of law is still unknown, but the impetus for its design was the Thibault’s requirement for the history of law expressed in 1814: it becomes a science only if cover the histories of all peoples. But it could be argued that comparative history of law had been gradually distinguished in the general history frame that took on political and legal character.
The comparative history of law was formed, got its name and recognition as an independent educational discipline in German universities since 1818 through the efforts of S. Brendel, J.P. von Hornthal and other professors, and later – in the Paris College de France, and soon was conceptualized in Gans and Lerminier works. They defined it primarily as a separate legal (as well as comparative and historical) science, emerging at the history of law, philosophy of law, comparative jurisprudence intersection, has to obtain and synthesize, primarily based on comparative and chronological analysis, knowledge on the history and current state of law and legal thought of different peoples, which is the basis for the development and refinement of concepts, essence of legal phenomena cognition. The principal provisions of comparative history of law creators was the freedom of this science of utilitarian purposes, its focus on pure knowledge and the general teaching of law formation. Their opponents, without denying the fruitfulness of the comparative approach to the history of law, pointed out on the impossibility of the difficult tasks of comparative history of law fulfillment and sought to direct efforts to achieve practical goals, offering selectivity and teleology in research.
Key words: differentiation of legal sciences, comparative legal knowledge, organization of scientific knowledge, comparative history of law.
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