Cover of: Gesetz, Politik und Wissenschaft
Nils Jansen

Gesetz, Politik und Wissenschaft

Section: Abhandlungen
Volume 225 (2025) / Issue 1, pp. 114-163 (50)
Published 27.05.2025
DOI 10.1628/acp-2025-0006
Published in German.
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  • 10.1628/acp-2025-0006
Summary
German private law has been framed as a domain of politically neutral legal reasoning, yet a closer historical analysis sheds doubts on this assumption. This study explores how legal doctrine - from the early days of the Historical School, through the Wertungsjurisprudenz until controversies in the 1980ies and 90ies - sought to maintain the illusion of an autonomous system of private law. By examining the evolution of private autonomy as a foundational principle and the tensions between the binding codification, judicial creativity and the authority of academic doctrine, the work sheds light on the methodological challenges of contemporary private law theory.