The Limits of Concept Formation in Legal Science
| Published date | 01 September 2000 |
| Author | David Campbell |
| DOI | 10.1177/096466390000900308 |
| Date | 01 September 2000 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
THE LIMITS OF CONCEPT
FORMATION IN LEGAL SCIENCE
DAVID CAMPBELL
Cardiff University, UK
WHEN READING the work of Gunther Teubner, I, for one, am
almost always plagued by the fear that I am not up to date with the
latest intellectual trends in the two substantive subjects in which I
am most interested, company law and, of relevance here, contract. Of course,
reading Teubner also makes me fear that I am not up to date with the trends
in general social theory, but I am resigned to, indeed sanguine about, this. In
1984–5, as I moved towards the completion of my PhD in sociolegal studies,
I made a deliberate choice to in future specialize in law rather than sociology
because I was of the opinion that general social theory after Parsons had
become quite unproductive. In a move which to me seemed rather to give the
game away, the prosaic but, one would have thought, useful goal of the
‘explanation’ of phenomena had given way to their ‘theorization’. As pursuit
of objectivity was thought horribly gauche, one’s esteem as a sociologist had
become strongly positively correlated to the theoretical complication of one’s
work, with the apogee of achievement appearing to be outright incompre-
hensibility. I flatter myself that the utter worthlessness of a great deal of the
vast, subsequent, sociological literature confirms my opinion, which I find is
now widely shared in sociology itself. As the golden age of post-war capital-
ism drew to its end, sociology no longer seemed to think it could help in a
crisis (Sorokin, 1950) but, somewhat solipsistically, was always preoccupied
with being in a crisis itself (Boudon, 1980; Gouldner, 1971). Many of its best
exponents now pronounce it ultimately doomed (van den Berghe, 1990: 173)1
or even now decomposing (Horowitz, 1993).
Even were it to have the hubris that might allow it to do so, the law of con-
tract can take little comfort from this, for its own best exponents have, of
course, over the same period themselves been preoccupied with The Death
of Contract (Gilmore, 1974). But there is, I suggest, a very different quality
to the two deaths. It is what is new in general social theory that seems unable
to equal the accomplishments of the classics (unless it just repeats them),
whereas it is quite the reverse in contract. It is the classical law of contract
SOCIAL &LEGAL STUDIES 0964 6639 (200009) 9:3 Copyright © 2000
SAGE Publications, London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi,
Vol. 9(3), 439–447; 013782
08 Campbell (jl/d) 3/8/00 1:50 pm Page 439
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