Hermann Kantorowicz’ Concept of Legal Science and the Social Role of Legal Scholarship Today

Hermann Kantorowicz was a great legal scholar, who taught not only in Germany, but also in the United States, at Oxford and at Cambridge. His work bridges the intellectual divide between the common and civil laws not just because of his cosmopolitan biography, but also because of the exceptional breadth of his academic interests. In Germany, Kantorowicz has always been known best as a leading figure of the free law movement ( Freirechtsbewegung). This paper focuses instead on Kantorowicz’ idea of legal science. There are at least two reasons why Kantorowicz’ contributions to the issue are worth re-reading today. On the one hand, he discussed these questions in a manner which engages deeply with philosophical scholarship, relying primarily on concepts developed by Heinrich Rickert, Wilhelm Windelband, and Max Weber. On the other hand, Kantorowicz developed his ideas of legal science wholly independently of nineteenth century (or contemporary) programmes to re-construct the law in the form of a fully rational, internally coherent system. In this respect Kantorowicz’ ideas fit in well with modern, more fluid and complex notions of law and multi-layered legal systems.