Hobbes, T; (2021) Dialog zwischen einem Philosophen und einem Juristen über das englische Common Law. Felix Meiner Verlag: Hamburg, Germany.

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Abstract

In the fictional dialogue between a philosopher and a jurist, Hobbes discursively develops his position on the so-called »Common Law«, directed against the views of the legal scholar Sir Edward Coke, against the background of the English Civil War, which gives him reason to discuss the basics to rethink law and state. While in the "Behemoth" it is primarily theology and theologians whom Hobbes attacks because of their particular questioning of state sovereignty, here it is the representatives of "common law". Because its principle was to administer justice on the basis of precedents, no matter how old they may be, and not on the basis of a scientifically based legal system. Hobbes, then, reproaches "common law" for what he had previously reproached for the doctrines of politics: They are unscientific and based on unsustainable assumptions. In addition, the »common law« calls into question the core of its doctrine of sovereignty. In his detailed introduction, the editor Peter Schröder goes into the philosophical and political background of this work, which was published posthumously in 1681.

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