Mohnhaupt Heinz
Abstract: The article analyses the role of different scientific conceptions in creating clearly philosophical stance of Eduard Gans’ viewpoint on the jurisprudence. The author concludes that several lines cross Gans’ works – Montesquieu, Savigny, Tibaut, Feuerbach, and particularly Hegel. The article contains detailed text analysis of Hegel’s “Philosophy of Law” and “Lectures on Philosophy of History” as the guidelines for Gans. Gans’ conception of the universal history of law and comparative method is in the sharp conflict with Savigny’s Historical School. The author underlines that the problem of philosophically proved comparative history of jurisprudence becomes the outstanding example of Gans and Savigny’s controversy, as well as of polemics between Philosophical and Historical School. The article shows that in Gans’ multi-volume work “The Law of Inheritance in a World-History Perspective”, universal history of law is applied to the law of inharitance “passes” through Spirit of Peoples; the role of the Roman law is seen as a key moment of the temporal process of the history of law, as well as the material for Gans’ disclosing his core idea. The other remarkable reason of two schools’ controversy is the difference in perception of the jurisprudence. Taking into account the diffuseness of Gans’ conclusions on the law of inharitance in concrete countries, the author states that the goal of the global “totality” was not achieved by Gans in his work because it was beyond the opportunities of the particular researcher.
Keywords: Gans, Savigny, universal history of law, Historical School of Jurisprudence, jurisprudence, comparativism.