TY - BOOK

T1 - Foundations of Power

T2 - From Natural Law to Legal Science

AU - Lev, Amnon

PY - 2009

Y1 - 2009

N2 - The categories of law play an essential part in the elaboration of the concept of the modern state. From the 17th century society is perceived to be the product of the free will of its citizens, as expressed in their consent to the social contract. Contract thus becomes the conceptual foundation of state power. This sets the modern state apart from the societies of the Middle Ages in which civil authority was either seen to be founded in religion (Christian doctrine) or in custom (Roman law). In the age of the modern state, it is law, or rather, constitutional doctrine that serves as the medium in which human freedom is translated into civil authority. The system of this translation is natural law.  The dissertation traces the genesis and the disintegration of the tradition of modern natural law in the period from the 17th to the 19th century. It shows how the format of 20th century legal thought arises out of the ruins of natural law and it argues that, even as 20th century legal thought has distanced itself from natural law, it has not ceased to return to its fundamental problem: the problem of the foundation of power.

AB - The categories of law play an essential part in the elaboration of the concept of the modern state. From the 17th century society is perceived to be the product of the free will of its citizens, as expressed in their consent to the social contract. Contract thus becomes the conceptual foundation of state power. This sets the modern state apart from the societies of the Middle Ages in which civil authority was either seen to be founded in religion (Christian doctrine) or in custom (Roman law). In the age of the modern state, it is law, or rather, constitutional doctrine that serves as the medium in which human freedom is translated into civil authority. The system of this translation is natural law.  The dissertation traces the genesis and the disintegration of the tradition of modern natural law in the period from the 17th to the 19th century. It shows how the format of 20th century legal thought arises out of the ruins of natural law and it argues that, even as 20th century legal thought has distanced itself from natural law, it has not ceased to return to its fundamental problem: the problem of the foundation of power.

M3 - Ph.D. thesis

BT - Foundations of Power

PB - Museum Tusculanum

CY - Copenhagen

ER -