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11 Juridica Int'l 55 (2006)
Friedrich Carl von Savigny, the Legal Method, and the Modernity of Law

handle is hein.journals/jurdint11 and id is 56 raw text is: Joachim ROckert Professor, J.W. Goethe-Universitat Friedrich Carl von Savigny, the Legal Method, and the Modernity of Law- Two very famous elements of the European history of law are connected by the title of this article: modernity and Savigny. 'Modernity' is a big word. It appears impressively in the all-encompassing singular, as 'modemity' and not 'modemities', and it divides our complete history into the modem and pre-modem, or the modem and the old. The old may be forgotten. In speaking of modernity as an 'unfinished project', it is strictly the future that is examined; only there can completion be expected. It was the famous German philosopher Jiirgen Habermas from Frankfurt who has stressed this perspective since 1980 in argument against several so-called post- modernists, such as Wittgenstein, C. Schmitt, and Lyotard as well as such conservatives as Foucault, Bateille, Derrida, and Nietzsche, again and again. Therefore, it was he who elaborated the formula 'modernity - an unfinished project' into a well-known topos for many of the battles to come against a new conservatism. 'Savigny', too, is a big word. Savigny was the most famous lawyer not only of his epoch. His name has surpassed those of many luminaries of past centuries and the current one. Even today he occupies an impor- tant place in every legal, many biographical, and even some of the major literary encyclopaedias. He may enter the discussion with ease and is now able to announce himself simply with his 'calling card', as becomes clear. Savignys card to Goethe, announcing his visit in 1832.*1 Lecture given in Tartu in March 2006. 0. Liebmann (ed.). Die juristische Fakultat der Universitat Berlin von ihrer Grindung his zur Gegenwart in Wort und Bild ... Berlin 1910, p. 85. JURIDICA INTERNATIONAL XI/2006