The Anthology of Swiss Legal Culture

 

Cluster "Philosophy of Law and General Jurisprudence"

 

1^st Section "Swiss Legal Culture as a Melting Pot of Modern Philosophical Influences – Overlapping Neo-Kantianism, Neo-Hegelianism, Realism, Prag­matism, Exis­ten­tia­lism, Phenomenology, and Beyond"

 

Entry 1.9 "Arthur Baumgarten, Rechtsphilosophie"

 

Selected, Elaborated and Discussed by Michael Walter Hebeisen

 

 

 

Author: Arthur Baumgarten

 

Title: Rechtsphilosophie

 

Edition(s): in: Handbuch der Philosophie, Section IV: Staat und Geschichte, München/ Berlin: R. Oldenbourg, 1934, pp. 3 ss.

 

 

 

[Introduction/Historical Situation and Systematic Context]

 

Within the six heavy volumes of the “Handbook of Philosophy” (München/ Berlin: R. Oldenbourg, 1934) we find in volume four, entitled “Staat und Geschichte” a contribution by Arthur Baumgarten, an acknowledged scholar in legal philosophy with personal and professional Swiss connections. State theory has been represented by two authors, Günther Holstein (a forerunner of the so-called “geisteswissenschaftliche Richtung” in public law) and Karl Larenz (a well known jurisprudent in private law, who also had a string inclination to legal philosophy, consult his research essay: Recht- und Staatsphilosophie der Gegenwart, Berlin: Junker und Dünnhaupt, 1931), and the philosophy of history has been represented by Erich Rothacker, a philosophical thinker in the domain of the human sciences (compare his contribution to the 2^nd vol. of the forementioned handbook, entitled “Logik und Systematik der Geisteswissenschaften”).

 

The contribution on legal philosophy should have been delivered by a relatively unnkown Hans Gerber from the University of Marburg. Apparently, Arthur Baumgarten had taken the burden to elaborate this section unforeseeably and in relatively short time. As for the personal approach we refer to the contributions of the author on “Cognition, Science, Philosophy”, and “Legal Science and Legal Method” (see nos. 3.2 and 2.2 of this Legal Anthology). A contribution to an eminent handbook, however, has to be comprehensive and neutral to some extent, but nevertheless a systematic treatment of legal philosophy is only possible within a certain system of philosophy itself. “Nun wüsste ich kein System der Philosophie, an das ich anknüpfen könnte. Ich bin kein Thomist und noch weniger ein Hegelianer. Die Philosophie, die Kopf und Herz des modernen Menschen Genüge leisten würde, scheint vorläufig noch nicht zu existieren, aber freilich dürfte sie im Werden begriffen sein. Daher will ich denn auch hier nicht eine Darstellung der Rechtsphilosophie geben, sondern will mich in der mäeutischen Kunst [der Geburtshilfe] versuchen”.

 

 

 

[Content, Abstracts/Conclusions, Insights, Evidence]

 

As the starting point, Arthur Baumgarten takes the necessity to define a particular worldview, a certain opinion on life, in order to provide the foundations of jurisprudence (in detail see August Simonius: Wissenschaftliche Weltanschauung und Rechts­wis­sen­schaft – Zur Rechtsphilosophie Arthur Baumgartens, in: Zeit­schrift für Schwei­zerisches Recht, ed. Eduard His, N. S. vol. 49, Basel: Hel­bing & Lichtenhahn, 1930). The author hereby inaugurates a philosophy of the sciences, that has to locate the different scientific disciplines within the system of philosophy as a holistic frame. Such an approach transcends mere methodology from the beginning.

 

A historical introduction covers one third less than a hundred pages of the contribution by Arthur Baumgarten. The author appears as an encyclopaedic spirit that takes into consideration many of all possible currents in his overview, but he also undergoes his own restrictions. In the end he takes a metaphysical foundation as indispensable in order to ground normative claims scientifically. The options to do so are numerous: eudemonism, egoism, utilitarism, historical teleology, entelechy, for instance. In his approach the author shows a true philosophical attempt to found legal thought in a mainframe of a critical theory of cognition.

 

As it comes to discuss the very core of the subject, however, Arthur Baumgarten is proceeding in an eclectic way. We have chosen the passage that treats the “metaphysical principles of ethics in comparison with the legal order”. That means that there are no metaphysical principles of law itself, and that a foundation of the legal order must be obtained by referring the law to the ethical order, to the last extent. Security of legal decisions is identified as crucial for the validity of the positive legal order or the authority of law. “Daher beruht es auf dem höchsten Sittengesetz, wenn dem Inbegriff unserer rechtlichen Pflichten das gegen den Staat gerichtete subjektive Recht entspricht, dass unser Pflichtenkreis nur aus schwerwiegenden Gründen und nie bis zur Vernichtung unserer Freiheit ausgedehnt werde. Bei diesem negativen Recht hat es nicht sein Bewenden. [...] Je mehr die Rechtsordnung die Dispositionsgewalt, die der Egoismus in der Form des privaten subjektiven Rechts für sich fordert, sinschränkt, um so mehr muss sie die Teilnahme am Gemeinschaftsleben mit relativ freier Entscheidungegewalt zum subjektiven öffentlichen Recht des einzelnen stempeln”. This resembles many contributions to the difference between private and public law. The specific task for legal philosophy is not explained simply by a description of the mutual interactions between philosophical criticism and dogmatical jurisprudence, as long as such a critical approach is not founded in philosophical terms. “Kommt die Rechtsphilosophie durch ernstliche Berücksichtigung der jeweils herrschenden Bestrebungen und Anschauungen der positiven Jurisprudenz entgegen, so muss andererseits diese durch die Ausgestaltung ihrer Grundbegriffe für die allmähliche Annäherung des Rechts an das höchste sittliche Ziel die Handhabe bieten. [...] Die Rechtswissenschaft als Wissenschaft einer geltenden Lebensordnung muss sich bei aller Sollensbetrachtung den Blick offenhalten für Handel und Wandel des wirklichen Lebens”. In consequence, critical thought is focused merely on juridical conceptualisation, has only to answer the question, how the concepts of jurisprudence have to be built.

 

 

 

[Further Information About the Author]

 

Arthur Baumgarten, born 31 March 1884 in Königsberg, died 27 November 1966 in Berlin (East), was originally a German citizen, but from 1936 was also a Swiss citizen, as he married Nina Helena von Salis-Soglio. He conducted his legal and philosophical studies at the Universi­ties of Tübingen, Geneva, Leipzig and Berlin, where he received his promotion in 1909. Until 1920 he was a professor in Geneva, from 1920 to 1923 in Cologne, between 1923 and 1930 in Basel, between 1930 to 1933 in Frankfurt am Main, before he returned and emi­grated back to Basel, where he remained until 1949. He then decided to settle in Berlin (East), where he was a professor at the Humboldt University until 1953. He originally taught penal law, however his main subject became more and more legal philosophy. In his last period of life, living in the German Democratic Republic, he also signed as chief editor of the periodical “Sozialismus”, and finally contributed to the theoretical founda­tions of the socialist regime of Eastern Germany.

 

His philosophy of law can best be described as syncretistic, as he changed from moralistic views to Kantian criticism and varied between a conservative mood to socialist opinions. Moreover, his theory was characterised by the separation between morality and law and their interconnection. In our treatment we shall focus on the early period, when his funda­mental conceptions show best in their origins and consolidation, namely in his works about “Die Wissenschaft vom Recht und ihre Methode” (1920) and his contribution “Rechts­philosophie” to the “Handbuch der Philosophie” (1934).

 

For more information, please see:

 

Karl Polak (Ed.): Festschrift Arthur Baumgarten zu seinem 70. Geburtstag, Berlin: VEB Deutscher Zentralverlag, 1960;

 

Gerd Irrlitz: Rechtsordnung und Ethik der Solidarität – Der Strafrechtler und Philosoph Arthur Baumgarten, Berlin 2008;

 

Christina Peschel: Arthur Baumgarten, in: Rechtsgeschichts­wissenschaft in Deutschland 1945 bis 1952, ed. Horst Schröder, Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 2001, S. 129-150;

 

August Simonius: Wissenschaftliche Weltanschauung und Rechts­wis­sen­schaft – Zur Rechtsphilosophie Arthur Baumgartens, in: Zeit­schrift für Schwei­zerisches Recht, ed. Eduard His, N. S. vol. 49, Basel: Hel­bing & Lichtenhahn, 1930.

 

 

 

[Selected Works of the Same Author]

 

Arthur Baumgarten: Die Wissenschaft vom Recht und ihre Methode, 2 vols., Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1920/ 1922 (reprint Aalen: Scientia, 1978); Idem: Erkenntnis, Wissenschaft, Philo­sophie – Erkenntniskritische und methodologische Prolegomena zu einer Philosophie der Moral und des Rechts, Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1927 (reprint Aalen: Scientia, 1978); Idem: Der Weg des Menschen – Eine Philosophie der Moral und des Rechts, Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1933 (reprint 1978); Idem: Rechtsphilosophie, in: Handbuch der Philosophie, Section IV: Staat und Geschichte, München/ Berlin: R. Oldenbourg, 1934, pp. 3 ss.; Idem: Grund­züge der juristischen Methodenlehre, Bern 1939 (reprint, ed. Hermann Klenner: Freiburg im Breisgau: Rudolf Haufe, 2005); Idem: Die Geschichte der abendländischen Philosophie – Eine Geschichte des geistigen Fortschritts der Menschheit, Genève: Imprimérie de St. Gervais, 1945; Idem: Die Entwicklung der Idee der Demokratie und des Rechtsstaates in der Neuzeit, Stuttgart: Fritz Mittelbach, 1946; Idem: Ansprache an Kants 150. Todestage, Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1954; Idem: Bemerkungen zur Erkenntnistheorie des dialek­tischen und historischen Marxismus, Berlin: Akademie-Verlag 1957; Idem: Vom Libera­lismus zum Sozialismus, Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1967; Idem: Rechts­philosophie auf dem Wege – Vor­träge und Auf­sätze aus fünf Jahrzehnten, Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1972.

 

 

 

20 November 2017                                                                     Michael Walter Hebeisen