Csaba Varga

Reedition of papers in English spanning from 1986 to 2009 /// Historical background -- An imposed legacy -- Twentieth century contemporaneity -- Appendix: The philosophy of teaching legal philosophy in Hungary /// HISTORICAL BACKGROUND -- PHILOSOPHY OF LAW IN CENTRAL & EASTERN EUROPE: A SKETCH OF HISTORY [1999] 11–21 // PHILOSOPHISING ON LAW IN THE TURMOIL OF COMMUNIST TAKEOVER IN HUNGARY (TWO PORTRAITS, INTERWAR AND POSTWAR: JULIUS MOÓR & ISTVÁN LOSONCZY) [2001–2002] 23–39: Julius Moór 23 / István Losonczy 29 // ON THE SURVIVAL OF ILMAR TAMMELO’S LETTER AND MANUSCRIPT ADDRESSED TO PROFESSOR MOÓR [2009] 41–44 // PROFESSIONAL DISTRESS AND SCARCITY: ALEXANDER HORVÁTH AND THE LEGACY OF NATURAL LAW IN HUNGARY [2005] 45–50 // HUNGARIAN LEGAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE 20TH CENTURY [2011] 51–72: I. The Pre-war Period [1. Bódog (Felix) Somló (1871–1920) 52] / II. The Inter-war Period [2. Gyula (Julius) Moór (1888–1950) 54 / 3. Barna Horváth (1896–1973) 55 / 4. József Szabó (1909–1992) 57 / 5. István Bibó (1911–1979) 58 / 6. Tibor Vas (1911–1983) 59 / 7. István Losonczy (1918–1980) 60] III. The Post-war Period (Communism) 61 [8. Imre Szabó (1912–1991) 62 / 9. Vilmos Peschka (1929–2006) 63 / 10. Kálmán Kulcsár (1928–2010) 65] IV. Contemporary Trends and Perspectives 66 [11. Csaba Varga (b. 1941) 66 / 12. András Sajó (b. 1949) 69 / 13. Béla Pokol (b. 1950) 70] V. Our Understanding of the Law Today 71 --- AN IMPOSED LEGACY -- LOOKING BACK [1999] 75–94: 1. On Ideologies and Marxism in general 75 / 2. Life of an Intellectual in Communism 79 / 3. On Marxism and its Socialist Cultivation in Particular 82 / 4. Legal Philosophising [4.1. Approaches to Law 87 / 4.2. Arriving at a Legal Ontology 91] 5. Conclusion 94 // LEGAL PHILOSOPHY OF THE MARXISM OF SOCIALISM: HUNGARIAN OVERVIEW IN AN INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE [2003] 95–151: I. Development and Balance of Marxist Philosophising on Law in Hungary [1. Preliminaries (until 1948) 96 / 2. Stalinism (from the Soviet Occupation on) {a) Liquidation of the »Residues« 98 / b) Soviet-type Uniformisation [Gleichschaltung] 99 / c) Denial of the Past, with a Dual Effect 99 / d) »Socialist Legality«, Drawn from the Progressive Past of Western Europe 103 / e) Search for the Germs of Scholarly Evolution 103} 3. Institutionalisation Accompanied by Relaxation (from the 1960s) [a) Epigonism Becoming the Scholarly Ideal 104 / b) Stalinism in a Critical Self-perspective 105 / c) Disciples Diversified Launching their own Trends 107 / d) Comparatism 110 / e) (Re)discovery of the Western Legal Philosophy as a Competitor 112 / f) A Leading Mediatory Role within the »Socialist World Order« 114} 4. Disintegration (in the 1980s) {a) Attempt at Laying New Foundations for Marxism with Epigonism Exhausted 115 / b) Competitive Trends Becoming Exclusive 115 / c) Western Legal Philosophy Acknowledged as a Fellow-traveller within the Socialist Orbit Proper 116 / d) Hungarian Legal Theory Transforming into a National Corpus 118 / e) The Practical Promotion of Some Balance 119} 5. End-game for a Substitute State Religion (in the 1990s) 120] II. Marxist Legal Philosophising in an International Perspective [Ad 1: To the Preliminaries 122 / Ad 2: To Stalinism 124 / Ad 3: To Institutionalisation Accompanied by Relaxation {a) Late Separation from Vishinskiy’s Theory 125 / b) From Ideological Self-closure to an Apparently Scholarly Openness 127 / c) From Political Ideology to Genuine Scholarship 130 / d) International Recognition of Socialist Jurisprudence as an Independent Trend 135 / e) Together with Western Trends 137} Ad 4: To Disintegration {a) Loss of Attraction as Mere Epigonism 139 / b) Exclusivity of Competing Trends 139 / c) Fellowship with »Bourgeois« Trends 140 / d) An own Trend, Internationally Recognised 141 / e) A yet Progressive Role 142} Ad 5: To the Present state 143] III. A Temporary Balance 145 // AUTONOMY AND INSTRUMENTALITY OF LAW IN A SUPERSTRUCTURAL PERSPECTIVE [1986] 151–175: 1. The Strange Fate of Concepts 151 / I. A Relational Category 2. Basis and Superstructure: The Genuine Meaning 154 / 3. Exerting Social Influence as a Conceptual Minimum 156 / 4. Relationships within the Prevailing Totality 158 / 5. Attempts at Interpretation in Hungary 159 / 6. The Lukácsian Stand 162 / 7. Lukács’s Recognitions 168 / 8. Some Criticism 169 / II. The Law’s Understanding 171 / 9. Law Interpreted as Superstructure 171 / 10. Conclusions Drawn for the Law’s Understanding 173 // LEGAL THEORY IN TRANSITION (A PREFACE FROM HUNGARY) [2000] 177–186 // DEVELOPMENT OF THEORETICAL LEGAL THOUGHT IN HUNGARY AT THE TURN OF THE MILLENNIUM [2006] 187–215: 1. International Environment 188 / 2. The Situation in Hungary 190 / 3. Outlook I: The Historical-comparative Study of Legal Cultures and of the Lawyerly Way of Thinking 203 / 4. Outlook II: The Paradigmatic Enigma of the Transition to Rule of Law 207 / 5. Incongruity in Practice 213 / 6. Perspectives 214 --- TWENTIETH CENTURY CONTEMPORANEITY -- CHANGE OF PARADIGMS IN LEGAL RECONSTRUCTION: CARL SCHMITT AND THE TEMPTATION TO FINALLY REACH A SYNTHESIS [2002] 219–234: 1. Dangers of Intellectualism 219 / 2. Schmitt in Facts 221 / 3. Schmitt and Kelsen 222 / 4. On Bordering Conditions 226 / 5. With Kelsen in Transubstantiation 230 / 6. Polarisation as the Path of Theoretical Development 232 // KELSENIAN DOCUMENTS IN HUNGARY: CHAPTERS ON CONTACTS, INCLUDING THE GENESIS OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY [2006] 235–243: 1. Preludes 235 / 2. The Search for Moór’s Bequeath 235 / 3. Moór’s Collegiality 238 / 4. Bibó as a Disciple Translating 241 // THE »HART-PHENOMENON« [2002] 245–267: I. The Hart-miracle 246 [1. The Scene of Britain at the Time 247 / 2. The Personal Career 250 / 3. The Opus’ Career 252 / 4. Verbal Sociologism 255 / 5. Growing into the British Pattern 259] II. The Hart-phenomenon 260 [6. Origination of a Strange Orthodoxy 261 / 7. Mastering Periods of the 20th Century 263 / 8. Raising the Issue of Reception in Hungary 365] // LITERATURE? A SUBSTITUTE FOR LEGAL PHILOSOPHY? [2007] 269–287: 1. The Enigma of Law and its Study 269 / 2. “Law and Literature” 271 / 3. Varieties of “Law and Literature” 274 / 4. The German Study of Artistic Representations 280 / 5. Some Literary Reconsiderations 285 / 6. Conclusion 287 --- APPENDIX -- THE PHILOSOPHY OF TEACHING LEGAL PHILOSOPHY IN HUNGARY [2007] 291–320: I. Why and How to Philosophise in Law? 291 / II. The State of Teaching Legal Philosophy 294 / III. The Philosophy of Teaching Legal Philosophy 296 / IV. Programme at the Catholic University of Hungary 300 [1. Graduate Studies 300 {a) Basic Subjects 301 / b) Facultative Seminars 305 / c) Closing Subjects 309 / d) Written Memoranda and the Thesis 312} 2. Postgraduate Studies 313 / 3. Conclusion 317] V. Perspectives 318 /// Index of Subjects 321 / Index of Normative Materials 328 / Index of Names 329

Disciplinary issues -- Field studies -- Appendix: Theory of law : legal ethnography, or, the theoretical fruits of the inquiries into folkways. /// Reedition of papers in English spanning from 1995 to 2008 /// DISCIPLINARY ISSUES -- LAW AS CULTURE? [2002] 9–14 // TRENDS IN COMPARATIVE LEGAL STUDIES [2002] 15–17 // COMPARATIVE LEGAL CULTURES: ATTEMPTS AT CONCEPTUALISATION [1997] 19–28: 1. Legal Culture in a Cultural-anthropological Approach 19 / 2. Legal Culture in a Sociological Approach 21 / 3. Timely Issues of Central and Eastern Europe 24 // COMPARATIVE LEGAL CULTURES? [2001] 29–48: 1. Legal Comparativism Challenged 29 / 2. Comparative Legal Cultures versus Comparative Law 34 / 3. Contrasting Fields 40 [a) The Historical Understanding of Socialist Law 42 / b) Convergence of Civil Law and Common Law 44] 4. Concluding Remarks 46 // THEATRUM LEGALE MUNDI: ON LEGAL SYSTEMS CLASSIFIED [2005] 49–75: 1. Preliminaries 49 / 2. Proposals 50 / 3. Impossible Taxonomy, or the Moment of Practicality in Legal Mapping 69 / 4. Diversity as a Fundamental Quality of Human Existence 74 // LEGAL TRADITIONS? IN SEARCH FOR FAMILIES AND CULTURES IN LAW [2004] 77–97: 1. Comparative Law and the Comparative Study of Legal Traditions 78 / 2. ‘System’, ‘Family’, ‘Culture’, and ‘Tradition’ in the Classification of Law 80 / 3. Different Traditions, Differing Ways of Thinking 85 / 4. Different Expectations, Differings Institutionalisations in Law 88 / 5. Different “Rationalities”, Differing “Logics” 92 / 6. Mentality in Foundation of the Law 94 / 7. Defining a Subject for Theoretical Research in Law 96 // SOMETHING NEW, SOMETHING OLD IN THE EUROPEAN IDENTITY OF LAW? [1995] 99–102 --- FIELD STUDIES -- MEETING POINTS BETWEEN THE TRADITIONS OF ENGLISH–AMERICAN COMMON LAW AND CONTINENTAL-FRENCH CIVIL LAW: DEVELOPMENTS AND EXPERIENCE OF POSTMODERNITY IN CANADA [2002] 105–130: I. Canadian Law in General 105 / II. Canadian Legal Developments in Particular [1. The Transformation of the Role of Precedents 112 / 2. The Transformation of Law-application into a Collective, Multicultural and Multifactorial Search for a Solution 116 / 3. Practical Trends of Dissolving the Law’s Positivity 120 / 4. New Prerogatives Acquired by Courts 125 {a) Unfolding the Statutory Provisons in Principles 126 / b) Constitutionalisation of Issues 127 / c) The Supreme Court as the Nation’s Supreme Moral Authority 129}] // MAN ELEVATING HIMSELF? DILEMMAS OF RATIONALITY IN OUR AGE [2000] 131–163: I. Reason and its Adventures 1. Progress and Advance Questioned 131 / 2. The Human Search for Safety Objectified 133 / 3. Knowledge Separated from Wisdom 135 / 4. Pure Intellectuality thereby Born 137 / II. The Will-Element Formalised in Law 5. Mere Voluntas in the Foundation of Legal Positivism 141 / 6. Formalism with Operations Fragmented 145 / III. The State of America Exemplified 7. “Slouching into Gomorrah” 147 / IV. Consequences 8. Utopianism-cum-Voluntarism 154 / 9. With Logic in Posterior Control of Human Formulations Only 159 / V. Perspectives 10. And a Final Resolution Dreamed about 161 // RULE OF LAW? MANIA OF LAW? ON THE BOUNDARY BETWEEN RATIONALITY AND ANARCHY IN AMERICA [2002] 165–180: {Transformation of American Law and Legal Mentality 165 / With Repercussions on the Underlying Ethos 168 / Legislation through Processualisation 170 / With Hyperrationalism Added 172 / Example: Finding Lost Property 172 / Practicalness Veiled by Verbal Magic 173 / Ending in Jurispathy 175 / Transubstantiating the Self-interest of the Legal Profession 178 / Post-modernity, Substituting for Primitiveness 178} // TRANSFERS OF LAW: A CONCEPTUAL ANALYSIS [2003] 181–207: 1. Terms 182 / 2. Technicality 190 / 3. Contrasts in Transfers of Law 200 {Contrasts 200 / Criticisms 202 / Alternatives205} 4. Conclusions 206 // THE DANGERS FOR THE SELF OF BEING SELF-CENTRED: ON STANDARDS AND VALUES [2002] 209–212 --- APPENDIX -- THEORY OF LAW – LEGAL ETHNOGRAPHY, OR THE THEORETICAL FRUITS OF THE INQUIRIES INTO FOLKWAYS [2008] 213–234 1. Encounters 213 / 2. Disciplines 218 / 3. The Lawyerly Interest 223 / 4. Law and/or Laws 226 / 5. Conclusion 233 --- Index of Subjects 235 / Index of Normative Materials 242 / Index 244

1. Law and morals as two systems of norms, and the inner morality of law 2. Law as a value bearer and as a mere external indicator 3. The inner and external moral credit of legislator 4. The inner morality of law. As to the last paragraph, the most striking feature of the inner morality of law is that it is such a possible characteristic, surplus quality which is not a sine qua non, which law is conceivable without. However, it is a question whether law can long do without it? In principle, the legislator is free in deciding on what legal consequence he attaches to what course of conduct14 and it is also desirable that legal concepts be freed from moral overtones. Nevertheless, the legal complex cannot be torn out of its social context, nor can it steadily conflict with other complexes (religions, moral, or political values, norms and ideologies) law is to develop in living interrelationship with. Otherwise, it is subject to danger that (I) law-observance in average cases is weakened; (2) the reified functioning of and approach to law are strengthened and make law alienated; and (3) it blurs the social objectives the law intends to serve and, especially in hard cases, makes its application rootless and floating. A pathological situation only becomes more pathological, if the pathology of contents is accompanied by the pathology of means. Or, it brings the promise of real solution closer, if the adequateness of means also provides, by the strength of publicity, for the direct mobilization of society. That explains why it is a topical question what I have proposed to term the inner morality of law. [For the text, see my L&Ph, 77–89]

Photomechanical reprint of papers & review articles from 1974 to 1992 mostly in German, some in Swedish or Danish: AUFSÄTZE ‘Beiträge zu den Beziehungen zwischen Gustav Radbruch & Georg Lukács’ [1979] / ‘Die Entwicklung des rechtstheoretischen Denkens in der Ungarischen Räterepublik’ [1969] / ‘Die Kodifikation & ihr Verfall in der Entwicklungsgeschichte der bürgerlichen Demokratie’ [1978] / ‘Rationalitet och rättens objektifiering’ [1975] / ‘Utopi og Kodifikation’ [1976] / ‘Historisches Wesen & aktuelle Bedeutung der Kodifikation’ [1977] / ‘Rechtssetzung als Objektivationsprozesses’ [1979] / ‘Die ministerielle Begründung in rechtsphilosophischer Sicht’ [1977] / ‘Moderne Staatlichkeit & modernes formales Recht’ [1982] / ‘Leibniz & die Frage der rechtlichen Systembildung’ [1973] / ‘Der Systemcharacter des Rechts’ [1979] / ‘Die grundlegende Gesellschaftlichkeit der Rechtsanwendung’ [1978] / ‘Über die Rechtsanwendung (Ontologische Überlegungen)’ [1986] / ‘Recht & Rechtsverwirklichung (»Juristischer Weltbild«, Subsumption & Manipulation)’ [1979] / ‘Hans Kelsens Rechtsanwendungslehre (Entwicklung, Mehrdeutigkeiten, offene Probleme, Perspektiven)’ [1986] / ‘Geltung des Rechts – Wirksamkeit des Rechts’ [1978] / ‘Heterogeneität & Geltung des Rechts’ [1979] / ‘Hans Kelsens’ Reine Rechtslehre – gestern, heute, morgen’ [1988] / ‘Für die Selbständigkeit der Rechtspolitik’ [1985] / ‘Die Gewaltenteilung (Ideologie & Utopie im politischen Denken)’ [1984] / ‘Rechtskultur – Denkkultur’ [1988] // ZUSAMMENFASSUNGEN / REZENSIONEN [by & on the author]

Photomechanical reprint of papers from 1970 to 1992 mostly in English, some in German or French: Foreword 1–4; LAW AS PRACTICE ‘La formation des concepts en sciences juridiques’ 7–33, ‘Geltung des Rechts – Wirksamkeit des Rechts’ 35–42, ‘Macrosociological Theories of Law’ 43–76, ‘Law & its Inner Morality’ 77–89, ‘The Law & its Limits’ 91–96; LAW AS TECHNIQUE ‘Domaine »externe« & domaine »interne« en droit’ 99–117, ‘Die ministerielle Begründung’ 119–139, ‘The Preamble’ 141–167, ‘Presumption & Fiction’ 169–185, ‘Legal Technique’187–198; LAW AS LOGIC ‘Moderne Staatlichkeit und modernes formales Recht’ 201–207, ‘Heterogeneity & Validity of Law’ 209–218, ‘Leibniz & die Frage der rechtlichen Systembildung’ 219–232, ‘Law & its Approach as a System’ 233–255, ‘Logic of Law & Judicial Activity’ 258–288, ‘Kelsen’s Pure Theory of Law’ 289–293, ‘The Nature of the Judicial Application of Norms’ 295–314; LAW AS EXPERIENCE ‘The Socially Determined Nature of Legal Reasoning’317–374, ‘The Ontological Foundation of Law’ 375–390, ‘Is Law a System of Enactments?’ 391–398, ‘The Uniqueness of National Legal Cultures’ 399–411, ‘Institutions as Systems’ 413–424; LAW AS HISTORY ‘From Legal Customs to Legal Folkways’ 427–436, ‘Anthropological Jurisprudence?’ 437–457, ‘Law as a Social Issue’ 459–475, ‘Law as History?’477–484, ‘Rechtskultur – Denkkultur’ 485–489; w/ Curriculum Vitae & Bibliography, as well as Index & Indexes of normative materials & of names.

Fac simile of documents [mostly letters & dedications] from & to FELIX SOMLÓ (1873–1918) (including by Leonidas Pitamic and Adolf Merkl, among others) & JULIUS MOÓR (1888–1950) (including by M. Stockhammer, Wilhelm Sauer, Karl Petraschek, among others), followed by HANS KELSEN’s Selbstbiographie [February 1927] (15–22 w/ letter, 23) & ILMAR TAMMELO’s only surviving copy of his PhD thesis in his own translation on Kritik zu Prof. Kliimann’s normativistischer Unterscheidung des Privat- und des öffentlichen Rechts [Dorpat, 1942] (63–145), both prepared to the latter; w/ Bibl. & Preface [1995/e] x–xv, as well as documentation in Hungarian on how the Editor could save their rich personal professional library of several thounds volumes and making acquired them by the Library of Parliament in Budapest as its special collection in Anhang (147–156); Personenverzeichnis.

I. Playing a Game II. The Precondition to Mete out a Legal Sanction III. A Non-cognitively Homogeneous Activity IV. The Reproduction of the Law as a System 1. The Claim for Normative Closedness 2. The Openness of the Communication about Facts Rule of law proclaims the ethos of legal distinctiveness through institutionalizing normative closure, while the rule of facts proclaims a legal functioning embedded in facts as rooted in common sense evidence, backed by practical openness in its functioning. All in all, while rule of law argues for the law’s self-differentiation, the rule of facts ascertains why legal enterprise is (notwithstanding the same) what the heterogeneity of everyday practice and experience suggest it is. In the final analysis, I guess that these two aspects are able only in supplementation of one another to serve the common interest in making the law operate in a socially meaningful way. That is, they are to guarantee distinctively legal operation actually taking place, on the one hand, at a time when and under the conditions in which all its normative preconditions are fully met, on the other.

Investingating mediations between the social total complex and its partial complexes, Lukács emphasised language and law as aents having the sole function to mediate. Ideology as part of human's societal existence is itself organic component of the ontology of social existence. The way we think in is part of what we truly are. Juristic world-view as the deontoloy of the legal profession is one of the factors of the law's social existence. Actual decision making in law is modelled by the logic of problem solving with open chanes within an open referential frame, upon which the logic of justification is built as added to the former posteriorly. Lukács designated the settling of the conflict of interests involved through the law's system of fulfilment as manipulation. This substantiates the personal responsibility of the decision maker

The ‘Hart-miracle’, then the ‘Hart-phenomenon’ are analysed through surveying (1) the state of legal philosophising in England preceding Hart, (2) his professional career and (3) the early British reception of his work, including (4) the kinds of criticism as to its methodology and presuppositions as well as (5) its becoming a master type of jurisprudence with Oxford as a centre. Taking it as a mainstream, the continental tradition of encouragement to productive thinking characteristic even of Kelsenism is contrasted with its worldwide reception, by the effect of channelling thinking. Its reception in Hungary with an overview of which trends of legal philosophising of the 20 th century has exerted or failed to exert an impact upon - as echoed by - theorising on law in Hungary is also considered. As concluded, the places in the imaginary Pantheon of 20 th -century legal philosophising occupied by Max Weber and Hans Kelsen (as accompanied by Eugen Ehrlich and Gustav Radbruch who are deemed to have been decisively significant minor masters), representing the first half of the century, are complemented indeed by the places occupied by H. L. A. Hart and Ronald M. Dworkin in representation of the second half of 20 th century.

There are internationally set criteria that apply in the case of a legacy of grave and systematic violations of human rights, generating obligations of the state towards the victims and society. They specify: a right of the victim to see justice done, a right to know the truth, an entitlement to compensation and nonmonetary forms of restitution, as well as a right to reorganized and accountable institutions. Facing the complete failure of implementing the first three points, one can claim that none of them has been fulfilled in Hungary since the fall of Communism, almost one quarter of a century ago. This paper analyses the context in which constitutional adjudication may confront certainty of law with the very idea of justice by putting an end to any progress of leaving the legacy of Communism behind. As a consequence, the Rule of Law becomes a mere simulacrum.

{texts from Western & Eastern Marxism} Introduction xiii–xxvii; ORIGINS L. S. MAMUT ‘Questions of Law in Marx’s Capital’ [1968] 3–10, PETER SCHÖTTLER ‘Friedrich Engels and Karl Kautsky as Critics of »Legal Socialism«’ [1986] 11–42, WILLIAM LEON MCBRIDE ‘The Concept of Justice in Marx, Engels, and Others’ [1975] 43–57; BOUNDARIES WILLIAM LEON MCBRIDE ‘Marxism and Natural Law’ [1970] 61–87, ZDRAVKO GREBO ‘»Kelsenism« and Marxism’ [1985] 89–107, KÁLMÁN KULCSÁR ‘The Historical Concept in the Science of Law of the XXth Century’ [1963] 109–148; TRENDS EUGENE KAMENKA ‘A Marxist Theory of Law?’ [1983] 151–177, R. WARRINGTON ‘Pashukanis and the Commodity Form Theory’ [1981] 179–200, EUGENE KAMENKA ‘Lukács and Law’ [1987] [= books1981/review] 201–208, MICHAEL JAWORSKYJ ‘Soviet Critique of the »Bourgeois« Philosophy of Law’ [1960] 209–232, RICHARD KINSEY ‘Marxism and the Law: Preliminary Analyses’ [1978] 233–258; CONTEMPORARY ISSUES IMRE SZABÓ ‘The Notion of Law’ [1976] 261–270, WIESLAW LANG ‘Law and Morality from a Marxist Point of View’ [1976] 271–286, JERZY KOWALSKI ‘Idea of Equality and the Law’ [1985] 287–291, JERZY WRÓBLEWSKI ‘Problems of Legality in Marxist Theory’ [1976] 293–311, CSABA VARGA ‘Rationality and the Objectification of Laws’ [1975/d] 313–338, LI CHANGDAO ‘The Old Law Cannot Be Critically Inherited, It Can Only Be Used as a Mirror’ [1980] 339–343; PERSPECTIVES FOR SOCIO-LEGAL ANALYSIS IMRE SZABÓ ‘The Social Limits of Law’ [1972] 347–359, CSABA VARGA ‘Towards a Sociological Concept of Law: An Analysis of Lukács’ Ontology’ [1981/a] 361–378, STEVEN SPITZER ‘Marxist Perspectives in the Sociology of Law’ [1983] 379–400, PETER FITZPATRICK ‘Marxism and Legal Pluralism’ [1983] 401–415; LAW AND IDEOLOGY KÁLMÁN KULCSÁR ‘Ideological Changes and the Legal Structure: A Discussion of Socialist Experience’ [1980] 419–439, ALAN HUNT ‘The Ideology of Law: Advances and Problems in Recent Applications of the Concept of Ideology to the Analysis of Law’ [1985] 441–467, ALAN STONE ‘The Place of Law in the Marxian Structure–Superstructure Archetype’ [1985] 469–497; FINAL ACCOUNT CSABA VARGA ‘Liberty, Equality and the Conceptual Minimum of Legal Mediation’ [1989/a] 501–523; w/ Name Index.

Classical texts of continental legal theorising in Hungarian translation: RUDOLF VON JHERING: Kampf ums Recht [1872] / EUGEN EHRLICH: Freie Rechtsfindung und freie Rechtswissenschaft [1903] / HERMANN KANTOROWICZ: Der Kampf um die Rechtswissenschaft [1906] / RUDOLF STAMMLER: Richtiges Recht [1908] & excerpts from his Theorie der Rechtswissenschaft [1911/1923] & Richtiges Recht [1921] / FRANÇOIS GÉNY: Science et technique en droit privé positif [1924: excerpts] / GUSTAV RADBRUCH: Rechtsphilosophie [1932: excerpts] / HANS KELSEN ‘The Pure Theory of Law and Analytical Jurisprudence’ [1941] & ‘The Law as a Specific Social Technique’ [1941] & ‘Value Judgments in the Science of Law’ [1942] / GUSTAV RADBRUCH ‘Gesetzliches Unrecht und übergesetzliches Recht’ [1946] / ALEXANDRE PASSERIN D’ENTRÈVES ‘Le droit naturel’ [1959] / HANS KELSEN ‘What is Justice?’ [1960] & ‘Positivisme juridique et doctrine du droit naturel’ [1963].

La 4e de couverture indique : "The author introduces the reader to reasoning in law through the possilities, boundaries and traps of assuming personal responsibility and impersonal pattern adoption that have arisen in the history of human thought and in the various legal cultures. He discloses actual processes hidden by the veil of patterns followed in thinking, processes that we encounter both in our conceptual-logical quests for certainties and in the undertaking of fertilising ambiguity. When trying to identify definitions lurking behind the human construct of facts, nitons, norms, logic, and thinking, or behind the practice of giving meanings, he discovers tradition in our presuppositions, and our world-view and moral stance in our tacit agreements. Recognising the importance of the role communication plays in shaping society, he describes our existence and institutions as self-regulating processes. Since law is a wholly social venture, we not only take part in its oeuvre with our entire personality, but are also collectively responsible for its destiny. In the final analysis, anything can be qualified as 'legal' or 'non-legal' in one or another recognised sense in which law can originate, but, as a relative totality, it can only be qualified as 'more legal' or 'less legal' in any combination of the above senses. Being formed in an uninterrupted process, neither the totality nor particular pieces of law can be taken as complete or unchangeably identical with itself. Therefore law can only be identified through its motions and computable states of 'transforming into' or 'withdrawing from' the distinctive domain of the law. Thereby both society at large and its legal professionals actually contribute to -by shaping incessantly- what presents itself as ready-to-take, according to the law's official ideology. For our initation, play, role-undertaking and human responsibility lurk behind the law's formal mask in the backstage. Or, this equals to realise that all we have become subjects from mere objects, actors from mere addressees. And despite the variety of civilisational overcoasts, the entire culture of law is still exclusively inherent in us who experience it day to day. We bear it and shape it. Everything coventional in it is convenctionalised by us. It has no further existence or effect bexond this. And with its existence inherent in us, we cannot convey the responsibility to be born for it on somebody else either. It is ours in its totality so much that it cannot be torn out of our days or acts. It will thus turn into what we guard it to become. Therefore we must take care of it at all times since we are, in many ways, taking care of our own"

The ‘Hart-miracle’, then the ‘Hart-phenomenon’ are analysed through surveying (1) the state of legal philosophising in England preceding Hart, (2) his professional career and (3) the early British reception of his work, including (4) the kinds of criticism as to its methodology and presuppositions as well as (5) its becoming a master type of jurisprudence with Oxford as a centre. Taking it as a mainstream, the continental tradition of encouragement to productive thinking characteristic even of Kelsenism is contrasted with its worldwide reception, by the effect of channelling thinking. Its reception in Hungary with an overview of which trends of legal philosophising of the 20 th century has exerted or failed to exert an impact upon - as echoed by - theorising on law in Hungary is also considered. As concluded, the places in the imaginary Pantheon of 20 th -century legal philosophising occupied by Max Weber and Hans Kelsen (as accompanied by Eugen Ehrlich and Gustav Radbruch who are deemed to have been decisively significant minor masters), representing the first half of the century, are complemented indeed by the places occupied by H. L. A. Hart and Ronald M. Dworkin in representation of the second half of 20 th century.

Legal philosopher Varga introduces readers to reasoning in law by leading them through the possibilities, boundaries, and traps of assuming personal responsibility and impersonal pattern adoption that have arisen in the history of human thought and in the various legal cultures. He seeks to reveal the actual processed hidden by the veil of patterns that are followed in thinking, processed that people encounter both in conceptual-logical quests for certainties and in the undertaking of fertilizing ambiguity. The original Hungarian Eloadasok a jogi gondolkad'e paradigmairol was published by Osiris, Budapest in 1999. Distributed in the US by ISBS. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.

Investingating mediations between the social total complex and its partial complexes, Lukács emphasised language and law as aents having the sole function to mediate. Ideology as part of human’s societal existence is itself organic component of the ontology of social existence. The way we think in is part of what we truly are. Juristic world-view as the deontoloy of the legal profession is one of the factors of the law’s social existence. Actual decision making in law is modelled by the logic of problem solving with open chanes within an open referential frame, upon which the logic of justification is built as added to the former posteriorly. Lukács designated the settling of the conflict of interests involved through the law’s system of fulfilment as manipulation. This substantiates the personal responsibility of the decision maker.