On Making Implicit Methodologies Explicit

Abstract

This article consists of three interrelated parts: the first describes an impasse in which the development of scientific research in the field of law seems to be caught in the Netherlands. A description of the legal sciences in terms of one science consisting of a number of scientific specialties, each with its own specific object definition and (often implicit) methodology will, we hope, relieve jurists working along traditional lines of any doubts as to their scientific quality, while at the same time creating a climate in which new scientific specialties can flourish. In the second part we discuss and integrate scientific publications concerning subject-matter and method in Dutch scientific research in the field of law within a dynamic scientific framework, defining scientific work in a number of specialist fields in terms of different stages of development. Starting from the concepts “rule” and “stages in thinking”, the third part is an attempt to develop a workable strategy by which methodologies in scientific field of law can be made explicit.