Abstract
Forty years after Antonio Gramsci’s death1 Maureen Cain presents his philosophy of praxis to the audience of sociology of law. Her aim is to develop “a theory (of law) which can be an effective guide for action.”2 This perspective may seem rather anomalous to the scientific community, and it does indeed oppose a traditional notion of “science”: according to Gramsci there are no adequate differences between science and “common sense.”3 The line of argumentation can be reconstructed as follows: knowledge, science, philosophy, “the true” are closely bound up with life experience (and this refers back to the class specificity of living conditions). Whose philosophy or science wins the prize of recognition, is not a question of “truth” but of “hegemonic control,” i.e. of ideological domination. Therefore it is a waste of time and of energy to attempt to “disprove” bourgeois theories — it is necessary to fight against them, and this is an ideological and a political task. Gramsci’s position is illustrated in statements such as... “Everyone is a philosopher,”4 “the real philosopher is... the active man,”5 and “revolution is today.”6
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References
Gramsci died in 1937, 46 years old, after long years of imprisonment by the Italian Fascists. He wrote most of his analyses in prison.
Cf. the article of M. Cain, p. 36.
Ibid., p. 21.
Ibid., p. 21.
Ibid., p. 24.
Ibid., p. 41.
Thurman W. Arnold, “Law as Symbolism,” in: V. Aubert (ed.), Sociology of Law, Harmondsworth, Penguin Books, 1969, p. 47.
Only on a very sophisticated level is the expression of this “truth” tolerated; e.g. by quoting the old dictum “The law is the whore of politics.”
M. Cain, loc. cit., p. 38.
Ibid., p. 37.
Ibid., p. 37.
Cf. M. Cain’s critique of Althusser’s position, loc. cit., p. (m. 12).
Ibid.
Ibid., p. 30.
This is best illustrated by calling attention to one fundamental prerequisite of political participation which is by no means equally distributed in the societies under consideration: the capability to articulate one’s interests.
At the 1976 convention of the German Sociological Association Nils Christie (Oslo) developed a rather “radical” model of conflict resolution; under the title “Conflicts as property” he pleaded for giving back the conflicts to their “owners” in order to allow them to learn from the process of resolution instead of getting dependent from “professional thieves” (i.e. the lawyers)!
Cf. Niklas Luhmann, Legitimation durch Verfahren, Neuwied 1969.
M. Cain, loc. cit., p. 21.
This was properly recognized by the Nazis who consistently oppressed and persecuted all social scientists.
M. Cain, loc. cit., p. 25.
Ibid., p. 25.
A. Podgorecki, “Legal Consciousness As A Research Problem,” p. 86.
Ibid., p. 88; the last quotation is taken from a Swedish research.
Ibid., p. 89.
Ibid., p. 93.
See above, note 10.
R. Treves, “Two Sociologies of Law,” p. 125.
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© 1977 Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, Netherlands
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Kaupen, W. (1977). Comment. In: Blegvad, BM., Campbell, C.M., Schuyt, C.J. (eds) European Yearbook in Law and Sociology 1977. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-1195-7_11
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-1195-7_11
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