How much of Aristotle’s Four Causes can be Found in the German Legal Method to Interpret Laws?

Abstract

In Germany, legal students learn in their first trimester how to use their reason to interpret the law with regard to four canons or objectives: grammatical, historical, systematical and teological interpretation. If you take a look at German course books on legal methodology you will likely find reference to the first three objectives citing Friedrich Carl von Savigny¹. Why exactly these four objectives are used, and not more or fewer, is rarely discussed. However, the interpretation of German laws stands on a firm, but unknown, basis: the Aristotelian Theory of Four Causes. Besides these, which relate to the history of ideas and the theory of cognition, finding the basis of the legal method of interpretation is concerned with the philosophy of science as its sound standing is tested. What is more, new research areas could be discovered not only with regard to Aristotle, but as well for jurisprudence and any other humanities that hold a method to interpret text, e. g. theology, philosophy, psychology, history, etc. If that is the case, the Theory of Four Causes could form a potential fundament for some sort of general hermeneutics; being at least a matrix for different interpretational disciplines, to further analyse not only the similarities and differences in their methods of interpretation, but as well the reasons for them.