The evolution of western legal consciousness

Abstract

There is a marked difference between the nature and structure of western law in both its civil and common law forms and the of non-western legal systems. Non-western societies have adopted, or are in the process of adopting western mathematics, science, and law. All three are abstract, theoretical, systematic, and universalizable. Non-western systems in general are what the legal historian Sir Henry Maine called laws of status since one’s position before the law was based on race, family, gender, and order of birth.The western idea of law first emerged in classical Rome. The article traces this transformation in legal consciousness to the impact of Greek mathematics, science, and philosophy and explains how the early Roman jurists used these perspectives to create a legal science for Rome’s emerging commercial empire. Contemporary western law in all its various forms emerged in the same way as contemporary mathematics and science, evolving from that transformation of consciousness from mythos to logos that marks the origin of western civilization.