Exploring the Paradigms of Private Law

The chapter sketches an approach referred to as ‘exploring legal paradigms’. The approach examines legal reasoning by focusing its attention not on the explicitly given arguments as in doctrinal analysis, but rather on the paradigms underlying legal argumentation. As will be explained in the chapter in greater detail, the term paradigm stands for methods, techniques, principles, commonly shared attitudes, basic beliefs, and value judgments within an academic community. It is argued that the proposed approach can help to make hidden assumptions about the law more visible, reveal the extent to which path dependencies have an impact on the evolution of jurisprudence and heighten awareness of the fact that discursive practices and stylistic choices have influence over the perception of the topic at hand.