C SABA V ARGA (b. 1941)

CSABAVARGAstarted out with a historical comparative analysis investigat-ing the functional needs served by the objectification the law undergoes as it is codified to make it more rational,⁵⁵and he went on to develop an onto-logy of law on the model of LUKÁCS’ ontology of the social being.⁵⁶These

66 HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

53 Kálmán Kulcsár Modernization and Law(Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó 1992) 282 pp.

54 A role in removing the politically imposed ideological restrictions was played as well, from the 1960s on, by MIHÁLYSAMU(1929– ) and ZOLTÁNPÉTERI(1930– ), among others.

SAMUcame out with several monographs discussing the call for a socialist legal policy, a policy to be shaped by relying on both legal scholarship and statutory enactment (so as to mediate between the making and the application of law), the aim being to enable law’s autonomy to strengthen social autonomy. PÉTERI, on the other hand, called for a socialist legal axiology (while also engaging in exercises in the methodology of comparative law). See Ius unum, lex multiplexLiber Amicorum: Studia Z. Péteri dedicata [Studies in comparative law, theory of state, and legal philosophy] ed. István H. Szilágyi & Máté Paksy (Budapest: Szent István Tár-sulat 2005) 573 [+ 10] pp. [Jogfilozófiák / Bibliotheca Iuridica: Libri amicorum 13].

55 Csaba Varga Codification as a Socio-Historical Phenomenon(Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó 1991) viii + 391 pp. {&, as to its 2^nd{reprint} ed. with an Annex & Postscript (Budapest: Szent István Társulat 2011) viii + 431 pp., also

<http://drcsabavarga.wordpress.com/2010/10/25/varga-codification-as-a-socio-historical-phenomenon-1991/>}.

56 Csaba Varga The Place of Law in Lukács’World Concept(Budapest:Akadémiai Kiadó 1985 [21998]) 193 pp. {&, as to its 3rd [reprint] ed. with Postface (Budapest: Szent István Társulat 2012) 218 pp.,

<http://drcsabavarga.wordpress.com/2012/03/13/the-place-of-law-in-lukacs-world-concept-19852012/>}.

investigations became for him the basis on which to proceed in subjecting any epistemologising of the law—i.e., any attempt to identify the law’s po-wer to reflect reality—to an overall ontological assessment of the law’s structural make-up and operation. The lawyer’s ideology (usually treated as a false ideology, along the lines of F^RIEDRICH E^NGELS’ juristische Welt-anschauung) thus came be one of the law’s ontic components. At the same time, he used his ontological reconstruction to respond to the “moderni-sation and law” enigma as well. Namely, if we accept that the law’s comp-lexity is owed in part to its ontology, then any built-in (ontological) element (impetus or stimulus) will inevitably march on as irreversible part of the law’s overall process. This means that all-embracing reforms can be pur-sued, after all.

From the mid-1980s onward, he devoted himself to treating law as a language game in legal discourse, a game and discourse generating new conventionalisations in an endless sequence. Consequently, the law’s iden-tity is defined by the process that produces it rather than by the source of its validity. Or, stated otherwise, cognition and law alike—the former ve-rifiable only by humans, the latter canonisable only by professionals—are autopoietic processes.⁵⁷Instead of viewing law in the developmental tricho-tomy of objectification, reification, and alienation alone and without the moment of human involvement, VARGAnow reveals law’s genuine roots and the unavoidable responsibility we all share as to its future shape.⁵⁸

His conclusion was anticipated by two thinkers under whom he studied and with whom he thereafter maintained a friendship: MICHEL VILLEY

(with his concept of dikaion) and CHAÏM PERELMAN(with the praxis com-ponent of his notion of auditoire universel). It is a conclusion that V^ARGAhas complemented with the T^HOMistic conception of the fullness of the human being, active in every situation. The basic claim that legal positivism makes as to what is law thus turns out to be no more than a desideratum; for there is a never-ending rivalry—between (1) the officials entrusted with making

Hungarian Legal Philosophy in the 20^thCentury 67

57 Csaba Varga Theory of the Judicial ProcessThe Establishment of Facts (Budapest: Akadé-miai Kiadó 1995) vii + 249 pp. {&, as to its 2nd {reprint} ed. with Postfaces I and II (Buda-pest: Szent István Társulat 2011) viii + 308 pp.,

<http://drcsabavarga.wordpress.com/2012/03/13/varga-theory-of-the-judicial-process-the-establishment-of-facts-19952011/>}.

58 Csaba Varga Lectures on the Paradigms of Legal Thinking (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó 1999) vii + 279 pp. [Philosophiae Iuris] {&, as to its definitive version,The Paradigms of Legal Thinkingenlarged 2nd ed. (Budapest: Szent István Társulat 2012) 418 pp. [Philosophiae Iuris],

<http://www.scribd.com/doc/85083788/VARGA-ParadigmsOfLegalThinking-2012>}.

law, on the one hand, and (2) those entrusted with applying it, on the other—as to who will control the way the law is to be defined, and the pro-cess is further complicated in society (3) by the spontaneous emergence of popular practices bearing on the same issue.⁵⁹

In this connection there also emerges the problem of the historicity of law, with the opposition between universalism and particularism.⁶⁰Which is to say that such familiar constructs as “rule of law”, or the German

“Rechtsstaatlichkeit”, far from belonging to the realm of the universal, are particular historical formations developed and applied in response to spe-cific challenges under spespe-cific cultural conditions.⁶¹Which in turn means that any final ideal of law cannot resolve itself into anything more certain or universal than the outcome of a responsible and responsive mediation, where law can actually balance conflicting rules, principles, interests, and values—a process that for this reason carries weight and must be taken se-riously.⁶²

As to European law, he sees its actual working as exerting from the be-ginning a destructive impact upon the bounds once erected by the natio-nal laws’ anchorage in the traditions of legal positivism. For and by its ope-ration, the European law—whose efficacious operation is achieved by

68 HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

59 Csaba Varga Law and Philosophy Selected Papers in Legal Theory (Budapest: ELTE Comparative Legal Cultures Project 1994) xi + 530 pp. [Philosophiae Iuris] {& <http://drcsa- bavarga.wordpress.com/2010/10/25/varga-law-and-philosophy-–-papers-in-legal-theory-1994/>}.

60 Csaba Varga Transition to Rule of Law On the Democratic Transformation in Hungary (Budapest: ELTE Comparative Legal Cultures Project 1995) 190 pp. [Philosophiae Iuris] {&

<http://drcsabavarga.wordpress.com/2010/10/24/transition-to-rule-of-law-on-the-democra-tic-transformation-in-hungary-1995/>}.

61 By Csaba Varga,Transition? To Rule of Law?Constitutionalism and Transitional Justice Challenged in Central & Eastern Europe (Pomáz: Kráter 2008) 292 pp. [PoLíSz Series 7] {&

<http://drcsabavarga.wordpress.com/2010/10/25/varga-transition-to-rule-of-law-–-consti-tutionalism-and-transitional-justice-challenged-in-central-and-eastern-europe-2008/>} and Válaszúton – húsz év múltánVitában jogunk alapjairól és céljairól [At a crossroads again, after twenty years passed: Debating the foundations and destinations of our law] (Pomáz: Kráter 2011) 256 pp. [PoLíSz Sorozat könyvei 8] {& <http://www.scribd.com/doc/85072170/varga-valaszuton-2011>}.

62 Cf.Theatrvm legale mvndiSymbola Cs. Varga oblata, ed. Péter Cserne et al. (Budapest:

Societas Sancta Stephani 2007) xvi + 674 pp. [Philosophiae Iuris / Bibliotheca Iuridica: Libri amicorum 24]

{& mvndi-festschrift-in-honor-of-dr-csaba-varga-65-2007> & <http://www.slideshare.net/koppanyvarga/theatrvm-legale-mvndi-festschrift-in-honor-of-dr-csaba-varga-65-2007>}.

transposing the control on its central enactments to autonomous imple-mentation and jurisdiction by member nations—dynamises large struc-tures, through which it transforms into order that what is chaos itself. Its whole construct as a kind of artificial reality construction is frameworked by an artificially animated dynamism.⁶³

12. ANDRÁSSAJÓ (b. 1949)

Essentially a sociologist, SAJÓ has conducted methodical studies revealing that the apparently descriptive function of legal scholarship is frequently outweighed by the normative and formative impact which the conceptuali-sation and classification of law (along with all the other efforts to reconstruct and restate the law) may exert on the practical making and application of law. For this reason theoretical reconstruction can frequently intersect with the construction of factual reality.⁶⁴

In a series of books he then summarised his inquiries by drawing attention to the priority of social interaction in assessing the law’s implementation or change. Otherwise stated, he put forward the view that the sociological complexity of law is such that there is only so much the law’s stimuli can ac-count for: their impact is at best subordinate and for the most part indirect.⁶⁵

Hungarian Legal Philosophy in the 20^thCentury 69

63 Csaba Varga Jogrendszerek, jogi gondolkodásmódok az európai egységesülés perspektívájában (Magyar körkép – európai uniós összefüggésben) [Legal systems, legal mentalities in the pers-pective of European unification: Hungarian overview – in a European Union context] (Buda-pest: Szent István Társulat 2009) 282 pp. [Az uniós tagság következményei a magyar jogrend-szerre és a közigazgatásra] & [Jogfilozófiák]

{& <http://www.scribd.com/doc/85037925/varga-csaba-jogrendszerek-europai-egysegesu-lesben-2009>}.

64 András Sajó Kritikai értekezés a jogtudományról[Legal science critically considered] (Bu-dapest: Akadémiai Kiadó 1983) 215 pp. [Jogtudományi értekezések].

65 By András Sajó,Társadalmi szabályozottság és jogi szabályozás[Legal regulation within the web of social regulation] (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó 1978) 151 pp. [Jogtudományi értekezé-sek] and Társadalmi-jogi változásJogszociológiai tanulmány [Socio-legal change: A study in le-gal sociology] (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó 1988) 288 pp.