[author]You Chenjun
[content]
You Chenjun | Law, social sciences and humanities: Reflections on the production of knowledge in Chinese social science law
*Author You Chenjun, professor at the School of Law, Renmin University of China
Abstract："Law and Society"research has been accepted as a representative research paradigm by numerous scholars in China now.However,while exploring the development of knowledge produc-tion of"Law and Society"research in China from inside,we will find that many scholars who are en-gaging in"Law and Society"research usually concentrate more on the side of social sciences rather the side of the humanities.Indeed,not only did the research with less color of hard-core social sci-ence,such as the study of legal history,has made important contributions to the"Law and Society"movement in the United States,but also the early practice of"Law and Society"research in China included both approaches of social sciences and the humanities,although its extension was narrowed gradually to highlight the side of social science for some reason later.From an international perspec-tive,we should advance the academic researches of both social sciences and the humanities in the"Law and Society"movement in China,to enrich the knowledge ecology of Chinese jurisprudential academia,and thus create more options in academic achievement and greater development space for the construction of Chinese autonomic legal knowledge system
Keyword：
"Law and Society"ResearchLaw and Social SciencesLaw and the Humani-tiesProduction of Legal KnowledgeChinese Autonomic Legal Knowledge System
Introduction
Whether we regard the founding of Law and Social Sciences in 2006 as a symbol of the emergence of a new academic school, or the spontaneous establishment of the Social Science Law Connection by a group of young scholars in 2013 as a sign of the emergence of a new academic community, social science law has been an academic force in China's legal community for more than ten years. If we also consider that the "real" output of social science law research in China's academic community is even earlier than the term "social science law" was "named" in 2001, then from Su Li, the "spiritual leader" of China's social science law camp, to Hou Meng, Chen Baifeng and other middle-aged and young "representatives of the original shareholders of social science law", to the younger generation who have obtained teaching positions in different domestic universities and are emerging in the academic community, there are already three generations of scholars who have clearly taken social science law research as their academic career. In view of this, some scholars call the above academic undertaking, which has been developed for at least more than ten years, promoted by three generations of scholars and has achieved rich results, a "social science law movement" in the Chinese legal community.
The rise of an academic movement in the true sense is often related to the renewal of the academic research paradigm it is committed to promoting. According to Thomas Samuel Kuhn, an academic research can be called a new academic "paradigm" if it first has the following characteristics, that is, the academic achievements it has achieved must be unprecedented enough, so that it can "attract a group of firm followers" to join its camp. In the Chinese legal community, not only has the concept of "social science law" become a frequently mentioned academic hot word, but the research results of social science law are attracting more and more followers and practitioners with their distinctive characteristics. It is precisely because of this academic influence that social science law has been regarded by many scholars as one of the representative research paradigms in Chinese legal research. In the past decade, in the academic competition between social science law and legal doctrine, on the one hand, the main advocates and supporters of social science law have made many summaries and introductions around the characteristics, advantages and basic consensus of social science law; on the other hand, the advocates of legal doctrine and some neutral observers often criticize social science law, believing that different approaches such as legal sociology and law and economics under the banner of social science law actually lack a unified methodological core, and then emphasize that legal doctrine has a unified and systematic methodology, which is a comparative advantage over social science law. This pattern of mutual confrontation and debate between social science law and legal doctrine has, to some extent, determined that many academic works done by the main advocates of social science law in the past decade have mainly been to explain the significance and advantages of this research paradigm, especially its role and contribution to China's legal research and rule of law practice. To borrow the words of a scholar, "it is still in the stage of fighting for its own name and status, and is still seeking a sufficient foothold." Even though some of the main advocates of social science law occasionally mention some weaknesses of the paradigm when examining themselves, they usually just brush them aside. In this sense, although some of the main advocates of social science law claim that the dialogue and competition between social science law and legal doctrine have promoted the self-reflection of the possible problems of social science law, overall, social science law still lacks in-depth self-analysis and reflection.
This article attempts to make some efforts in this regard. It should be stated that this article does not intend to review the inherent defects and possible shortcomings of social science law in a rough way. Instead, it uses the perspective of international comparison and from the perspective of the author as a deep participant and co-promoter of the Chinese social science law movement in the past decade, it deeply examines and reflects on the development process of social science law in China, discovers some specific problems that few people have paid special attention to even among social science law researchers in the past, reviews their shortcomings, and thinks about how to overcome these problems.
1The important contribution of legal history research to the American "Law and Society" movement
1.1Rethinking the academic style characteristics of the American "Law and Society" movement
The term "social science law movement" easily reminds people of the "Law and Society Movement" in the American academic community. Some scholars have called the rise of social science law in China at the beginning of this century "a brand-new 'law and society movement'", and on the basis of comparing it with the "law and society" movement in the United States since the 1960s, they have given some suggestions for the future development of Chinese social science law. Some scholars have traced back further and directly called the "first wave of contemporary Chinese legal sociology" that occurred in the second half of the 1980s "a vigorous 'law and society' movement" that once appeared in the Chinese legal community. In the Chinese legal community, we can now see not only the analogy in terms of name as mentioned above, but also some scholars emphasizing that China's "social science law movement" has a close relationship with the American "law and society" movement in terms of foreign theoretical origins, especially the profound influence of legal realism. For example, some scholars generally claim that "legal realism is the origin of [Chinese] social science law." Some scholars believe that China's social science law is mainly influenced by American legal realism and critical jurisprudence. It is also based on the same understanding that some scholars believe that China's social science law's criticism of legal doctrine is "imitating the criticism of legal formalism by American legal realism and legal criticism movement"; or criticize that some Chinese social science law researchers have gone to extremes in two manifestations, namely "either adhering to the attitude of legal realism or adhering to the position of legal criticism.
In addition to the above-mentioned academic treatment method of directly linking China's "social science law movement" with the "law and society" movement in the United States from a certain perspective, some Chinese scholars choose to emphasize certain aspects or characteristics when introducing the "law and society" movement in the United States, which will also potentially affect other people's understanding of the main characteristics of China's social science law research. For example, when introducing the background of the birth of the "law and society" movement in the United States, Liu Sida believes that if we start from the ideological origins of legal sociology, we can find that the ideological source of the "law and society" movement in the United States comes from the thoughts of some European scholars including Max Weber, but from the perspective of academic history, the "law and society" movement is actually a native American academic tradition. He also went on to summarize that when the "law and society" movement emerged in the United States in the 1960s, its "theoretical background mainly came from legal realism, the methodology mainly relied on various empirical research methods of social sciences, and the social and historical background was the civil rights movement and other radical social thoughts in the United States at that time." According to the above introduction, the American "Law and Society" movement is closely related to legal realism, and mainly adopts the empirical research method of social science. In an earlier paper, Ji Weidong also put forward a similar view. He made a special summary: "In short, science and reform are the two fulcrums of the [American] "Law and Society" research movement. The scientific orientation requires research based on verifiable objective facts in the field of law, leading to this empiricist tendency, while the reform orientation is bound to use law as a tool for social control, leading to a functionalist tendency." In the introductions made by the two Chinese scholars to the American "Law and Society" movement, we can find a common emphasis, that is, they both believe that the reason why the American "Law and Society" movement mainly adopts empirical research methods is closely related to the social sciences that embody the pursuit of scientism.
However, based on my understanding of the history of the development of the American "law and society" movement from reading relevant English articles, the introductions made by the above two scholars, while highlighting some important characteristics of the American "law and society" movement, seem to have omitted attention to some other important aspects. Among the representative academic achievements born in the American "law and society" movement, many do reflect very typical social science characteristics, and even have a strong scientific color, especially the research on law and economics and quantitative legal sociology. However, is the "law and society research" mentioned in the American academic community only the "social science of law" or "law and social science" that reflects the hard-core "social science" color? In other words, is "law and society research" equivalent to "social science of law" or "law and social science"? In my opinion, this is actually an academic question that needs to be asked.
1.2Contribution of “Social-Legal History” Research: From James W. Hurst to Lawrence M. Friedman
Lawrence M. Friedman, an important figure in the American “Law and Society” movement, published a review article in English in 2019 as a witness, reviewing the development of the “Law and Society” movement in the United States and his own academic research in this process.
In the article, Lawrence M. Friedman first summarized the main characteristics of the American “Law and Society” movement, and believed that the “Law and Society” movement, in its essence, “is to look at legal phenomena with a keen and objective eye of social science”. Here he emphasized the close connection between the “Law and Society” movement and social science. However, Lawrence M. Friedman also combined his specific research and specifically talked about some academic approaches that do not seem to be so hard-core “social science” in the article. He believes that the research he is mainly engaged in, "socio-legal history", is an important and necessary academic branch in the study of "law and society", and emphasizes that our understanding of the past is helpful to study today's things. As an academic giant who has served as president of the Law and Society Association and the American Society for Legal History, Lawrence M. Friedman is not only one of the most important promoters of the American "law and society" movement, but also has left his own distinctive academic mark in the American "law and society" movement with a specific research field he is particularly good at - "socio-legal history".
Through the above example of Lawrence M. Friedman, we can see that in the American "law and society" movement dominated by social science orientation, there is actually a research approach of "socio-legal history" that seems not so hard-core "social science". If we observe from a broader perspective of academic history, we will further discover that in the American "Law and Society" movement, it is not just the hard-core social sciences that ally with law, but also humanities such as history. More specifically, at the beginning of its rise, the American "Law and Society" movement benefited greatly from the inspiration of legal history, a less hard-core "social science" research approach, and an important academic figure who cannot be bypassed in this regard is James W. Hurst, who taught at the University of Wisconsin Law School at the time.
James W. Hurst's research expertise is American legal history, but his academic works have hardly been translated into Chinese, so that even in the legal history and social science law circles in China, few people know him. Historian Han Tie once wrote an article introducing Hurst's great influence on the study of American legal history. In the article, Han Tie mentioned "the 'law and society movement' deeply influenced by Hurst", but only briefly. As for Hurst's specific important influence on the "Law and Society" movement in the United States, the article did not further elaborate.
In fact, Hurst's influence on the "Law and Society" movement in the United States is very far-reaching. Lawrence M. Friedman recalled that the reason why he went to the "Law and Society" movement when he was young was closely related to Hurst's support and guidance. Friedman also wrote about Hurst's influence on him in the preface to the first edition of his book "History of American Law" published in 1972 with gratitude.
One of Hurst's important contributions to the American academic community is that he is considered to have opened the "Wisconsin School Era" in the field of American legal history research. In the middle of the last century, Hurst received funding from the Rockefeller Foundation to carry out project research at the University of Wisconsin Law School, and with his unique legal history research style, he led the "Law and Society" movement to grow gradually. In the American legal community, some scholars call it the "Hurstian Revolution" in American legal history research. The greatest impact of the "Hirst Revolution" on the study of American legal history can be summarized as follows: in the face of the "internal legal history" research paradigm that has long dominated the American legal history community, Hurst "rebelliously" promoted the rise of the latter research paradigm as an advocate and practitioner of "external legal history". Regarding the difference between "internal legal history" and "external legal history", Robert W. Gordon used the "legal box" as a metaphor to describe Hurst's outstanding academic contribution: scholars who study "internal legal history" focus on what is in the legal box, whether it is the source of information or the basic issues that they want to describe and explain, such as changes in the rules of defense, court jurisdiction, or the principle of joint negligence. Scholars who study "extra-legal history" also focus on those broad non-legal fields outside the legal box (such as political, economic, religious, and social fields), mainly exploring the interaction between the things in the legal box and the broader society in which they are placed, especially the social background of law and its impact on society. As Stewart Macaulay, another important representative of the American "Law and Society" movement, said, "In any case, Professor Hurst reshaped [American] legal history with a truly empirical research career." Or as Lawrence M. Friedman described Hurst's great influence on the entire study of American legal history, if you study American legal history after Hurst, "you are either a Hurst believer or a Hurst revisionist."
It is particularly worth noting that the influence of the "Herst Revolution" is not limited to the field of American legal history research, it has also left a deep mark on the American "Law and Society" movement. This is not only reflected in the fact that the focus on the interactive relationship between law and society that Hurst strongly advocated is the most important methodological feature of the "Law and Society" movement, but also in the fact that he generously provided academic assistance to others with the spirit of an academic entrepreneur, recruited and influenced many young talents who later became the main players in the "Law and Society" movement (including Stuart Macaulay, Lawrence M. Friedman and others, who became the backbone of the "Law and Society Association" established in the United States in 1964). As Lawrence M. Friedman emphasized, "The framework created by Hurst goes beyond legal history and extends more broadly to law and society." In order to commemorate Hurst's great contribution to the "law and society" movement in the United States, after his death in 1997, the American Law and Society Association specially established the James Willard Hurst Book Prize to recognize those "socio-legal history" research works that have made outstanding contributions in exploring the relationship between law and society or clarifying the functions and cultural significance of law and society along the direction pioneered by Hurst.
Therefore, it can be said that the initial foundation and subsequent in-depth development of the "law and society" movement in the United States are inseparable from the great contributions made by Hurst as a legal historian. Therefore, in the "law and society" research in the United States today, which is mainly based on social sciences, there are also some research methods that do not seem to be so hard-core "social sciences" and are to some extent humanistic. The "socio-legal history" research pioneered by Hurst and widely promoted by Lawrence M. Friedman, introduced in the previous article, is a typical example.
2"Social Science Law" in China: An Academic Concept with a Gradually Narrowing Extension?
2.1Is "Social Science Law" Equal to "Law and Social Science" or "Social Science of Law"?
As mentioned above, when most Chinese scholars pay attention to the "Law and Society" movement in the United States, they usually focus on the aspect of the wide application of various social sciences shown in it. In the current Chinese legal community, when people mention "Social Science Law", scholars often emphasize its aspect of combining and applying various social sciences. For example, as two major advocates of social science law, Hou Meng and Chen Baifeng each defined what "social science law" is in 2014: the former believes that "social science law advocates the use of social science methods to analyze legal issues", while the latter claims that "social science law attempts to use social science methods to analyze legal phenomena and predict legal effects". The above definitions of concepts all emphasize the close connection between social science law and various social science methods. This emphasis on understanding what is meant by "social science law" is also subtly reflected in the choice and interpretation of the English translation of the term "social science law" by Chinese scholars. For example, Hou Meng previously claimed that the English name corresponding to "social science law" is "social science of law" or "law and social science", which is directly translated into Chinese as "social science of law" or "law and social science". In a new article published in 2023, Hou Meng believes that there is a subtle difference between the general expression "social science law" and the descriptive expression "social science research of law" (which he likes to abbreviate as "law and social science research"), and said that he now prefers to use the latter rather than the former. He also listed different English names such as "sociology of law", "law and society", "socio-legal studies", "law and social theory", "law and social science", and "social scientific study of law", pointing out that "researchers in different countries and at different times have given different names to this field due to their different focuses". Although his statement has changed before and after, he still reminded readers in the summary of the article that the English names of the above statements all "emphasize the study of social sciences."
However, the above-mentioned practice of using "social science law" as a more concise name for "law and social science" and "social science of law", and then emphasizing its characteristics of combining social sciences when defining this concept, is somewhat contradictory to some statements made by almost the same group of scholars when introducing subcategories or sub-disciplines of "social science law."
2.2Examining the different sub-categories of Chinese social science law: more social science or more humanistic?
Although Su Li, the "spiritual leader" of Chinese social science law, has not clearly defined which sub-categories or sub-disciplines "social science law" specifically includes, Hou Meng, a core figure of the Mesozoic era of social science law, has explained this by enumerating them. For example, in one article, Hou Meng believes that in the research pattern of Chinese social science law, legal sociology, legal economics and legal cognitive science are the sub-disciplines that have already formed a scale and are the most dynamic, and he lamented that legal anthropology, legal political science, law and literature, and other sub-sciences "are not yet established." In another article, he concluded that "domestic legal social science research presents a variety of research approaches such as legal sociology, legal anthropology, legal economics, law and cognitive science, law and literature, and legal quantitative analysis."
The above-mentioned enumeration and introduction method, on the one hand, confirms that the so-called "social science law" is actually an academic banner, and on the other hand, it also exposes some problems, that is, the differences between many of the listed subcategories or sub-disciplines may be greater than their commonalities. Such differences between them not only include the commonly believed nature and positioning of the disciplines, but also directly involve the typical characteristics reflected in the application of their main research methods.
For example, in terms of subject classification, sociology and economics are usually considered to be typical social sciences, but does anthropology belong to social sciences or humanities? Especially considering that anthropology is usually subdivided into four major branches internationally (especially in the United States), namely archaeology, physical anthropology, cultural anthropology (also known as social anthropology) and linguistic anthropology, then for the above questions, it is best to answer them based on the distinction between the four major branches. Among the above four branches of anthropology, cultural anthropology is the closest to social science law. Compared with sociology and economics, cultural anthropology research often seems to be more "subjective" and less "scientific" because it likes to explore mentality, spirit, and belief (or, in anthropological terms, "the world of ideas with ontological significance"), so it is more inclined to humanities than social sciences in some aspects. This difference leads to the fact that in terms of academic temperament, legal anthropology is quite different from disciplines such as legal sociology and legal economics that usually reflect hard-core "social science" characteristics.
Another question that can better reflect the above problem is, is "law and literature" mainly studied using social science research methods? Especially when we notice that "law and literature" can be divided into four major branches, we will immediately feel that this issue is quite complicated here. Among the four major branches of law and literature: the approach of "law in literature" advocates using literary texts as the source of material to study the legal descriptions therein, so it can also be called "literature about law". The approach of "law of literature" mainly focuses on various legal issues arising from the protection and regulation of the rights of literary and artistic works. The approach of "law as literature" regards legal texts as literary texts and advocates the introduction of various literary criticism theories to interpret legal texts. The branch of "law through literature" emphasizes that the educational and disciplinary functions of some literary works are very similar to those of law, and thus together with formal laws, they constitute the components of the social control mechanism, so it is also called "literature as law" by some scholars. Therefore, the above four branches of "law and literature" have quite different needs and applications for social science theories and methods. Specifically, the research of the approach of "law related to literature" is not much different from the traditional research on related legal issues in the fields of intellectual property law and civil law. It mainly relies on traditional legal doctrine and reflects a relatively obvious legal technicality. The branch of "law through literature" obviously has a natural affinity with social science theories and methods. As for the research results of the branch of "law in literature", such as those works that study the legal descriptions in literary masterpieces such as Dickens's "Bleak House" and Kafka's "The Trial", "most of them are intellectual products and by-products of legal researchers with literary interests or talents", and are often classified as "law and humanities" in the current Western academic circles. In this regard, although Hou Meng once specifically mentioned in an article that "law and literature are traditionally regarded as part of legal social science research", the basic consensus of social science law he previously summarized, such as "starting from the consequences rather than the legal provisions" and "focusing on explaining causal relationships", are almost not applicable in the field of "law and literature". In other words, the so-called basic consensus or work characteristics of social science law summarized by some major flag bearers of social science law may not be consistent with the various sub-categories, branches or sub-fields of social science law they listed, and are even almost completely absent in some sub-categories or sub-fields.
2.3Searching for the original concept of "social science law" in the Chinese legal community
Why do the above problems arise? This is mainly because, although different social science law researchers all use the term "social science law", they often consciously or unconsciously combine their personal academic expertise and preferences to make some personal understanding and definition of the connotation and characteristics of "social science law", which will directly affect the extension of "social science law" in their respective writings. Therefore, it is necessary to trace back and examine the connotation and extension given to "social science law" by the earliest proposer of the term, and whether it is the same as the understanding of other scholars who later use this term? If there are some differences, what specific restrictions, expansions or replacements have some later users made?
The term "social science law" was first created by Su Li in the article "Maybe It's Happening - An Overview of the Development of Contemporary Chinese Law" published in 2001. In the article, he divided the main research paradigms of the Chinese legal community from 1978 to 2000 into three types and named them: "political law", "interpretive law" (roughly equivalent to what many people now call "legal doctrine") and "social science law". Su Li wrote in describing the background of the initial appearance of social science law:
Since the mid-1990s, there has been a new atmosphere in the Chinese legal community. For various reasons, some legal scholars are not satisfied with the interpretation of legal provisions and concepts, and try to explore the social and historical basis behind the legal provisions, the actual operation of the enacted law in Chinese society and the many social conditions that constitute these conditions. This school can be temporarily called the social science school, although I will discuss later that some of them actually focus more on humanities, some focus more on social sciences, and some people's research can even be easily confused with the interpretive legal school.
He then described the complexity of the sources of knowledge for different scholars within the school of "social science law":
Some scholars, due to their preference for ideas, theories or "academicism", strive to seek resources from the humanities (mainly political philosophy and moral philosophy) of the West in the 18th, 19th and even 20th centuries; or due to the limitations of their majors (theoretical law or historical law) at the time, they do not have enough willingness or even ability to enter interpretive law, so they enter the field of legal theory and historical research - especially the study of legal culture in a broad sense. Faced with the same or similar problems, some people are more close to or enter the social sciences, including economics, sociology, anthropology, social biology, social theory, discourse theory, literary criticism theory, etc.; relatively speaking, these scholars pay more attention to the empirical research tradition of contemporary social sciences.
If we combine this with another original sentence in the article - "Therefore, the formation of this school (referring to social science law - author's note), even if it is a branch that focuses on social science theory, is not due to the promotion of some foreign theories as some scholars assume. What really drives this research is contemporary China's social problems and legal practices", then we can see that when Su Li first coined the term "social science law", he did not think that all members of this academic school mainly used social science research methods, but pointed out that there are actually two different branches within social science law, one focusing on "social science" and the other focusing on "humanities". Judging from the names of scholars listed in the corresponding footnotes of the above-mentioned quotations and their representative works in this field, those who are classified as "social science law" by Su Li include not only scholars such as Xia Yong, Ji Weidong and Su Li himself who have published or published works on legal sociology (focusing on "social science"), but also legal historians such as Liang Zhiping, Zhang Zhongqiu, and Xu Zhongming who are engaged in broad legal culture research (focusing on "humanities"), and even criminal law scholar Chen Xingliang is counted as "social science law" because he has published two books, "Philosophy of Criminal Law" and "Value Structure of Criminal Law". In this regard, the "social science law" described by Su Li at the beginning actually refers to an interdisciplinary research method that includes both "social science" and "humanities" in two different aspects.
In an article published in 2023, Hou Meng believed that "during this period (referring to the 1990s to the early 21st century - author's note) the legal studies have already had a very clear division between the humanities and social science traditions", and pointed out that "the humanities research of law is represented by Liang Zhiping, and the social science research of law is represented by Su Li". But if we notice that Hou Meng clearly stated in the article that "the social science research of law is also called social science law", then his practice of distinguishing "the humanities research of law" from "the social science research of law" actually narrowed the extension of social science law described by Su Li at the beginning. In the long run, doing so is actually not conducive to maximizing the integration of resources to expand the academic influence of social science law, especially to fully compete with legal doctrine.
3Different development situations of "law and humanities" research
From the above, we can see that whether in the "law and society" movement in the United States or in the academic school of "social science law" described by Su Li, in addition to many studies that clearly reflect the hard-core "social science" color, there is also an important academic development clue that was not noticed before, that is, research approaches such as legal history that are more "humanistic" are actually involved and have made important contributions. On the other side of the strait, some scholars believe that the development of law and society research in the legal community in Taiwan, my country, has benefited from the accumulation of the local academic community in the following two directions: First, legal history research is no longer confined to the law itself, but also focuses on the practice of law, and even expands its focus to the construction of the meaning of law, such as the research done by legal historians in Taiwan, such as Huang Yuansheng and Chen Huixin. Secondly, since the mid-1980s, legal empirical research methods have gradually gained attention and been increasingly used in Taiwan, my country, thus providing academic nourishment for law and society research, such as the achievements made by scholars such as Su Yongqin and Zhang Yongjian using empirical research methods (especially quantitative analysis). It is particularly noteworthy that when introducing the above two aspects, the scholar believes that the academic accumulation of the first direction "started" the law and society research in Taiwan, China, and "produced profound inspiration for subsequent research." In other words, the law and society research in the legal community in Taiwan, my country also benefits from two different aspects: "social science" (the second direction mentioned above) and "humanities" (the first direction mentioned above).
From the perspective of the international academic community, whether in mainland China, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, or abroad, interdisciplinary legal research with a "social science" orientation is far more prosperous than interdisciplinary legal research with a "humanities" orientation. However, it should be noted that the development of interdisciplinary legal research with a "humanities" orientation in China and abroad is quite different.
3.1The short-lived popularity of "Law and Humanities" as a slogan in the Chinese legal community
It is said that when Su Li first advocated interdisciplinary legal research, he had an idea, that is, on the one hand, to promote interdisciplinary research between law and social sciences, and on the other hand, to promote interdisciplinary research between law and humanities. However, in the current Chinese legal community, the team of social science law researchers who are more "social science" is growing, while social science law research that is more "humanistic" is relatively deserted. Take the "law and literature" research in China's social science law, which is generally more "humanistic", as an example. Although some works in this area have been published in the academic community in recent years that have attracted considerable attention, as Su Li pointed out in an article published in 2021, the "law and literature" research (especially the branch of "law in literature") has generally "aged prematurely" in the contemporary Chinese legal community.
In terms of judging whether academic research in a specific field is flourishing, the holding of academic seminars in this field is also an important observation perspective. Since the "Social Science Research on Law" seminar was held at Peking University in May 2005, there are now several academic seminars on the theme of law and social sciences almost every year across the country. After 2012, the "Annual Conference on Law and Social Sciences" has basically been held in turn every year. However, the "Law and Humanities" seminar was only held once in 2005. The second Law and Humanities seminar, originally scheduled for October 2007, was later cancelled for some reason.
The first "Law and Humanities" seminar held at Zhejiang University in October 2005 left a mark in academic history. In addition to a conference review report published afterwards, there is also a book titled "Law and Humanities" which was officially published shortly after the meeting. The content and format of the book, excluding the editor's preface and appendix, is divided into five parts. Specifically, the first part is "Why 'Law and Humanities'", the second part is "The Humanistic Spirit of Law", the third part is "Law and Literature", the fourth part is "Law and Philosophy", and the fifth part is "Law and History". Judging from the names of the above-mentioned volumes, the purpose of this seminar is to connect law with humanities such as literature, history, and philosophy. However, judging from the conference papers included in the corresponding volumes, frankly speaking, it is not easy to see how the "law and humanities" in the title of this book is obviously different from the legal history and legal philosophy research that has always existed in the Chinese legal community. In particular, the articles included in the fourth volume "Law and Philosophy", such as "Law and Freedom", "Freedom and Rights", "Language Philosophical Assumptions of Legal Philosophy", "Achilles Heel of Legal Philosophy", etc., actually still maintain the legal philosophy research style that is common in the Chinese legal community. In this regard, the slogan "Law and Humanities" was short-lived in the Chinese legal community at the beginning, but soon died down. There are also internal reasons for this, that is, the real difference of "law and humanities" research has not yet been explored.
3.2"Law and Humanities" as a mature research field in the English academic community
Compared to the fact that "Law and Humanities" appeared as a slogan in the Chinese legal community but soon faded away, in the English academic community, this research field has not only become famous after many years of conscious development (called "Law and Humanities"), but has also entered a new stage of development.
To understand the research purpose and main style of "Law and Humanities" in the English academic community, we must first look at how the flagship journal in this field, the Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities, positioned the research field of "Law and Humanities" when it was founded in 1988. In the inaugural issue of the Yale Journal of Law and Humanities, although Owen M. Fiss first pointed out the troubles and difficulties in defining the specific field of "law and humanities" in a short article he published (he believed that this was mainly due to the lack of easily defined boundaries or content in the humanities themselves), there was a paragraph in the "Editor's Note" written by the editor of the journal that made clear the purpose of the journal. The "Editor's Note" stated that the reason for establishing this specialized academic journal was to provide a platform for publishing academic achievements in legal and cultural studies, and emphasized that "research on law must be informed by examining the social and cultural narratives that form legal meanings and empower legal norms. Conversely, research on culture requires understanding law as a normative edifice and a mandatory system."
From the founding of the Yale Journal of Law and Humanities in 1988 to more than 30 years later, what has the field of "Law and Humanities" in the English academic community studied? What specific topics are included? What are the expansions in research methods? Who are its representative figures?
In 2014, Austin Sarat co-edited and published a monograph on the introduction of law and humanities research. The three editors co-wrote an introduction for the book, arguing that in the past few decades, various interdisciplinary studies described by names such as "law and XX" have gained more and more attention. "Law and Humanities" is one of the new fields that has flourished, and the editing and publication of this book marks that the academic cause of "law and humanities" has matured. The three editors also asked several interesting questions in this introduction. For example, what inspiration or knowledge enhancement does the study of "law and humanities" bring to legal research? What is the significance of the examination of law for the humanities? This inevitably reminds people of Guido Calabresi's answer in a short article written for the inaugural issue of the Yale Journal of Law and Humanities in 1988. Calabresi pointed out that the study of "law and humanities" is of great benefit to both legal research and humanities: on the one hand, the relevant knowledge of humanities is a basic component of legal research, not just background knowledge. Without a deep and sympathetic understanding of humanities, it is impossible to fully understand the law; on the other hand, if scholars in the humanities can understand the views of legal researchers and the law itself, they can gain a better understanding of many issues in their own disciplines. In terms of its specific content, the book is divided into five parts, which not only takes stock of the existing representative academic achievements, but also looks forward to the future direction of efforts. For example, in the three papers included in the first part "The History and Significance of "Law and Humanities" Research: Three Views", the authors Costas Douzinas, Kathryn Abrams, and Steven L. Winter evaluated the main theoretical statements and development history of "law and humanities" research from different perspectives. The four articles in the second section, "Various Concepts of Justice", place the specific context of the discussion in the connection between law and the Bible, natural law, positive law, and the postmodern condition, and examine the significance of justice as a concept by asking questions such as "how the concept of justice changes over time and under what conditions". The third section, "Imagining Law", raises the question of how culture imagines law. Among them, the papers by Richard K. Sherwin and Susanna Lee, which respectively lead the topic to the field of "visual legal studies" that discusses law and film and television, are particularly impressive.
In the English academic community, the breadth and richness of the distribution of specific topics in the field of "law and humanities" research have developed to a level beyond the imagination of many of us. For example, Oxford University Press published a nearly 900-page English tome in 2020, entitled The Oxford Handbook of Law and Humanities. The authors of the 45 papers collected in this book discuss the issues that they think are most urgent, interesting and worthy of further research in the field of "law and humanities". They not only introduce various research methods, themes and keywords of "law and humanities", but also demonstrate their application in some specific legal fields. As a whole, the contents of these 45 papers not only involve traditional humanities such as history, literature, art and philosophy, but also extend to architecture, geography, book history, cognitive studies, science and technology studies, performance studies and other fields that use various interpretative methods to study creativity, expression and imagination. The specific themes they deal with include at least the relationship between the following different topics: image, knowledge and power, body, activity and moral perception, space, sound and face, genre, gesture and emotion, archive, violence and resistance, discourse, material and architecture, form, inequality and narrative, market, identity and belief, anecdote, abstraction and normativity, memory, persuasion and experimentation, empire, criminalization and indigeneity. Therefore, comics, videos and other materials can be included in the research scope of "law and humanities". Moreover, not all discussions maintain a critical distance from legal practice in academia as advocated by Paul W. Kahn. There are also many studies that are directly beneficial to the understanding of the practice in the fields of international law, family law, property law, indigenous law, etc.
Conclusion
By tracing back to the original description of the originator of the term "social science law" in the Chinese context, we can find that, just as the "law and society" movement in the United States covers both "social science" and "humanities" in two different approaches, China's "social science law" has not only had a "social science" side from the beginning, but also a "humanities" side. In this regard, the true meaning of the concept of "social science law" in the Chinese legal community cannot be fully summarized by the term "social science". Rather, the key point lies in the "cross" in the sense of interdisciplinary, or the "and" in the sense of "law and XX". Therefore, when discussing and explaining "social science law", it is not appropriate to narrow its extension to only emphasize its "social science" side, but should also encourage and develop its "humanities" side. Social science law has developed in the Chinese academic community so far, and has accumulated a lot of experience and achievements in the research field of "law and social sciences". However, in the relatively neglected research field of "law and humanities", there are still many new topics and methods that need to be learned from abroad and explored independently. China's "social science law" movement can only form a complementary trend if the two aspects of "social science" and "humanities" advance in parallel, thereby creating more options and greater development space for building China's independent legal knowledge system.