The normativity of formal orders and procedures in antiquity – a comparison of mathematical and legal rule systems

Project management: Prof. Dr. Annette Warner (Imhausen)

The project “Normativity of formal orders and procedures in antiquity – a comparison of mathematical and legal rule systems” is part of a project that aims to cover the period from antiquity (including Egypt and Mesopotamia) to the modern era. Systems of legal norms (constitutions, collections of laws, legal doctrinal texts) and mathematical systems of theorems or rules both represent formal orders whose value in certain perspectives of legal and scientific theory lies precisely in the fact that they possess a high degree of internal coherence, which can enable deductive derivations and, in their application to concrete problems, strive for unambiguous decisions (problem solutions). On both sides, the existence of a formal order is characterized by certain superordinate norms that guide the structure and application of the system of norms or rules (hereinafter: meta-norms).

At first glance, the orientation towards such meta-norms, which underlie a formal understanding of legal and mathematical orders and procedures, is a characteristic feature of a specifically modern understanding of law and mathematics, formulated and founded above all in the first decades of the 20th century in the context of scientific and cultural modernity, on the legal-theoretical side by Hans Kelsen, for example, and on the mathematical side by representatives of ‘modern’ mathematics, among whom David Hilbert achieved an iconic position.

However – and this is the starting point of the present project – a look at very early stages of written legal and mathematical systems and procedures shows that the development of formal orders in these two (and indeed other) areas was a historically early achievement of at least some (if not all) written cultures. The development, but also the historical and cultural variation of those meta-norms that relate to the construction and application of formal orders and procedures in law and mathematics can (and must) therefore be understood as a historical process of the longue durée. The aim of the project presented here is to better understand this process in important phases.

The project examines the normativity of formal orders and procedures using Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Hittite, Greek and Roman legal collections and mathematical texts. The rule systems that emerged in the early written cultures provide important insights into the conditions for the normativity and characteristics of the formal, for example on a linguistic level. They force us to reflect on the concepts of coherence and abstraction and allow us to draw conclusions about the validity, recognition and procedural enforcement of norms in pre-modern cultures.

Research into the rules and regulations of early written cultures provides important insights into the conditions for the emergence and acceptance of formally structured systems of norms. The importance of casuistic procedures, regional and temporal influences and the need for consistency and coherence in their logical structure allow important conclusions to be drawn about the nature of regulatory systems, which can also be used in research on more recent and newest developments. Close collaboration with Prof. Moritz Epple and Prof. Guido Pfeifer promoted the discussion of the results across the project.

An initial workshop was held in April 2013 to ensure that researchers could exchange information on the research topic and suitable source material. This prepared the ground for an international conference, which took place in March 2015. The results were discussed at a further workshop in February 2016 and are currently being prepared for publication. The workshop served to further network the individual contributions.

Pre-modern collections of mathematical and legal texts already exhibit specific formal structures. The normativity of these formal structures is already pronounced in the earliest texts from Egypt and Mesopotamia and allows conclusions to be drawn about content-related incisions (cf. e.g. the analysis of the Codex Hammurapi by Jim Ritter and the analysis of the Codex Urnamma by Hans Neumann). Significant differences can be observed between Egypt and Mesopotamia with regard to the inscription of legal texts (Annette Imhausen). On the basis of Hittite (Daliah Bawanypeck), Greek and Roman legal texts (Markus Asper, Peter Gröschler) and texts from Ptolemaic Egypt (Katelijn Vandorpe, Mark Depauw), various ways of generating lasting validity and authority through normativity (linguistic formulation, formulaicity, special design of the written medium) can be demonstrated. Guido Pfeifer demonstrates the use of mathematically specified values in Mesopotamian legal texts as a further link between the two subject areas.

The results of the project will be published in the form of a project volume (publication in preparation). This will be published in the series KEF (Kārum – Emporion – Forum. Beiträge zur Wirtschafts-, Rechts- und Sozialgeschichte des östlichen Mittelmeerraums und Altvorderasiens) published by Ugarit-Verlag.

The most important events of the project:

Lectures: Hans Neumann (Münster) and Jim Ritter (Paris), Wissensordnungen im Codex Ur-Namma und im Codex Hammurapi (Wissenschaftshistorisches Kolloquium), Cluster of Excellence “Die Herausbildung normativer Ordnungen”, Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main, May 10, 2016.

Workshop: The Normativity of formal structures, Cluster of Excellence “The Formation of Normative Orders”, Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main, February 4-5, 2016.

Lecture: Markus Asper (Berlin), On the Authority of Normative Texts. Inscriptional Law and Mathematical Literature in Ancient Greece (Colloquium on the History of Science), Cluster of Excellence “The Formation of Normative Orders”, Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main, December 15, 2015.

International Workshop: Die Normativität formaler Ordnungen und Procededuren in der Antike und im Mittelalter: Mathematische und rechtliche Regelsysteme im Vergleich, Cluster of Excellence “Die Herausbildung Normativer Ordnungen”, Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main, March 17-19, 2015.

Workshop: Normativity of formal structures and procedures in the ancient world. A comparison of mathematical and juridical systems Cluster of Excellence “The Formation of Normative Orders”, Goethe University Frankfurt am Main, April 11-13, 2013.

people in this project:

Project management / contact person

Warner (Imhausen), Annette, Prof. Dr.

Project staff

Schmidl, Petra, Dr.