Our thoughts are products of our culture, tradition, and ideal of order, so their understanding and development can only be based upon them. However, cultures, traditions and ideals vary from time to time and from people to people, as each of them has been created and developed to respond to challenges under their own conditions. Consequently, they are not only independent of each other in their genesis, but are also incommensurable in their historical set, which equals to saying that they are not even classifiable but only taxonomisable in a strict sense. Each of us lives and interprets his own world: when we compare, we attempt at putting them in a common hat, knowing that no one can go beyond the symbolic paradox of “I interpret your culture through my culture”. A way out from this trap can only result from their individual parallel characterisation after we have built up some kind of abstract philosophical universality from the ideals of order concerned. Then, in the context of the Self and of You, we are expected not only to explain the Other, but also to recognise it by its own right. In its due course, legal comparison aims at getting knowledge not only of ‘law in books’ and ‘law in action’ but about what is meant by law when it works in our mind. Therefore, beyond the mere act of taking cognisance, comparison comprises also the acceptance of this Other by its own right, in which none is simply reduced to anything purely factual (“what is the law?”), but the actuality of the entire normative process leading to a legal statement (“how do we think in law?”) is considered. Getting to know foreign laws begins with grouping of laws and, as expressed in legal families, by combining those which are similar while contrasting the dissimilar. Interaction and mixing amongst them is a natural sequel, but their establishment cannot be a substitute to the didactic necessity and explanatory power of analysis in term of legal families. When describing them, mere contrasting shall be consummated by presenting the specific ingenuity of each of them as a characteristic individual feature specific to them.

List of legal documents 

Authored book

1. David R, Les grands systèmes de Droit contemporains (droit comparé) (Dalloz 1964) (in English).

2. Frankenberg G, Comparative Law as Critique (Elgar 2016) (in English).

3. Geertz C, The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays (Basic Books 1973) (in English).

4. Huntington S P, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (Simon & Schuster 1996) (in English).

5. Kelsen H, Reine Rechtslehre Deuticke (1934) (in German).

6. Koskenniemi M, From Apology to Utopia: The Structure of International Legal Argument (Cambridge University Press 2005) (in English).

7. Palmer V V, Mixed Jurisdictions Worldwide: The Third Legal Family (Cambridge University Press 2001) (in English).

8. Varga Cs, Transition to Rule of Law On the Democratic Transformation in Hungary (ELTE “Comparative Legal Cultures” Project 1995) (in English).

9. Whitman J Q, Hitler’s American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law (Princeton University Press 2017) (in English).

10. Wittgenstein L, Philosophische Untersuchungen (Basil Blackwell 1953) (in English).

Edited books

11. Brand R A and Rist D W (ed), The Export of Legal Education: Its Promise and Impact in Transition Countries (Ashgate 2009) (in English).

12. Hacking I, ‘Language, Truth, and Reason’ in Hollis M and Lukes S (ed), Rationality and Relativism (MIT Press 1982) (in English).

13. Kjær A L, ‘A Common Legal Language in Europe?’ in Hoecke M van (ed), Epistemology and Methodology of Comparative Law (Hart Publishing 2014) (in English).

14. Legrand P, ‘The Same and the Different’ in Legrand P and Munday R (ed), Comparative Legal Studies: Traditions and Transitions (Cambridge University Press 2003) (in English).

15. Les droits de tradition civiliste en question À propos des rapports Doing Business de la Banque Mondiale (Société de Législation comparée 2006) (in Franch).

16. Micklitz H-W, ‘The Bifurcation of Legal Education – National vs Transnational’ in Gane c and Huang R (ed), Legal Education in the Global Context (Surrey and Burlington, VT 2016) (in English).

17. Montesquieu, ‘Dossier de l’Esprit des Lois’ in Caillois R (ed), Oeuvres complètes (Gallimard 1951) 1025 [Ce n’est point le corps des lois que je cherche, mais leur âme] (in Franch).

18. Varga Cs, ‘Összehasonlító módszer és jogelmélet’ in Varga C, Útkeresés Kísérletek – kéziratban (Szent István Társulat 2001) (in Hungerian).

19. – –, Comparative Legal Cultures: On Traditions Classified, their Rapprochement and Transfer, and the Anarchy of Hyper-rationalism (Szent István Társulat 2012) (in English).

20. – –, ‘Liberty, Equality, and the Conceptual Minimum of Legal Mediation’ in MacCormick N and Bankowski Z (ed), Enlightenment, Rights and Revolution Essays in Legal and Social Philosophy (Aberdeen University Press 1989) (in English).

21. Witte B De and Forder C (ed), The Common Law of Europe and the Future of Legal Education / Le droit commun de l’Europe et l’avenir de l’enseignement juridique (Kluwer Law and Taxation Publishers 1992) (in English).

22. Varga Cs, ‘“Pravo” ili “nechto bolee ili menee pravovoe” (antropologicheskie rassuzhdenie o tom, to est’ pravo)’ [‘“Right” or “Something More or Lss Legal” (Anthropological Reasoning about what is Right)’] v Varga Ch, Zagadka prava i pravovogo myshleniya [Riddle of Law and Legal Thinking] (2015) (in Russian).

Journal articles

23. Ewald W, ‘Comparative Jurisprudence (I): What was it like to Try a Rat?’ [1994-1995] 6(143) University Pennsylvania Law Review 1948 (in English).

24. Femia P, ‘Criticism: From the Outskirts of a World Without a Centre’ [2017] 1(1) The Italian Law Journal 13-6 [with the notions lex/ius added – Cs.V.] (in English).

25. Glenn H P, ‘Quel droit comparé?’ [2013] 1-2(43) Revue de Droit de l’Uuniversité de Sherbrook 36 (in Franch). 26. Husa J, ‘Turning the Curriculum Upside Down: Comparative Law as an Educational Tool for Constructing Pluralistic Legal Mind’ [2009] 7(10) German Law Journal 913-26 (in English).

27. Kerhuel A-J and Fauvarque-Cosson B, ‘Is Law an Economic Contest? French Reactions to the Doing Business World Bank Reports and Economic Analysis of the Law’ [2010] 4(57) The American Journal of Comparative Law 811-30 (in English).

28. Laet M de, ‘Anthropology as Social Epistemology’ [2012] 3-4(26) Social Epistemology 419-33 (in English). 29. Örücü E, ‘What is a Mixed Legal System: Exclusion or Expansion?’ (2008) 12 Electronic Journal of Comparative Law 1 (in English).

30. Perelman Ch, ‘Avoir un sens et donner un sens’ [1962] 5(20) Logique et Analyse 235-50 (in Franch).

31. Puchalska-Tych B and Salter M, ‘Comparing Legal Cultures of Eastern Europe: The Need for a Dialectical Analysis’ [1996] 2(16) Legal Studies 181-3 doi 10.1111/j.1748121X.1996.tb00001.x (in English). 32. Richardson I, ‘Educating Lawyers for the 21st Century’ [1988] 2(6) Journal of Professional Legal Education 111-6 (in English).

33. Sapir E, ‘Culture, Genuine and Spurious’ [1924] 4(29) American Journal of Sociology 401-29 (in English). 34. Smith A, ‘Comparative Legal Scholarship as Ordinary Legal Scholarship’ [2010] 2(5) Journal of Comparative Law 356 (in English).

35. Varga Cs, ‘On the Socially Determined Nature of Legal Reasoning’ (1973) Logique et Analyse 21-78 (in English). 36. – –, ‘Koskenniemi and the International Legal Argument As Founded in the Law’s Ontology’ 2015 Hungarian Yearbook of International Law and European Law (Eleven International 2016) 331-55 (in English).

37. – –, ‘The Philosophy of Teaching Legal Philosophy in Hungary’ [2009] 2(5) Iustum Aequum Salutare, 165-84 (in English).

38. Varga Cs, ‘Theatrum legale mundi: Pro klasyfikatsiiu pravovykh system [‘Theatrum Legale Mundi: on the Classification of Legal Systems’] (2012) 3-4 Porivnialne pravoznavstvo 17-37 (in Ukrainian).

39. – –, ‘Porivniannia pravovykh kultur i pravovoho myslennia’ [‘Comparison of Legal Cultures and Legal Thinking’] (2013) 3-4 Pravo Ukrainy 22-31 (in Ukrainian).

40. – –, ‘Pravova doktryna: metodolohiia ta ontolohiia’ [‘Legal Doctrine: Methodology and Ontology’] (2011) 8 Pravo Ukrainy 99-108 (in Ukrainian).

Conference paper

41. Jukier R, ‘How to Introduce Similarities and Differences and Discuss Common Problems in the Classroom’ (International Associations of Law Schools Conference, Sozhou China, October 17-19, 2007) <https://www.mcgill.ca/centre-crepeau/files/centre-crepeau/ Jukier_simms_diffs.pdf> (accessed: 01.02.2019) (in English).

42. Varga Cs, ‘Global’nye vyzovy, pravovoe gosudarstvo i natsional’nye interesy: Debaty ob universalizme/partikulyarizme evroatlanticheskoy tsivilizatsii’ [‘Global Challenges, the Rule of Law and National Interests: Debates on Universalism/Specularism of the Euro-Atlantic Civilization’] v Zapesotskiy A (red), Sovremennye global’nye vyzovy i natsional’nye interesy XVI Mezhdunarodnye Likhachevskie nauchnye chteniya (19-21 maya 2016 g.) [Contemporary Global Challenges and National Interests: XVI International Likhachev Scientific Readings, May 19-21, 2016] (Sankt-Peterburgskiy gumanitarnyy universitet profsoyuzov 2016) 46-50 (in Russian).

Websites

43. ‘[World Bank] Doing Business 2004 Understanding Regulations (September 2003)’ (Oxford University Press) <http://www.doingbusiness.org/reports/global-reports/doingbusiness2004> (accessed: 01.02.2019) (in English).

Other sources

44. Melina Girardi Fachin’s national report from Brazil, Part I (in English).

45. Melina Girardi Fachin’s national report from Brazil, Part IIa (in English).

46. Myriam Hunter-Henin’s national report from the United Kingdom (in English). 47. Silvia Ferreri’s national report from Italy, para. 1 (in English).