The essays compiled in this volume represent different attempts to comprehend the idea of the law that gradually took shape in Greece, which was undeniably instrumental in the subsequent development of our Western civilization. I believe that an examination of this subject is unquestionably relevant to the legal scholarship of our time, not only because Greek concepts were used by Roman jurists when trying to come up with a theoretical framework for their institutions, but also because a deeper knowledge of this theme can be a powerful means of combating the increasing specialization of our field—a trend which deprives the law of a holistic perspective that ultimately gives the entire discipline meaning.
Everyone shapes their own world and, in the process, establishes their personality. However, over-specialization today is inexorably widening the gap between our specific knowledge and the innately human drive that led us to acquire it in the first place. The result is a predominance of diverse techniques which, as a whole, have severed their ties to the original knowledge on which they are predicated. The pursuit of practical success has displaced the search for truth, and this situation undoubtedly facilitates the massification of ideas and behaviors, the result of which is the growing dehumanization of the individual.
The world of culture is the work of human hands, but that world rests on and stems from human personality. We cannot comprehend cultural products of any kind if we forget from whence they came. We must step out of the world of scholarship and return to the world of life, retrieve the notes of that world, and use them to infuse our knowledge with renewed vitality. In the specific case of the law, court litigators, driven by practical necessities, will often ignore the guiding principles of legal science, and on many occasions even scholars will set aside the philosophical foundations of their discipline. But this situation can be remedied by cultivating the “human sciences” or humanities, fundamentally philosophy, history, and literature. These three paths introduce us to the study and comprehension of human nature and, by extension, of the various bodies of knowledge which have their source in that nature.
Ancient Greece is a textbook case for, as André Malraux pointed out, a secret Greece lives in the heart of every western man. It was there, for the first time, that people wondered about the existence of things and laid the first stones of our civilization; and it was there that this primary quest for truth led to the subsequent quest for freedom and justice. The problems of that age were similar in substance, if not in form, to the ones we face today. And this is what compelled me to share the following pages with my readers.
Buenos Aires
June 1, 2021