Law as social science or humanity? Some notes on “academic determinism”

Abstract

The European Research Council (ERC) funding scheme classifies law within the social sciences and humanities sector, identifying legal science as a social science. The paper presents the case-study of such a classification as a deterministic model of evaluation and assessment of legal research. This may impact on career opportunities of individuals as well as on scientific independence, tacitly predefining the selection of research topics and legal methodology. The paper argues that ERC encourages a successful trend of conducting legal research to obtain funding, through the application of indicators. Their aim is to show which process has been followed to achieve and measure results. Legal science then risks being reduced to the analysis of legal performance. In this context, re-reading some writings of Polanyi on social sciences as well as on the critique of economic determinism sheds light on forms of academic determinism that affect the way of carrying-out research.

Keywords

• Law
• social sciences
• humanities
• academic determinism
• ERC
• Polanyi