Time of innovation and time of transition shaping the legal dimension: a methodological approach from legal history

The essay aims to explore the use of “innovation” and “transition” as possible analytical tools for understanding legal change from a historical perspective. It is structured by first considering the concepts of “innovation” and of “transition” theoretically and in some declinations they experienced in history; is thereby illustrated how, while innovation means a way of thinking about legal change, transition means a way of being of law (a regime of law). Considering a potential complementarity of the two concepts, the essay proceeds to consider the value as an analytical tool of “innovation-transition”, understood as a conceptual pair. The contribution it can make is then emphasized, for a rediscovery of the dynamics of objectivation of law i.e. dynamics that, in the course of history, have been hidden in legal culture, with the shift from ordo to systema and the rise of an abstract, rational and then dogmatic understanding of law. The essay shows how a research approach based on the innovation-transition dyad, can offer an opportunity to inquire the basis of meaning on which conceptual abstractions were made. This possibility leads legal history to identify conditions for the theoretical sustainability of legal concepts. By way of this approach in addition to fulfilling the function of historicizing legal experience, legal history could place itself in the debate on legal change in the current phase. The final part of the essay, consequently, questions the possibilities of interdisciplinary dialogue within the diverse legal disciplines