El papel de la ciencia jurídica en el liberalismo reformista español del siglo XIX

• Author: José María Seco Martínez
• Position: Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Sevilla, España
• Pages: 431-447

Revista inteRnacional de Pensamiento Político - i ÉPoca - vol. 15 - 2020 - [431-447] - issn 1885-589X

431

THE ROLE OF LEGAL SCIENCE IN 19

TH

CENTURY SPANISH LIBERAL REFORMISM

EL PAPEL DE LA CIENCIA JURIDICA EN EL LIBERALISMO

REFORMISTA ESPAÑOL DEL SIGLO XIX

José María Seco Martínez

Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Sevilla, España

jmsecmar@upo.es

Recibido: septiembre de 2020

Aceptado: noviembre de 2020

Palabras clave: Filosofía social, ciencia jurídica, Liberalismo reformista español, democracia.

Keywords: Social philosophy, legal science, Spanish liberal reformism, democracy.

Resumen: En el siglo XIX la sociedad española comenzaba a integrarse, muy re-

zagada y con sus particularidades socio-culturales, entre las sociedades de la

modernidad occidental capitalista. Con sus diferencias y su “ser tradicional”,

no podía permanecer ajena por más tiempo a un nuevo orden de conguración

paradigmática de la realidad que, a su vez, per-formaba el orden de las cosas,

los hechos y las categorías. De hecho, bien entrado el siglo XIX aún no se había

embarcado con plenitud en los procesos de la modernidad occidental (secula-

rización y democratización), porque tampoco podía asumir la ruptura con los

valores culturales más enraizados, de sus costumbres y sus fueros medievales.

El papel de la ciencia jurídica, especialmente a través de la escuela krausista,

fue decisivo para el reformismo que la sociedad española necesitaba.

Abstract: The truth is that 19th Century Spanish society began to integrate

– with its unique socio-cultural particularities and somewhat later than other

countries – into what we might call the world system of Western capitalist

modernity, to the extent that it could – and indeed did – create the conditions

for governing its own reproduction. Spanish society, with its differences and its

“traditional way of being,” could not remain oblivious for any longer to a new

order, a paradigmatic conguration of reality that, in turn, shaped the order of

things, events, and categories. Indeed, well into the 19th Century, Spain had

not yet embarked fully on the processes of Western modernity (secularisation

and democratisation). The role modern legal science has carried out a crucial

part in the Spanish contemporary history. It was essential in the arrival to

Spain of the process of the Age of Enlightenment, linked to the principles of

secularization and democratization.

Revista inteRnacional de Pensamiento Político - i ÉPoca - vol. 15 - 2020 - [431-447] - issn 1885-589X

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1. Introduction

Krause’s work rst became known in

Spain through one of his most famous

disciples, Heinrich Ahrens, who, in 1838,

was claimed to have written one of the

most precise syntheses of his master’s

legal philosophy: Cours de droit naturel

ou de philosophie du droit, translated into

Spanish in 1841, by professors Eusebio

María del Valle and Ruperto Navarro

Zamorano, a translation that was known

to Sanz del Río, the genuine precursor of

Krausism in Spain1.

Let us begin by noting that the concern

for law expressed within Spanish

Krausism became evident from its earliest

codes. Naturally, the most pressing

question, therefore, is why the opus of

the most neglected of German classical

philosophers, through the work of Julián

Sanz del Río, achieved such widespread

acceptance in Spain? Why was it able to

spread –especially through Francisco

Giner de los Ríos– so quickly, to inuence

and remain inuential for so long (even

1. Julián Sanz del Río, a Doctor of Law and Ac-

ting Professor of the History of Philosophy, left

Spain in 1843, commissioned by the Government

to ascertain and import doctrines and knowledge

useful to the social and political transformation

that our country needed in the 19th century. He

headed to Germany, impressed by the reading of

Ahrens’ work, –two years previously he had ad-

vised the government to replace the subjects of

Natural Law, the Principles of universal legisla-

tion and the Principles of public law with a Philo-

sophy of Law fellowship– fascinated by Ahrens

himself and somewhat urged on by Victor Cou-

sin. In Heidelberg, he made contact with Krausist

authors (Karl Röder, Herman Leonhardi, etc.)

and from that moment onwards devoted himself

to spreading the teachings of Krause through his

Fellowship in the Amplication of Philosophy,

awarded to him in 1856.

after the disappearance of the ‘Krausist

School’) to the extent of revolutionising

the institutional functioning of State

structures? This was especially true in

the eld of education; indeed the Free

Institute of Education is a good example

of this. The trail left behind by Krause “was

not erased in Spain as Hegelianism was,

leaving no trace other than certain socialist

derivations. Its vitality left such a deep

mark that, even after the individuality of

the school had disappeared, its doctrines,

now without seal or origin, blended into

the circulatory torrent of general thought,

encouraging explanations, books and

conferences, dominating the sphere of

law, and sending from his tomb a parting

beam of light, as if linked to human

consciousness by an irradiation that can

never disappear”2.

It should be stressed, however, there was

no ‘Krausist School’ in the strict sense of the

term. Although for a long time, there were

several generations of intellectuals open to

its numerous legal, sociological, scientic,

and anthropological implications, whose

interventions in public and academic life

in those years were brimming with the

democratic-liberal transformation needed

by political institutions, the secularisation

of Spanish reality, and the consolidation of

scientic instruments as a mechanism for

human emancipation and progress. Use

of the term ‘generations’ is certainly no

exaggeration. Following the chronological

criterion established by Prof. Elias Díaz,

we could even talk about ‘classes’: The

rst ‘class’ or generation would include,

among others, Valeriano Fernández

Ferraz, Federico de Castro, Francisco

2. Méndez Bejarano, M., Historia de la Filosofía

en España, s.f., p. 466, in Abellan, J.L.., Historia

Crítica del pensamiento español, Barcelona, Cír-

culo de Lectores, 1993, p. 511