Feasibility illusions, solemn declarations and chants: On the relationship between evolution and revolution in the law

Abstract

The author begins with the claim that everything is evolution, but evolution is not everything, to defend the thesis that although the system’s cognitive learning can adequately explain the possibility of evolutionary achievements, significant changes of course in world history through normativ framework learning should still be understood as a revolutionary achievement that can not be reduced to evolution – even though the revolution is also evolution. He argues that the revolution disembarrasses the normative potential of social evolution and that the subsequent constitutionalization embodies the reason and the emancipatory force of the revolution, the progress in the consciousness of freedom, transcending the gap between reason and will.