The master's thesis shifts the analytical focus of the sociology of law from the traditional institutional analysis of legal systems to the exploration of legal consciousness among laypeople – that is, the perceptions, feelings, and experiences lay individuals form about law in their everyday lives. The central aim of the thesis is to shed light on the historical development of this concept and to offer possibilities for its conceptual refinement. To this end, I first examine the sociological contributions of Eugen Ehrlich, Susan Silbey, and Patricia Ewick. In the central part of the thesis, I develop a conceptual distinction between Enlightenment and Romantic legal consciousness among laypeople, based on the legal theories of Friedrich Carl von Savigny and Jeremy Bentham. In the final part, I explore the potential for further developing the concept of legal consciousness through the key ideas of German classical philosophy – particularly those of Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel.
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