Yan Thomas has had a profound influence
on recent legal historical research. At its core, his vast œuvre was
animated by two principles: an aversion to doctrinal interpretations
(through a strong interest in casuistry) and the certainty that fiction,
a technique that characterized Roman law, is fundamental to any
interpretation of the Western legal tradition. The rigor of his approach
was rooted in the need for a legal philology and a semantic perspective
on law. He insisted that the frequent (and still current) practice of
justifying a rejection of history through the “axiology of legal
principles from which liberal ideology draws its metaphysics,”
[1]
Yan Thomas, “La langue du droit romain. Problèmes et...[1]
carelessly resolved problems that, in fact, were never posed and,
furthermore, used “common sense” to interpret the very language
requiring an analysis of its internal structure and semantics. Thomas
remained dedicated to a philology that, in the words of Louis Gernet,
“is useful only when nurtured by history.”
[2]
Louis Gernet, Recherches sur le développement de la...[2] And, like Gernet, he
denounced the “laziness of minds in action” that seek humanity’s
eternal soul, who interpret vengeance, will, equality, and law as stable
categories, and in so doing generate “a contents so impoverished as to
leave one hopeless.”
[3]
Ibid., 6.[3]...Cairn