Origins of Order

An examination of how two fundamental concepts of order influence our ideas about sovereignty, citizenship, law, and history

Western accounts of natural and political order have deployed two basic ideas: project and system. In a project, order is produced by the intentional act of a subject; in a system, order is immanent in the world. In the former, order is made; in the latter, discovered.

Paul W. Kahn shows how project and system have long been at work in our theological and philosophical tradition. Against this background, Kahn explains the development of the modern legal imagination in the nineteenth century as a movement from project to system. Americans began the century imagining the constitutional order as their common project: a deliberate construction of We the People. They ended the century imagining that order is continuous with the common law: an immanent development of the principles of civilization. This imaginative shift affected ideas of legal text, sovereignty, citizenship, interpretation, history, and science.

O examinare a modului in care doua concepte fundamentale de ordine ne influenteaza ideile despre suveranitate, cetatenie, drept si istorie Relatarile occidentale ale ordinii naturale si politice au desfasurat doua idei de baza: proiect si sistem. Intr-un proiect, ordinea este produsa de actul intentionat al unui subiect; intr-un sistem, ordinea este imanenta in lume.