Exceptionally, the lecture takes place on a Tuesday.
Abstract
Giving body to ideas and making them move in space is an effective way of representing and handling abstractions. Certain spatial and ontological metaphors have become so commonplace in legal language that they are no longer perceived as such. This is the case with the word conventio, which the jurist Ulpian explains (Digest 2.14.1.3) by reactivating the original meaning of the verb convenire, which means to come together in one place from different places. Hence the metaphorical use of conventio to signify the meeting of the wills of the contracting parties. The same metaphor, spatial and ontological (according to the categories of cognitive linguistics), is used in articles 1101 and 1113 of the French Civil Code, concerning the definition of contract. Just as Ulpian highlights the metaphorical value of conventio, reading Ulpian enables us to grasp the matrix of modern definition.
In other cases, the metaphorical weave of legal language is more hidden, deeper and even more fundamental. This is the case with the idea of the transfer of rights, according to which rights are objects (or even persons) that move, passing from one hand to another and taking their physiognomy with them. Reading another text by Ulpian (Digest 41.1.20.1) brings this kind of theater of rights back to life. Finally, we find Ulpian's words in the subtext of a page by Emmanuel Kant : the destiny of metaphors is to engender others, and that of Roman law is to produce ideas, often without our knowledge.
