The Contest Between Might And Rright

Franz Leopold Neumann was the first generation scholar of the Frankfurt School, his research was an academic contribution which bases on the the practice of law. He experienced the 1st establishment of Germany, as a student major in Law, he touched with Schmitt, Heller and some other "great" ideologist, and could even be said that he was disseminated by the debate of Weimar Public Law. The practice in law gave him the sensitivity to capture the difficulties during the transformation of capitalist of law (he was appointed the official lawyer of the whole Social Democratic Party in 1932). Marcuse had evaluated him as "in a rare sense a political scholar" "politics was a life element". His research was always considered to be fragmented or unsystematically as his life path. However, his research was not fragmentary but consistently as presented in this article."Might VS Right" base on freedom is the topic which was continuously mentioned in Newman’s research. That he explored the universality of the existence of power is precisely the preparation for "achieving freedom under the power’s existence".His research on freedom also shows that freedom not only includes the legal dimension, but also includes the will and cognitive dimension. People must steer their rights legitimately to achieve the so-called freedom, establish and maintain the institution which can help human to achieve freedom, constitutional is such institution. Natural law, Mechanical philosophy and Common law are the three sources of constitutionalism. The institution of anti-freedom includes a variety of dictatorship, which is traceable from the point of view genesis. That overcome political anxiety is the prerequisite to prevent dictatorship. For the empirical reality of positive law, there are some conditions which are legitimacy for individuals to invoke so that he can disobey it.Newman advocated interdisciplinary research, The philosophy and history shall be investigated equally. He investigated "freedom" beyond the legal theory and did not agree with the exoteric of freedom is kind of "absence of law" even he is a graduate in law. His analyses to transition of the twentieth century capitalist countries can be the valuable and consultable references for Chinese academic field. Never the less, Newman’s insights for the concept of freedom and power and so on clarified some "common sense" and "misunderstanding" of political philosophy, which has a great significance to shape the right "political attitude" of citizens and carry out political practice.