This course presents basic concepts and elements of legal science with a view to introducing students to legal education and the fundamental characteristics of legal thought. By approaching law as a ‘social phenomenon’ and by recognising the political dimension of rules and institutions, the course aims to familiarise students with the organisation and operation of the contemporary legal order, and with the evolution and transformation of law through processes of internationalisation and European integration. The course focuses on positive law, distinguishing between law, ethics and social mores. It examines the principal features of a legal rule, different types of legal rules, the characteristics that make a legal rule capable of influencing human behaviour and various aspects concerning the adoption and hierarchy of legal rules in a democratic state. The course also explores the sources of the Greek legal order, with reference to key distinctions between private and public law, and between substantive and procedural law. The course ends with an exploration of basic elements of constitutional law, administrative law, international law and EU law, as they are directly related to the Department’s curriculum.