In this article, I identify a number of commonly accepted assumptions from the literature associated with the Rule of Law and suggest that—whilst the assumptions are accepted as part of the conceptual narrative of the concept—the cogency of the assumptions falters when they are considered collectively. This article represents, in many respects, both a critique of current practices and a rallying cry in relation to future practices. Through illustrating that the form of conceptual change across canonical conceptions of the Rule of Law can impact the relative level of consistency in the assumptions that are used and relied on in the opening of so many Rule-of-Law-focused works, I demonstrate that there must—if we are to provide the strongest possible arguments relating to the contemporary idea of the Rule of Law—be consideration of the actual way in which change has occurred across conceptions. I argue that consideration of collective cogency is necessary for conceptual clarity and illustrate the essentiality of doing so by considering the assumptions in relation to two hypothetical mechanisms of change. This approach illustrates not only the general inconsistency, but also that inconsistency varies between the mechanisms. This variance leads to a fundamental problem: without the identification of the change mechanism that has operated across Rule of Law related ideas, there is no way to assess whether the Rule of Law’s common assumptions are, or can be considered to be, consistent with one another. I also suggest one way to solve this problem.

在本文中，我从与法治相关的文献中确定了一些普遍接受的假设，并建议—尽管这些假设被接受为该概念的概念性叙述的一部分—当考虑这些假设时，其强制性就会减弱集体。本文在许多方面代表了对当前实践的批评和对未来实践的集会呼声。通过说明跨法治的规范概念的概念变化形式可以影响了这么多以法治为重点的作品的开头所使用和依赖的假设的相对一致性水平，我证明，如果我们要提供与当代思想有关的最强有力的论据，就必须法治的概念—考虑跨概念发生变化的实际方式。我认为，为概念清晰起见，必须考虑集体能力，并通过考虑与两种假设的变化机制有关的假设来说明这样做的必要性。这种方法不仅说明了一般的不一致，而且还说明了不同机制之间的不一致。这种差异导致一个根本性的问题：如果没有确定具有如果以法治相关的理念为依据，则无法评估法治的共同假设是否相互一致或可以被认为是相互一致的。我还建议一种解决此问题的方法。