Through the Looking Glass of the Law

Abstract

After the passion for the system that has characterized the modern age through the canon of “clear and distinct” and after the first wave of post-modern has tried to impose “chaos” as a “rule,” the jurist now confronts with the challenges of an a-systemic and strongly jurisprudential law.

We intend to assume the paradigm of the game to attempt a reconstruction of the specificity of today's law (Kerkove-Ost); we intend to highlight the aspect of “staging” and the hermeneutic reconstruction of life through law (Garapon). Law can be understood as a great mirror through which life is observed, analyzed, evaluated, and judged. The Law and Literature approach appears to be particularly useful in this sense. From the texts of Carrol to the works of Kafka, only to give two examples, literature has proposed important moments of reflection that can help us understand the new structure of contemporary law.

Keywords:

• Law
• mirror
• post-modern law

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 F. Kafka, Il processo (Milano: Mondadori, 2019), 193.

2 See P. Grossi, Mitologie giuridiche della modernità (Milano: Giuffré, 2007), 43 ff.

3 M. v. de Kerkove, F. Ost, Il diritto ovvero i paradossi del gioco, 4.

4 See G. Minda, Teorie postmoderne del diritto (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2011).

5 Ibid., 5.

6 Naturally assuming the stereotyped way of reading the modern. In the inverse sense one can refer to the literature of A. Del Noce, Da Cartesio a Rosmini (Milano: Giuffré, 1992).

7 And that is the best conclusion to the critics that Capograssi opposes to all the translations of the modern (exemplified with Kelsen) to which he opposes the juridical experience. Cfr. G. Capograssi, Studi sull’esperienza giuridica, in Opere, vol. II (Milano: Giuffré, 1959).

8 See P. Legendre, Dieu au Miroir (Paris: Fayard, 1994); Filiation (Paris: Fayard, 1990); Le Crime du caporal Lortie (Paris: Fayard, 1989).

9 See P. Heirtier, Società post-hitleriane? (Torino: Giappichelli, 2009).

10 Using as maent by P. Grossi, Introduzione al Novecento giuridico (Roma-Bari: Laterza, 2012), 3 ff.

11 As long as the entre-deux is presented as “bold creativity,” a dynamic princile, more than a ‘static immanence’; ibid., 36.

12 Ibid., 8.

13 See M. v. de Kerkove, F. Ost, De la pyramide au réseau? (Bruxelles: Saint Louis Press, 2002).

14 P. Legendre, Dieu au miroir, 10; Les enfants du texte (Paris: Fayard, 1992), 25 ff.

15 See M. v. de Kerkove, F. Ost, Il diritto ovvero i paradossi del gioco, 42 ff.

16 L. Carroll, Le avventure di Alice nel Paese delle Meraviglie. Attraverso lo specchio (Milano: Mondadori, 2013), 151–152.

17 T. Hetche, Il caso Arbogast (Torino: Einaudi, 2004), 214.

18 La guerre de Troie n’aura pas lieu, Atto II, Scena V: “Nous savons tous ici que le droit est la plus puissante des écoles de l’imagination. Jamais poète n’a interprété la nature aussi librement qu’un juriste la réalité.”

19 Relevant in this sense the considerations of R. Guardini, Vom Geist Der Liturgie (Stuttgart: Grunewald, 2018).

20 G. Carcaterra, Dal giurista al filosofo (Torino: Giappichelli, 2007), 13.

21 S. Andrini, Le miroir du réel, 18 ff.

22 N. Irti, Un diritto incalcolabile (Torino: Giappichelli, 2016).

23 F. Brezzi, Gioco senza regole, 32.

24 E. Amodio, Estetica della giustizia penale, 55 ff.

25 A. Garapon, Del giudicare (Milano: Cortina, 2001), 201 ff.

26 E. Amodio, Estetica della giustizia penale, 15–16.

27 The word diritto in Italian means both straight and right, but also the complex of rights and norms (the law). There have been many attempts to define its etymology. There have been some that are more theoretically fitting, but imaginative, as those of F. Carnelutti (Ius Iungit, in Discorsi intorno al diritto, vol. II (Padova: Cedam, 1953), 143–149), and others that paid more attention to the plurality of meaning such as G. Devoto (Parole giuridiche, in Scritti minori (Firenze: Le Monnier, 1958, vol. I, 95–109), but also in depth analysis by F. Galgano (Il rovescio del diritto (Milano: Giuffré, 1991), just to mention a few.

28 See A. Punzi, Dialogica del diritto. Studi per una filosofia della giurisprudenza (Torino: Giappichelli, 2009); G. Vettori, Il contratto europeo tra regole e principi (Torino, Giappichelli, 2015).

29 See F. Garapon, D. Salas, Les nouvelles sourcières de Salem (Paris: Seuil, 2006).

30 F. Ost, Le droit object de passion? I crave the law (Bruxelles: L’Académie en Poche, 2018).

31 Particularly relevant is the observation moved by Bobbio: G. Benedetti, Oggettività esistenziale dell’interpretazione (Torino: Giappichelli, 2014), 6 ff.

32 L. Carroll, Le avventure di Alice nel Paese delle Meraviglie. Attraverso lo specchio, 223.

33 Other than the most evident citations, also Bruner, La fabbrica delle storie (Roma-Bari: Laterza, 2002); also The narrative construction of reality, in “Critical iniquity,” 1991, n. 18, 1–21; A. Visconti, Narratività, narrazione, narrazioni: giustizia come ‘apertura’, in Giustizia e letteratura III, a cura di G. Forti, C. Mazzuccati, A. Viscomi (Milano: Vita e Pensiero, 2016), 14 ff.; F. Di Donato, La costruzione giudiziaria del fatto. Il ruolo della narrazione nel processo (Milano: Franco Angeli, 2019).

34 I am referring to the famous image by V. Hugo, I miserabili (Milano: Mondadori, 2013), 980: “a tear in the eye of the law.”

35 F. Ost, Le droit object de passion? I crave the law, 8.

36 We can find an in depth analysis in B. Cavallone, La borsa di Miss Flite. Storie e immagini del processo (Milano: Adelphi, 2016), 65 ff.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Daniele M. Cananzi

Daniele M. Cananzi is Associate Professor of Philosophy of Law in the Departments of Law, Economy and Human Sciences at University Mediterranea of Reggio Calabria, and Director of CRED – Research Center for the Aesthetics of Law. He is also the director of SUDEUROPA. Quadrimestrale di civiltà e cultura europea. His researches realized in the last years move in the fields of legal hermeneutics, aesthetics of law, law and literature, politics of law and legal systems, liberal economic theories and public choice, European and Mediterranean law.