Abstract
This symposium presents the work of the Italian legal philosopher, Ferrajoli, to the English speaking public. Ferrajoli’s work offers a reflection on law and the constitutional democratic state from a post-positivist perspective, applying the axiomatic method to the theory of law and democracy. Besides his systematic approach, Ferrajoli’s theory is remarkable for a number of original and interesting reflections that he offers on the relationship between normativity and facticity, and on how to reconcile foundamental rights and democracy. In both respects, his work has similarities in scope, if not in approach and not always in substance, with that of Habermas.
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Notes
In the production of this very symposium, we had to deal with some of the dilemmas that translating technical and philosophical terminology poses. In a few cases, I have tried to homogenize the terminology adopted by the contributors in order to render some of Ferrajoli’s key technical concepts. In one notable instance, I decided to leave different translations standing. Ferrajoli’s ‘diritto illegittimo’ is rendered by most of the contributors as ‘illegitimate law’, which is probably a more literal and straightforward translation of Ferrajoli’s expression. But in Sandro’s contribution, and in his own translation of Ferrajoli’s piece, it is rendered as ‘unlawful law’. This is because he wishes to emphasize how, in Ferrajoli’s work, the contradiction between different normative levels of the law is both a real and a logical contradiction.
References
Coleman, Jules. 2001. Hart’s postscript. Essays on the postscript to the concept of law. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Ferrajoli, Luigi. 2007. Principia iuris. Teoria del diritto e della democrazia, vol. 3. Roma-Bari: Laterza.
Ferrajoli, Luigi. 1989. Diritto e ragione. Teoria del garantismo penale. Roma-Bari: Laterza.
Habermas, Jürgen. 1984. The theory of communicative action. Reason and the rationalization of society. Boston: The MIT Press.
Habermas, Jürgen. 1987. The theory of communicative action. Lifeworld and system: A critique of functionalist reason. Boston: The MIT Press.
Habermas, Jürgen. 1996. Between facts and norms. Contributions to a discourse theory of law and democracy. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Kelsen, Hans. 1945. General theory of law and state (trans. A. Wedberg). Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.
Acknowledgments
I am grateful to the Editors of Res Publica for having supported the publication of this Symposium, and having patiently waited for the gestation of the project. They have also been of great help during the final editing of the manuscript and particularly in revision of the translations from the original Italian of several of the pieces included in the Symposium. In the course of the editorial process, I have occasionally revised the style of the contributions in order to render them clearer to an English audience. In doing so, I may have slightly changed the way in which the argument was presented, but I hope not to have altered the sense. I apologise for this to our contributors, whose meaning I may have inadvertently forced.
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Castiglione, D. Introduction. Res Publica 17, 311–315 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11158-011-9165-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11158-011-9165-z