Read more
Sweeping through the history of Western philosophy of law, Emanuele Castrucci deals with the metaphysical idea of potency as defined by Spinoza and Nietzsche, upsetting entrenched theories of jurisprudence. From classical Greek philosophy to Jewish biblical exegesis, via Christianity; from Aristotle's Metaphysics to its Arabic interpretations; from the genesis of natural law theory (Augustine, Aquinas, Duns Scotus, Ockham), to Kant and Enlightenment natural law theory, to Carl Schmitt, Castrucci shows how philosophical rationalism has failed to contain absolute power in a juridical sense.
List of contents
Preface
I. The Logos of Potency. A theoretical Introduction
II. Logos of 'Potentia Dei'
III. 'Ordained potency' vs. 'Absolute Potency'
IV. Political Theology Reconsidered
V. Genealogies of Constituent Potency. Schmitt, Nietzsche, Spinoza
Corollaries: I. On the Origins of Conventionalist Political Philosophy in the Seventeenth Century
II. The Problem of a Political Theology
III. Rhetoric of Ethical Universalism. Jürgen Habermas and the Dissolution of Political Realism
Bibliography
Index of names
About the author
Emanuele Castrucci is Professor of Philosophy of Law at the University of Siena. He taught previously at the Universities of Florence and Genoa. His studies mainly concern the domain of the history of legal and political ideas, which include such areas as the sources and forms of modern European legal thought, the reconstruction of the legal theory of the early 20th century German State and the theological roots of the cultural tradition of Western civilization. He has contributed to the diffusion in Italy of the thought of Carl Schmitt, editing the Italian edition of Der Nomos der Erde im Völkerrecht des Jus publicum Europaeum (1991).
Summary
Emanuele Castrucci bridges the two seemingly unrelated worlds of classical Greek philosophy and Jewish biblical exegesis. He connects them through the historical nexus of Christianity, which has marked the destiny of Western philosophy across the political, philosophical and jurisprudential horizons.
