TCRS 2/2014 Teoria e Critica della regolazione sociale

Transcript

TCRS 2/2014
Teoria e Critica
della regolazione sociale
MIMESIS
Visiocrazia.
Immagine e forma della legge
Visiocracy.
Image and Form of Law
A cura di
Paolo Heritier
Con il sostegno dell’Istituto “Campus Don Bosco” all’attività del Centro Studi di Teoria e
Critica della Regolazione Sociale
Direttore scientifico:
Bruno Montanari
Direttori editoriali:
Alberto Andronico, Paolo Heritier
Comitato editoriale:
Giovanni Bombelli, Alessio Lo Giudice, Giovanni Magrì,
Paolo Silvestri, Guglielmo Siniscalchi
Comitato scientifico:
Salvatore Amato (Università di Catania), Francesco Cavalla (Università di Padova), Fabio
Ciaramelli (Università di Catania), Vincenzo Ferrari (Università di Milano), Peter Goodrich
(Cardozo School of Law), Antonio Incampo (Università di Bari), Jacques Lenoble (Université
Catholique de Louvain), Hans Lindahl (Universiteit van Tilburg), Sebastiano Maffettone (LUISS
“Guido Carli” – Roma), Eligio Resta (Università di Roma Tre), Eugenio Ripepe (Università di
Pisa), Herbert Schambeck (Universität Linz), Gunther Teubner (Goethe-Universität Frankfurt a.
M.), Bert van Roermund (Universiteit van Tilburg)
MIMESIS EDIZIONI (Milano – Udine)
www.mimesisedizioni.it
[email protected]
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Isbn: 9788857530758
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Indice
Nota introduttiva
p. 7
Quaderno “Visiocrazia”
Peter Goodrich, Visiocracy. On the Futures of the Fingerpost
p. 11
Daniele Cananzi, Iconomy: Law and its Representation
p. 39
Guglielmo Siniscalchi, Visual Legal Signs
p. 51
Flora Di Donato, Making in-Justices Visible. The Blindness of Bureaucracy
p. 57
Enrico Cassini, From the Underworld: on the Origin of Images between
the Emblemata Iuris and Film Theory
p. 79
Paolo Heritier, Forms of Legal Aesthetics of the Body and Sources of Law:
the Hand, the Foot, the Eye. Plural Natural Paths in Law
p. 87
Forum “Emotional Force and Form in Legal Education”
Carlo Ossola, La legge e la leggenda
p. 111
Pierangelo Sequeri, Estetica del comandamento. Fenomenologia ed ermeneutica dell’ingiunzione
p. 119
Federico Vercellone, Chaos and Morphogenesis in German Romanticism
p. 129
Le recensioni
C. Bottici,
Imaginal Politics. Images beyond Imagination and the Imaginary,
Columbia University Press, New York 2014,
di Paolo Heritier
p. 137
G. Deleuze,
Istinti e istituzioni, Mimesis, Milano-Udine 2014,
di Alessandro Campo
p. 139
G. C. Pagazzi,
Fatte a mano. L’affetto di Cristo per le cose, EDB, Bologna 2014
di Luigi Pirri
p. 142
H. Miyazaki,
Arbitraging Japan. Dreams of Capitalism at the End of Finance,
University of California Press, Berkeley 2013
di Paolo Silvestri
p. 145
L. de Sutter,
Métaphysique de la putain, Léo Scheer, Paris 2014
di Paolo Heritier
p. 147
Nota introduttiva
Il secondo numero del 2014 di TCRS presenta uno scambio di opinioni e ragionamenti tra filosofi del diritto e studiosi di altre discipline, in seguito a due occasioni di discussione e confronto interdisciplinare promossi dal DIREL (centro
studi Diritto, Religioni e Letteratura), dell’Università di Torino. La prima si è svolta
ospitando il quinto convegno nazionale del network ISLL (Italian Society for Law
and Literature) a Torino nel 2013 e i cui atti sono appena stati pubblicati da Mimesis, con il titolo Diritto e immagine. Rappresentazione ed evoluzione delle fonti. La
seconda occasione, insieme workshop e progetto di ricerca in corso di sviluppo, dal
titolo Emotional Force and Form in Legal Education (EMILE) si è tenuto a Torino
nel 2014, riprendendo e ampliando temi già oggetto del sesto convegno dell’ISLL,
organizzato a Urbino nel 2014 (La vita nelle forme. Il diritto e le altre arti).
Il testo di apertura di Peter Goodrich, presidente del DIREL insieme a Pierangelo Sequeri e a Carlo Ossola, che inaugura il tema del quaderno “Visiocracy”,
è stato presentato al convegno del 2013 e qui posto come introduzione ad alcuni studi di estetica giuridica di autori italiani che s’inseriscono nel contesto del
fervente dibattito internazionale sul tema Law and Humanities. Per quest’ultima
ragione, la lingua prescelta è stata l’inglese. Nel medesimo numero compare un
forum dedicato a “Emotional Force and Form in Legal Education”. I contributi
che vi compaiono sono stati presentati in forma plurale, dialogica ed aperta al
workshop del 2014 da Carlo Ossola, Pierangelo Sequeri, Federico Vercellone. Lo
stimolo, proveniente da tre illustri studiosi, rispettivamente di letteratura, teologia ed estetica, esterni al mondo del diritto, vuole suscitare attenzione ed indicare
direzioni per un dibattito tra “filosofi del diritto”, in special modo italiani, intorno
al tema della forma del diritto, così come viene evocata attraverso la continuità
tra il “pictorial turn” e profili ipotizzabili per la ricerca di un’ “affective turn”:
entrambe prospettive volte a mostrare il carattere riduttivo, nella contemporanea
società dell’immagine, del ‘linguistic turn’ degli anni ‘70.
In definitiva, il numero 2/2014 di TCRS torna a ricondurre, dopo il 2/2013, la
tematizzazione del “Diritto” a quella chiave antropologico-esistenziale che appare
ormai non più trascurabile. Il registro questa volta prescelto, come già detto, è
stato quello estetico-iconico, che nella cultura di ogni tempo ha costituito la rappresentazione del nesso tra la forza del potere e la forma del diritto.
Paolo Heritier
8
Nota introduttiva
TCRS
The second issue for 2014 of TCRS presents an exchange of opinions and
reasonings between juridical philosophers and academics from other fields, following two occasions for interdisciplinary discussion and comparison organized
by DIREL (Centro Studi Diritto, Religioni e Letteratura) at the University of
Torino. The first occasion was the fifth national convention of the ISSL network
(Italian Society for Law and Literature) in Torino in 2013, and the Acts were recently published by Mimesis under the title Diritto e immagine. Rappresentazione
ed evoluzione delle fonti. The second occasion, together with a workshop and an
ongoing research project entitled Emotional Force and Form in Legal Education
(EMILE) was held in Torino in 2014, taking up and extending the topics discussed during the sixth ISLL convention, organized in Urbino in 2014 (La vita
nelle forme. Il diritto e le altre arti).
The introductory text by Peter Goodrich, president of DIREL, with Pierangelo
Sequeri and Carlo Ossola, which inaugurates the topic of the work Visiocracy, was
presented at the convention in 2013 and here is presented as the introduction to
studies on legal aesthetics by Italian authors, which are part of the fervent international debate on Law and Humanities. For this reason, the language chosen was
English. In the same issue, there is a forum dedicated to Emotional Force and Form
in Legal Education. The contributions were presented in plural, dialogic and open
form at the 2014 workshop by Carlo Ossola, Pierangelo Sequeri and Federico
Vercellone. The stimulus from the three illustrious scholars, respectively of literature, theology and aesthetics, outside the world of law, is intended to draw
attention to, and indicate directions for the debate between ‘legal philosophers’,
in particular the Italians, on the question of the forms of law, just as continuity
between the “pictorial turn” and the conceivable profiles for research into an “affective turn” are evoked: both perspectives aim to show the reductive nature of the
contemporary society of images, of the “linguistic turn” of the seventies.
Finally, issue 2/2014 of TCRS once again deals with, further to 2/2013, the
question of “Law” in an anthropological-existential key that can no longer be
ignored. The register chosen, as we already said, is the aesthetic-iconic that in
the culture of all periods has constituted the representation of the nexus between
power and forms of law.
Paolo Heritier
Quaderno “Visiocrazia”
Peter Goodrich
Visiocracy. On the Futures of the Fingerpost
Perspicua vera non sunt probanda.1
Here is a recent study, carried out at NYU School of Law. During the first year
of law school, the curriculum includes a course on the elements of lawyering. In
addition to the substantive curriculum of Contracts, Property, Civil Procedure,
Criminal Law and Administrative Law, there is a compulsory course that deals
with legal research and writing, case analysis, advocacy, negotiation and trial. At
the end of the first year the final assignment is to argue a case. The researchers
divided the students randomly into two groups.2 The first argued in an informal
setting, a classroom or lecture theater that had been temporarily re-arranged into
a courtroom, with a judge in regular clothes presiding. The second group made
their case in a formal courtroom replete with columns, panels, Latin inscriptions,
murals, portraiture, bench, bar and thrones, before judges in robes.
1
Edward Coke, The First Part of the Institutes of the Lawes of England: Or, A Commentarie upon Littleton, Not the Name of a Lawyer Onely but of the Law Itselfe (London, 1628), n. p.
2
Oscar G. Chase, Jonathan Thong, ‘Judging Judges: The Effect of Courtroom Ceremony on Participant Evaluation of Process Fairness-Related Factors’, 33 Yale J. Law & Humanities
101 (2012).
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Fig. 1 Bartolus da Sassoferato from Antoine Lafrèry, Illustrium iureconsultorum imagines
(1566). Courtesy Rare Book Collection, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School.
What did the students see in the robes and regalia, the Latin and the elevations,
the ceremony and the insignia? Why did the apparent ornaments and accidents of
judicial presence have an effect upon their perception of legal authority and their
apprehension of the justice of judgment? Why is this outcome so surprisingly unsurprising? The answer lies in part, and I will not keep you waiting, in the absence
of training in the visual and artistic dimensions of legality. The lawyer is explicitly
told to judge with downcast eyes, to wear a blindfold as it were, which is to say as
it appears, and to look inside and not outside, intima non extima in the classical
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sources, in their advocacy of causes and their representations of the truths of law.
Take even the example of Bartolus of Sassoferrata, the first author of a legal treatise on insignia, arms, vexillology and law. He is depicted, in a portrait dating to
1566, as an emblematically monastic figure, a cowl on his head, and eyes averted,
not looking out but rather looking down, not seeing but turning his gaze away
(fig. 1).3 What this paradoxical portrait suggests, I will argue, is a juridical ambivalence towards vision, an air of dissimulation surrounds the artistic and figurative
dimensions of governance. The ceremonial, triumphal and sartorial dimensions of
law are generally assumed, taken somehow for granted and thus overlooked, or at
best seen as something glimpsed, lateral to legal action, heterotopic moments that
are all the more effective for being unnoticed, everyday aspects of the reliquary of
institutional routines. These are not nothing. They are structures of the visible, so
embedded as to be presupposed, so familiar that they are unrecognized, so forbidding that they turn the gaze away and are less observed than looked past or looked
through. Their presence, their visual jurisdiction and impact has, therefore, to be
cautiously and appropriately reconstructed from the early common law sources
that established the reign of legal emblems and the modes of visual governance
that became the visiocratic regime that we myopic modern lawyers inherit along
with the libraries and collections, the rule books and statutes that provide the first
appearances of the arcana imperii, the antique and continuing secrets of law.
Fescues and Fingerposts
To address the juridical meaning of the visual requires, as obvious as this might
seem, that we wrest our eyes from the text, and look up and out. By this I mean
in part that we need to return to different texts, to the early modern woodcuts of
legal norms that the printing press made available in the form of emblemata iuris,
emblem books of law.4 Here we have available a code of legal images, the basic
visual structures, the juridical imaginary in diverse images of sovereignty, justice,
amity, reverence, lure, lust and infinite more of the particulars of law. More than
that, wresting our eyes from the text means giving credence to images, becoming
learned in the visual and so proceeding as the legal authors of the emblem books
were wont to say, ad apparentiam, according to appearance, figuratively and not
textually. We have, and here I will borrow from the art historian Didi-Huberman,
to open to the image, we have to let it breathe, and we have to insufflate ourselves,
3
The portrait is in Antoine Lafréry, Illustrium iureconsultorum imagines quae inveniri
potuerunt ad vivam effigiem (Rome, 1566); Bartolus de Saxoferrato, was the author of Tractatus
de insigniis et armis [1358] extant in various collections of heraldic works, and most recently in
Osvaldo Cavallar et al. (eds), A Grammar of Signs. Bartolo da Sassoferato’s Tract on Insignia and
Coats of Arms (Berkeley, 1994).
4
I will provide relevant sources as I progress rather than unnecessarily swamping the
reader with scholarship here. Suffice to say that the best recent study of the juridical bases of the
emblemata is Valerie Hayaert, Mens emblematica et humanisme juridique (2008).
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to come anywhere close to the sense of the image, as opposed to reducing it to the
litera mortua of text and law.5
Back then to old streaky, Bacon himself. The fingerpost is from the Novum
organum and is a translation, you know this well enough, of the Latin instantias
crucis, or presence of the cross.6 Already the plot thickens. Bacon’s book aims
to return scientific method to ‘simple sensuous perception’ but he recognizes
simultaneously that what is perceived is far from simple and in fact highly
indexical. What, he asks, at the very beginning of the treatise, if we wanted
to move a vast obelisk so as to mark some novel triumph?7 It cannot be done
unaided, there has to be a method to our madness, a machinery to motivate
the movement of the obelisk to its new place and role as a sign of signs. The
obelisk itself, and Bacon undoubtedly was aware of this, was a primary symbol of governance, frequently used as the frontispiece for iconological works,
embellished with hieroglyphic marks, and representative of things ‘aegyptian’
and communication by means of visual signs. So the apprehension of the senses
that Bacon begins with may be simple in an internal sense, as method, but is
complex and indexical in external terms of the objects perceived and apprehended. I could say this in many other ways and by means of further examples
but we have already the instance of the fingerpost, the chironomic example of
the fescue, the pointing stick embedded in nature, sculpted in culture, that the
studious and attentive will want to observe and apprehend.
Cut to the chase, the sign of the cross, the fingerpost, is termed a prerogative instance. Returning to the Latin text, the connotations are pretty obvious
because praerogativa means to speak (rogare) before (prae), to be first, to take
precedence and by tropological extension it references an omen, a privilege, an
obelisk. The prerogative is in substantive terms a theological-legal concept that
is most familiar in the form of sovereign power as executive prerogative and for
Bacon royal prerogative. The King had a power of law-making that was coeval
with his dignity, that was part of regality and its imperium, and an aspect of
maiestas. Prerogative power is inherent and summary, incontestable and absolute, such that the early texts, contemporary with Bacon, define it as the power
of majesty that is sacra sacrorum,8 the Holy of Holies in our sorry vernacular.
So the fingerpost is an instance of transmission, no ordinary sign but rather an
omen and portent, and as formulated by the lawyer Edward Whitehouse in the
treatise Fortescutus illustratus, it is a sign of the cross, cruce signati and so, as
he elaborates it, a mark of faith. In turn, just to finish the sentence, “faith …
is the evidence of things not seen (and in) seeing him that is invisible” we also
see his precepts and commands – praeceptum et mandatum.9 I could go on: the
5
Georges Didi-Huberman, L’Image ouverte (2007) at 42: “The expression consecrated
for this operation whereby the images become visible is aperire imagines, to open the images”.
6
Francis Bacon, Novum organum sive indicia vera de interpretation naturae (1620) 34.
7
Bacon, Novum organum, (n.p.) praefatio.
8
See, for example, John Cowell, The Interpreter (Cambridge, 1610) s.v. praerogativa.
9
Edward Whitehouse, Fortescutus illustrates, or a Commentary on that Nervous Treatise
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prerogative instance is cognate with, in the ‘conusance’ of the proper oracles
of the rites and mysteries of law, which are in their turn to be imparted by
the Praesidentes Ecclesiae, the guardians and “watch-men” who oversee their,
which is to say our spirituality.
Fig. 2 Emblem from Justinian, Corpus iuris civilis.
De Laudibus Legum Angliae (London, 1663) at 125.
16
Peter Goodrich
TCRS
The fingerpost thus does not refer to any ordinary finger but rather to a
prerogative digit and as Seneca put it, O digitum multum significantem, the
finger is full of meaning.10 The moving finger, as we know, “writes and having
Writ, / Moves on; nor all thy piety nor wit / Shall lure it back to cancel half
a line, / Nor all thy tears wash out a word of it.” The fingerpost is the sign of
that writ, the passage of law that is marked and signaled on. So remaining with
the finger, with indigitation and its chironomic significance we can juxtapose
to the metaphor of the fingerpost, the manual obelisk, the dignified digit, an
early image of the personal transmission of law in a mid-sixteenth century illustrated version of the Corpus iuris civilis itself.11 (Figure 2) Here our Lord
(domini nostri) and lawgiver, is figured exercising his prerogative power, literally handing the law to his waiting subjects to transcribe. The distinction
in the image is between ius dare and ius scribendi, he that gives the law and
those who must write, which is to say transcribe the words of the commandment. They are to learn the law by listening and writing, audiendo, scribendo
et legendo. The one above, in the burning bush, in the cloud or here seated
on the imperial throne as the delegate and vicarious of divine majesty, passes
on a law. Justinian sits, the text is explicit, in the place of Christ, he is most
holy (sacratissimi), perpetual and august. He is pure law – iuris enucleati – and
both embodies and inaugurates the novel code. So much for the text. It is not
unhelpful but look at the image. Justinian is seated on a throne, itself on a
pedestal, with the rod of office in his right hand, a crown on his head, and his
left hand is outstretched towards the chorus of scribes who are writing down
the dictat of the sovereign, the word of the law.
What of the fingers of the left hand? According to Quintilian no gestures
can be made with the left hand but here, because it is the sovereign, because
time has moved on, Justinian is shown leaning forward and down, left hand
with thumb and index finger open and apart over the book, the code, that is
being inscribed. The canon of the fingers (dactylogia, or indigitatio) indicates
that this gesture signifies protection and exordium. The hand extended and
covering the audience is the signal of bringing them under the governance and
safety of law, while the specific indigitation, the claw made of the thumb and
index finger marks the exordium, the beginning of the laws as given by the
Emperor and through him by God. The throne with its billowing backdrop
screen signals the division of the human and the divine as is mirrored in the
separation of the sovereign from his subjects. The columns and portals in the
background lend a political significance to the image of lawgiving. These are
the fora in which the law will be enacted.
10
I am citing Seneca here from the wonderful Gilbert Austin, Chironomia or A Treatise
on Rhetorical Delivery (Dublin, 1806) at 326.
11
This is from the copiously illustrated Senetton edition of the Corpus iuris civilis (Lyons,
1548-1550) Codex tit 1 – De novo Codice faciendo.
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Fig. 3 From Bulwer, Chironomia (1644), p. 91. Photo Peter Goodrich.
Note that the sovereign does not wear shoes and that the scholars inscribing are
depicted with togas that seem almost to become wings, the mark of angels, as they
stretch forward to write the law. The finger post as here portrayed is of interest primarily because it makes so evident that the finger is not ours but his, not here but
elsewhere. The digit that writes is not that of the hand that inscribes, indeed the law is
acheiropoietic, without intervention of hands precisely because it is nature and divinity
that historically have sent the writ that the lawyers have merely tabled and entered into
the rolls. The thumb and index finger curved as they are is also a sign commanding silence, canon 22 of the indigitatio, and so supports the notion of studium as absorption,
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as reverence and observation of an externality that will, if properly perceived, tell the
subject how to act and where to go (fig. 3).12
Return to the present and the question is that of what the youthful law students
recognize in the drape and dress, the art and artifice of law’s presence in the courtroom.
What is it that is here fingerposted? The clue lies in achieropoiesis and in silentium, in
the handless and the silent character of legality. What is recognized is something more,
another scene. The fingerpost recommends an opening to sensuous apprehension. The
ceremonial dimensions of legal trial are markers of a greater presence, a tradition and
authority that is captured well, again by the veritably smoky Bacon, in his insistence, despite speaking very good English himself, of writing his law books in Latin, for the majesty and authority of it.13 More than that, the signaling of an elsewhere, another scene in
the argot of the Vienna brigade, is the marker of the paradox of legality: law’s authority
depends upon its visibility and yet the source of law is an absent sovereign: the Triunity
of the divinity, and by delegation from that impossible unity, the first sovereign, as also
the pattern of custom and precedent in time immemorial. The source is never present
except as the fingerpost, what Cicero terms the signature of things. The lawyer Sir John
Doderidge puts it as follows: “Law arguments are deduced more from authority then
reason, for the English Lawyer in arguments requireth most the strength of Cases apt to
the purpose, and Presidents of former times, then discourse of reason …”14
For Bacon too the authority of antiquity, of what the theologians termed “indefinite
time”, of the classical and lost Greek authors, of the Pythagorean formulae, the Aegyptian hieroglyphs, the symbols that escape the confusion of Babel precisely by virtue
of being visible to all, as fingerposts, are what will mark the way. The spectral and visible coheres the subtextual and juridical. Leaving aside the reference in Doderidge to
Presidents – the Praesidentes ecclesiae – the oracular emanations of the past, we can
address briefly what this legal fatalism depends upon. The initial point, as theologically
obvious as it is materially opaque is that what is seen is significant only by virtue of being seen through, by virtue of what is not there. It is a Pauline principle but we can use
Sir Edward Coke who usefully begins his Institutes by suggesting that the reader visit
the tomb of Sir Thomas Littleton, the lawyer whose work Coke is commenting upon,
glossing and interpolating, in the first part of his multi volume code of English common law. No matter that it is in French, that sad tincture of Normanism, our glossator
sees it as Anglican and who are we to stop him now? He says look at the portrait, stare
long and hard at the effigy – “the statue and portrature” – and the longer and more
diligently the visitor “holds in the visial line, and well observes him, the more shall
he justly admire the judgment of our author, and increase his own”. Behind the text,
beyond the tome, there is the tomb and kept long enough in the visial line, the portrait
can give way to the “child and figure” of the author, the face of the law itself.15
12
This from John Bulwer, Chirologia: or the Natural Language of the Hand and Chironomia: or the Art of Manual Rhetoric (London, 1644) at 202.
13
A point made at length in the preface to Francis Bacon, The Elements of the Common Lawes of England (London, 1630) at fol. B3v: “The rules themselves I have put in Latine
… which language I chose as the briefest to contrive the rules compendiously, the aptest for
memory, and of he greatest Authoritie and Majesty to bee avouched and alledged in argument”.
14
Sir John Doderidge, The English Lawyer (London, 1631) at 55-56.
15
Sir Edward Coke, The First Part of the Institutes of the Lawes of England. Or a Commentarie upon Littleton, not the name of a Lawyer onely, but of the lawe itselfe (London, 1632) preface.
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There is another clue. The fescue, which is Whitehouse’s version of the fingerpost
in his commentary on Fortescue, has a primary meaning of straw or “mote in the eye”.
This suggests, as much as anything else, an internal obstruction to vision, the outside
making its presence felt on the surface of the inside, the retina, the via regia to the soul.
The fingerpost, in all our instances is after all a mode of activating the body, of giving the
lawyers their marching orders, their visial line, the figures that will take them forward.
Why then the need for silent pictures, for muta eloquentia, the art of gesture, fingerpost
and signs? What does the visial line convey? The answer lies in the silence, in the visual
and paradoxical spectacle of things unseen. The political emblematist Bornitius can
provide an instance in his emblem of custom as law. (Figure 4) The armless generoso, the
gentleman who is inscribing the law with his feet is spelling out the message of tradition,
the recurring signs that nature loves to hide, the footprint – impresa – of the father. Laws
are made by “men excited by God” is how Whitehouse puts it and then he continues
to stipulate that “All men of learning are but feskues in the hands of God.”16 The correspondency of law to its principal cause is thus precisely a posting, the carriage of a letter
with all of the authority of him who sent it. That the legal scribe in Bornitius’ emblem
has no arms and writes with his feet is precisely an image of such posting, a sesquipedalian law, a footpath marked by the sign of the cross, an instance of the fingerpost.
Maxims and Mysteries of Law
The fingerpost that our students recognized transpires ironically to end up by indicating a law of the feet. Not any feet, but visible and repeated footpaths, the manifest
marks of the ambulation of the fathers, the elders, the Praesidentes. These, just to follow the image, are described as effluxions and as imprimere effigiem, the face of the impress of time, iure receptum, the gubernative path which all have seen to be so in their
time, or in its proper language quoad semper sic viderunt tempore suo.17 The fingerpost
corresponds thus to the signs of law in nature, the impresa, the vestiges that lawyers
collect, inscribe and table as the devises of legality prior to the letter and the confusion
of language. They make the visual a topos, and the emblem an image of the form of
law. Language divides, but vision unites. The visual is in classical emblematic terms
universal, undivided, free of the chaos that Babel inflicted upon language. The visual is
the primary means and medium for transmitting law because, like law, it touches all –
quod omnes tangit in a maxim that Bracton uses and that can be seen most directly in
an emblem ad omnia from 1642.18 (Figure 5) Law is promulgated as regulae ad omnes,
behind which can be divined without much difficulty Chasseneuz’s honor tangit omnes
from his Catalogus gloriae mundi of 1572.19 Honor, dignity, the spectacular insignia of
illustriousness, of visible priority, of precedence and place, title and triumph are there
to be seen. They are the notes of dignity, the notitia dignitatum that derive from the
classical Roman imago, the mask of the noble ancestor.
16
17
18
19
Whitehouse, Fortescutus illustratus, at 124.
Whitehouse, Fortescutus illustratus, at 120 (such as they had always seen in their time).
Ad omnia is from Saavedra, Empresas politicas (Milan, 1642) at 36.
Barthelemy Chasseneuz, Catalogus gloriae mundi (Lyons, 1572) at fol. 1v column 1.
20
Peter Goodrich
Fig. 4 From Jacob Bornitz, Emblematum ethico-politicorum
(Heidelburg, 1664), p. 45. Courtesy of Princeton University Library.
Fig. 5 Ad omnia. Courtesy of the Virtual Library of Bibliographic Heritage.
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21
Stay with the theme of universality, this drive towards all, the monotheistic
impulse behind the images of the dignity and majesty of an always already instituted law. The visial line is the line of effectivity because it is the accessible
form of law and the avenue ad omnes, to the spirit which in Christian theology
all share. Here then we encounter the epistemology of the fingerpost comingled
with its ontology. The emblems of law, the images and impresa that constitute
the visible marks of legality in the custom and use of time honored practice are
the source of the maxims and other universalia of law. They are the objects, the
bedrocks of the visial lines that Sir Edward Coke promulgated as the appropriate method of legal reverence. The maxims, let me be clear, the Latin maxims are expressly “the depths and restorative quintessences of law; that from
whence all inferior things have their invigoration and spiriting”.20 They are
productive of “many excellent illations”, and they are maxims, quia maximus
est, because they have the greatest authority and dignity of all. Whitehouse, my
source here, is very explicit, though he does not differ from others on this, that
there is “no pre-existency to be imagined to them”, meaning nothing except
the eternal source of all law is prior to the maxim.21 That is his footprint and
vestige, his emanation, the ultra quod non, the point beyond which no human
imagining can go, the blinding light: “Let then Principles, remain Mysteries,
not to be dived into, but adored because of their coparceny with Divinity.”22
The maxims are mysteries, the dogmas of law, which Legendre defines explicitly as visions, as iconic images of legality. Chasseneuz can provide a clue in his
emblem of the hierarchy of forms of knowledge that starts, and we should recognize this well enough today, with ideologia – which translates as doctrine – in
pride of place, dexter chief in the heraldic terminology.23 (Figure 6)
After doctrine comes canon law (scientia canonica) and then the science of
law (scientia legalis), top right in the eyes of the viewer. It is law, incidentally,
that signs be apprehended and letters read from left to right, a view first articulated and legitimated by Bartolus in his treatise on signs from 1358. Such
then is the order of knowing, in which each of the top three figures with their
emblems, the cross, the mitre, the scales and sword, represent the dissemination of universal truths. And just to pursue this, the emblematic axis, taken
from the heraldic escutcheon, reads diagonally, so that ideologia is linked to
astronomy, and legal science to music. They represent respectively the motion
of heavenly bodies, and the rhythm and melody of nomos. There is here an important valuation of signs, of exterior images of universal motives and causes
as expressions of the being of the divine in the tangible and human realm of
the observable and at the same time a dissipation of the juridical into the ineffable, an evaporation, as Benjamin put it, of ideas into images. It is not enough
20
21
22
23
Chasseneuz, Catalogus, at 183.
22
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to be a mere ‘eye servant’, the interior of vision, the astral and the infinite have
also to be scanned and followed. Such is the message of the maxim and of the
image that the emblem places conjointly with the maxim. Body and soul, in the
emblem, represent both the appearance and the vanishing point of legality. The
authority and the legitimacy conveyed by the ceremonial and ritualistic forms
of law convey then the point of transfer, of mutation from known to unknown,
visible to invisible, rational to mysterious.
Fig. 6 Barthélemy Chasseneuz, Catologus gloriae mundi (1572), p. 183.
Photo: Peter Goodrich.
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23
The mystery is that of the intersection of the invisible and the visible that gets
formulated variously as sacrifice, initiation, sacrament, liturgy, and in legal garb
as prerogative and principle. Agamben has addressed this point at length in his
latest works, in his study of The Kingdom and the Glory, and also in Opus Dei.24
The classical legal maxim was symbolum, id est quod figurat, meaning the symbol
is what has effects or, literally, it is what it figures. In Agamben’s reconstruction
of the power of the liturgy, we also find dogma, a vision of transmission and of
hierarchy at the root of the mystery. The liturgy is a practice and it is one that
aims to galvanize collective action, the chorus, the choir, the faithful: the law of
faith establishes the law of prayer – lex credenda legem statuat supplicandi. What
above all characterizes the mystery is the manifestation of the invisible and, citing the theologian of mystery, Odo Casel, “at root the ‘mystery’ designates a
praxis … gestures and acts by means of which divine action is realized in time
and in the world for the salvation of men”.25 Scientia iuris is proximate to ideologia in Chasseneuz’s emblem and it is linked to music, the melody of the infinite
in a number of emblematic figures and it is this proximity, this lineage and trajectory that mystery invokes and conveys.
The key term for Agamben is effectus meaning not simply effect but effectivity, in the sense of accomplishment and execution. The mystery of the
sacrament is that it brings the word to life. In juristic terms there is a similar
connotation associated with the third element in the classical trinity of persons, things and actions. The legis actio was for early Roman lawyers explicitly
defined by the procedure of the sacramentum. With connotations of sacrifice
and perpetuity, the mystery of the word, the procedure in fact involved giving
up domestic animals as surety for trial. The sacramentum meant that what was
said would be done, and the Twelve Tables legislated this in a formula that Vico
was fond of reciting: uti lingua nuncupassit, ita ius esto, what was said shall be
done or, literally, is to be the unwritten law.26 The word was the mystery, and
the mystery was the word, a commonality between theological logos and the
legal sacramentum that allows Agamben to analogize the liturgy and the trial.
What is interesting about this proximity of law to doctrine, of legal action to
liturgical mystery, however, is the mixed conusance, the alternate jurisdiction
that the mystery implies. Within the Anglican tradition, not that it differs much
from the civilian, the sovereign was head of the Church and according to laws
dating back to Edward 1st the King, the lawgiver, was “Lord of the People,
and ruler and governor (regat et gubernet) over all the Holy Church”. Here the
mystery has a political and juridical significance suggesting most immediately
that what the visible hides, what the majesty and decorum of law elliptically
24
Giorgio Agamben, The Kingdom and the Glory. For a Theological Genealogy of
Economy and Governance (Stanford, 2011); and Agamben, Opus Dei. Archéologie de l’office
(Paris, 2012).
25
Agamben, Opus Dei, at 53.
26
Gambatista Vico, The New Science [1725] (New York, 1994) at 388 (1031), for example.
24
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suggests are quite literally an aereall jurisdiction and “ghostly power” that give
law its vocation and destiny.
We are familiar enough, thanks to Kantorowicz, with the notion of the corpus mysticum of state and indeed there are any number of legal emblems that
portray such a secret and mysterious perpetuity.27 (Figure 7) Death liberates
and propagates, which secret of governance finds expression in the specular
jurisdiction of the law. The crown vanishes but the kingdom remains, the unhappy and forbidding looking skeleton of death with its scythe suggests that
the angel of death would rather that it were otherwise. These in short are not
easy things to comprehend let alone to internalize and hence the homines sacer,
in Aneau’s description, the initiate and sacred men of law, sacris initiati, in
Whitehouse’s diction, are expressly keepers of the mysteries and rites, guardians of the secrets of the invisible that is the essential meaning of the ghostly
power that lawyers, as speculatores, according to Roger Coke, are expected to
exercise.28 This is not to say that the practice of law is coextensive with ecclesiastical governance, but rather that the mystery and secret of sovereignty relates
to ghostly powers that dictate that legitimacy derives from a right to rule in
ordine ad bonum spirituale.
Fig. 7 Honras, Libros de Honras (Madrid, 1603).
27
Honras (1603) reproduced from Antonio Vistarini and John Cull (eds), Enciclopedia
de Emblemas Españoles Illustrados (Madrid, 1999) at 646.
28
Roger Coke, Justice Vindicated (London, 1676) at 366.
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25
Fig. 8 Johan Amos Comenius, Orbis sensualium pictus (1658; London, 1672), p. 88.
Photo: Peter Goodrich.
The spiritual object of rule is not the body but the ghost, a factor represented in the
emblem of the triumph of the imperial crown over death in the circle, the annulum or
ring, that indicates eternity and surrounds the floating image of sovereignty perpetual
with the knotted clouds of death, a ruff for the Queen and the circle of light for the
divinity of living on. The theme harks back to St Augustine who declared ars artium est
regimen animarum, and the secular law could hardly resist that incitement to govern
the furthest reaches of existence, the most ethereal and vanishing of parts, the imagined and angelic elements, the virtual and moral dimensions. A later work, the famous
Latin schoolbook of Comenius, Orbis sensualium pictus can provide a hint, a glimpse,
a pixelated image of what is meant by regimen animarum, et correctionem morum,
namely care of the soul.29 (Figure 8) Caught on a sheet, the soul is the specter of the
person, quite literally the non-being of the subject. The image is thus an umbrageous
one, a representation of non-presence, in the classical form of the shadow and outline,
a ghost which, if addressed without knowledge, without the rectitude, from rector and
thence corrector stems, will leave the ruler with no more than the appearance, a handful of cloud. Faith alone makes vision of the invisible and regulation of the unseen
possible. Doctrine – ideologia – thus explicitly teaches an architectonical science and
the principles of salvation and whether or not the sovereign believes, the jurisdiction of
the ghostly realm persists and not least in the imaginary of the subject. Here then we
encounter the domain of conscience, of knowing with law, in Roger Coke’s definition,
29
Joannes Commenius, Orbis sensualium pictus [1658] (London 1672) at 88.
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and such a knowledge is intrinsic to the role of governor: “and that Kings did become
nursing fathers, and Queens nursing mothers … and that to him only, by all divine and
humane laws, belongs the care and preservation of all subjects, none excepted, in all
causes”.30 These, in the ancient terminology, are the flowers that make the crown, they
are the choicest jewels, and the longest of reach.
Justice Visible
In defining the sovereign as a nursing parent concerned in the end with the
spiritual good and moral welfare of their subjects, Coke centers law upon an invisible power. Law is an avenue to something more, not an end but a means to faith,
which is expressly “the evidence of things not seen, and the substance of things
hoped for …”31 Jurisdiction, ius dicere, it transpires, is less important that ius dare
et docere. If we return then to the paradox of the visual, the question of what it is
that the law of ceremony and the regalia of trial are supposed to provide it is necessary to address the specific theology of the regimen animarum and in particular the
access to justice and wisdom, or we would say truth that it promises.
Whitehouse defines justice as the garment of kings. The nursing function is that
of justice, and justice is the clothing, the regalia of judging. He then lists “Honour,
Law and Justice” as the trinity of virtues, even if justice also contains them all. There
are two stages to the argument. First there is the dignity of place, which is visible,
spectacular even, and marked by the political notes and indicia of office. The order
of honor is the mode of production of the institutions of law, it is for Chasseneuz the
vestige of the fathers, and it is visible in all of the signs that we recognize, however
dimly, in entering public spaces and most especially the ornate and closely guarded
spheres of law. The second step in the argument is that while justice may be visible,
what is visible is simply the marker, the fescue of the invisible, an imaginary unseen.
According to the Gospel of St. Mark, the mystery of the kingdom is enigmatic: all
these things are done in parables: that seeing they may see and not perceive – ut videntes videant et non videant. The parable of the visible is an enigma and riddle to be
seen through by means of faith and this requires both speculatores, spiritual watchers, correctors, and the regimen of the soul that they administrate.
Fortescue had already indicated that the judges were priests, in the Roman tradition
of sacerdotes, who could read in the law not simply the words, but the force and power
(vim ac potestatem) of their meaning.32 For the later common lawyers the same principle of anima legis, of an indexical and hidden truth defines the jurist, and most emblematically the judge as the bearer of truth. They are Men of Truth, in Whitehouse’s
definition, and “through the glass of the law” the sovereign is able to see “the portraictures” of law’s mysteries, graviora legis being left safely in their hands: “judges set in
30
Coke, Justice Vindicated, at 43.
31
Whitehouse, Fortescutus illustratus, at 126-127. The source is most likely William
Perkins, A Discourse of Conscience (Netherlands, 1608) at 11, where he defines faith as “perswasion, whereby we beleeve things that are not”.
32
Sir John Fortescue, De Laudibus legum Angliae (London, 1568) ch 8.
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27
their proper orbs” are the judges in their places of judicature, as delegates of the higher
power, and indirectly as haereditarii Christi Apostoli. What is significant, because the
genealogy and especially the philology can become tedious, is that in looking at law, in
appearing before ‘the court’ in its glory, the student sees not law but justice, not rule
but principle, not force but flowers, in the “garments of justice”. Justice is a matter of
faith, of belief in what is not and has no being, according to Perkins, and so a matter of
parabolic appearances and of the enigmatic signs that form the secrets of government.
Remaining with the visibility of justice it is something that can be recognized in
a dual form in those honorable and dignified, illustrious and elderly judges who
sit in the seat of judgment. They are Gods to men, according to Whitehouse and
they act sub gravitates purpura, according to the weight of their robes, of their royal
purple and their purple pens. They start their day ad sacra and then move ad jura.33
And this can be seen in their station, their surroundings and their dress. They carry
the “Emblems of [their] Proficiency” literally in their habit, meaning their dress.34
The enigmas of law are visible in the decorum and regalia of court and judgment,
the images surrounding the judge and the judgment are so many icunculae, little icons according to one source, that have to be learned, appreciated and seen
through: “a harmless trepanning to the study the law”.35
Staying with the icunculae is to remain in the order of the visible, the iconomus of
ecclesiastical law that underlies and directs the oeconomus of quotidian administration and is glimpsed in the gravity of the emblems of legality. So finally, in recognizing legitimacy and authority in the form of law, in its visible exterior, the student, the
subject of law, sees the possibility of justice, the extant quality of faith in the inherited
offices, the precedents and traditions, the honor and dignity of law. Which is surprising and unsurprising at the same time. A last Latinism before addressing some examples, a gloriously obscure text, Thomas Pierce’s A Vindication of the King’s Sovereign
Rights, and then, just so you have it all, because really book titles have declined in
length and illustriousness in our unlettered times, Quoad Regimen Animarum, &
Correctionem Morum of 1683.36 Pierce uses a late Latin term, much to the point in
our novel digital era, virtualiter, in discussing the power of royal delegates. What
they had virtualiter, they had as of right, by originary donation, as a ghostly power
and spiritual good. What exists virtualiter, exists symbolically and atemporally, it
is inheritance, it is the visial line that can be perceived if the emblem, the judge, is
looked at long enough. The virtual, with its dubious philological roots in vis, meaning power, and in virtus meaning angel, translates as aereall, and vanishing, as in
sanctae virtualis, the sign of the cross made in air. Again the image gives way rapidly
to the virtual entity, the invisible truth that it signifies.
To see justice, to perceive faith, is to recognize emblems as archetypes, images as imprints, faces as masks and purple as power. The virtual is precisely what lives on as struc33
34
35
The concept of ‘icunculae’, of little icons, is taken from Thomas Philipot, A Brief Historical Discourse of the Original and Growth of Heraldry (London, 1672) at 7; and the wonderful
notion of a ‘harmless trepanning to the study of law’, is from Whitehouse, Fortescutus, at 143.
36
Thomas Pierce, A Vindication of the King’s Sovereign Rights (London, 1683) at 141.
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ture, and Didi-Huberman can help us here in his extrapolation from Abby Warburg’s
theory of aesthetic continuance: “that which survives in a culture is that which is most
repressed, the most obscure, the most distant and stubborn aspects of that culture. In
one sense the most dead, because the most buried and so most ghostly; and equally
it is the most living, because the most unstable, the closest and the most driven.”37 It
is an argument that in fact goes back to de Jorio’s theory of the immutability of hand
gestures, a version of Quintilian’s lex gestus, but we can apply it as easily to law.38 There
are archetypes of virtue, condensations of affect that are seen without being seen, imagined without being present, that dictate without being heard. And for an example,
as brilliantly obvious as it is literally obscure, the castle of justice from a 1521 text by
Guillaume Rouille.39 (Figure 9)
What maxim, what Latin, what superior truth and law does the turris iustitie bring
to the interior eye? First, it is an image of justice, though not the usual and equally misunderstood depiction of sword, scales and blindfold. Here is the emblem of salus populi
suprema lex esto, the safety of the people is to be the end of law. Starting from the foundation stone of true faith, progressing up the stairs of hope, to the portals of legal reason
and fortitude, in the shadow of silence and study, justice as expressed in the banners of
the turrets is a three letter word, PAX, peace. The greatest good, maximum bonorum
exteriorum, may be signaled by the outside but the interior is hidden by closed doors
and unyielding stones. It is after all a fortified structure, a sovereign site and significant
of the long history of common law protection of the home as the inviolable fortress of
the subject. Such protection, so justice requires, comes virtualiter with every home.
Megalographs, Structures and Other Virtual Conclusions
There is another meaning to virtualiter, one that extends its choral and angelic force,
and that is simply its more modern and effective meaning of virtue. I will play with
it. Virtue is visible in emblematic forms that signal established truths, precedence as
hierarchy and the dignity of establishment. The visual is in this sense the archive – the
treasure chest, the fortress, the structure and law (archa) – of prior forms. The visual
as emblematic structuration, as via regia to the regimen animarum, takes hold of the
subject and is far more effective than mere words. Not that words are ineffective, the
Latin, the maxim, the verbal majesty of address and obedience are significant enough,
they clearly announce that the auditor who is untrained, non peritus, not yet an initiate,
should keep out. But there must also and perhaps paradoxically be modes of identification and attachment, of reverence and obedience that also accrue to these signs and it is
here that the most external forms of the most interior of virtues are signaled by images,
by the gravity of the purple, by the weight of law’s presence and promise of justice.
37
Georges Didi-Huberman, L’Image survivante. Histoire de l’art et emps des fantômes
selon Aby Warburg (Paris, 2002) at 154. (My translation.)
38
Andrea de Jorio, Gesture in Naples and Gesture in Classical Antiquity [1832] (Bloomington, 2000).
39
Guillaume le Rouillé, Justicie atque iniusticie (Paris, 1520) fol. 1v.
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29
Fig. 9 Guillaume Rouille, Justicie atque iniusticie (Paris, 1520), fol. 1v.
Courtesy Rare Book Collection, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School.
Juristic images, the emblems of the fingerpost, the fescues and other icunculae, are
no ordinary digital dross, they are far from the visual detritus that we associate with the
internet, with film and television, I-4s, I-pads, smart phones, and all the other new media that now reign. But they also co-exist with them and increasingly share the medium.
It is precisely in the visual dimension of the digital media, in the facility with which it
engages the ‘contentment of sight’ that the visiocratic regime continues and propagates.
The visual structures, predicated upon the emblems of sovereignty, justice, judgment,
rule and precedence, upon the visible contours of the soul and the practices that correct
it, that law is passed on most accessibly and with the greatest doctrinal detail. Persons,
things and actions are delineated and promulgated and these missives, these envelopes
are so familiar as to be overlooked, so transparent as to be misrecognized. There is little
that changes in the signaling of force and power, whether by arms or by laws, two versions – two decorations in the classical description – of the same structure.
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My argument is that the emblematic images lurk unnoticed behind their reproductions in the modern and ultra-modern image archive that circulates to degree Xerox
in all the pdf’s (perfumed dispersal fucuses) and twits and tweets, brochures and announcements, publicity drives and public relations exercises that characterize even the
conservative dominion of universities. That indeed will be my example, the project to
hand, the law school as a virtual visibility. First instance, the modern art of the legal
academy and what better emblem than that of the portrait of the deans. They line the
walls of the most hallowed of spaces, the moot court in Stanford, the lecture lounge at
NYU, the corridors and stairwells, classrooms and lounges at older schools where deans
and eminent professors have died in sufficient number to outgrow the initially designated wall spaces. I have made a study, visited numerous law schools, gone back to them,
changed my mind, taken further surreptitious photographs, ripped images, to study in
solitude. So the portrait of the Dean will vary superficially with the era of composition,
but mainly it will be passed by without comment, known but forgotten, present but
overlooked and unremarked. I have classified these megalographic images according
to apparent type but I will not reproduce such reams of scholarship here. Take one
example, the most famous law school dean of contemporary US legal academic history.
The man whose decenal practices changed the culture and catapulted his law school,
NYU, with which we started, from a good commuter school, somewhere in the 30s in
the rankings to number 4 or 5 or 6. An incredible feat. An historic tenure, a success of
theological proportions, and hence his name, Monsieur Sexton, warden and keeper of
the secrets of the Church. (Figure 10)
Fig. 10 Portrait of Dean John Sexton, NYU Law School, Greenberg Lounge.
Deconstruct the image a little. Standing at the lectern in suit and tie, leaning forward, his right hand is raised and slightly cupped, finger grapes pointing upward and
back. The hand beckons and so proffers the call of the pedagogue but in classical
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31
chirology the gesture, number 52 as it happens, is conscienter affirmo, a pledge of
faith, an invocation of the divinity and overall an affirmation of belief as witnessed by
God. Below the lectern is a globe while to the decenal right is a curtained but open
window though which can be glimpsed the arc de triomphe, Washington Square’s
own triumphal monument. Finally, on the lectern an open book but as far as we can
see the pages are white, the laws yet unwritten, ready for the taking, terra incognita.
So what are the structures visible in this prominent portrait, what visial lines can be
traced if we look at it long enough and so improve our judgment and understanding?
Fig. 11 Gabriel Rollenhagen, Nucleus emblematum selectissimorum
(Cologne, 1611), p. 31. Photo: Peter Goodrich.
First and most intriguingly it is much less a portrait of a dean than the image of a
sovereign. The restrictive markers of decenal office – desk, rod, robe, shelves of law
books, black letter Gothic text, office accoutrements – are lacking. Instead our sovereign stands above a globe and thus, emblematically, takes the place of Hermes, the
go-between who ferried the messages of the Gods to the humans below. As the emblem from Rollenhagen shows, the sovereign above the globe is ruled by the stars, by
astronomy, and if wise, he conforms the stars to his will.40 (Figure 11) A big project, a
universal endeavor which places this Dean as an initiate, a Man of Truth, a priest of law.
And no blindfold on this sovereign, the open window, offering a view out of the institution and into the world, while the curtains indicate the theater of the political. They are
40
Gabriel Rollenhagen, Nucleus emblematum selectissimorum (Paris, 1611) at 31. There
is an English version of this emblem in George Whither, A Collection of Emblemes Ancient and
Moderne (London, 1631).
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a regal red, a signal of gravitas, while beyond the panes is glimpsed the arch that marks
George Washington’s victory and bears itself the motto exitus acta probat – effectivity
justifies the act. There is, in short, a world to be conquered, battles to be won, triumphs
to be acclaimed and celebrated. And then, with the proper motif of Gregorian reform,
there is a world to be remade and this is the man, the dean, the dignity that will do it.
The image is interesting for being the precise opposite of Brandt’s famous and inaugural image of a fool placing a blindfold on Justitia to indicate how petty cavils and
pointless lawsuits adjudicated in ignorance of the universal law blind the spirit of justice.
Here the subject of the portrait is not sedentary but standing, leaning forward, disquisiting. Nor is he blindfolded but rather open eyed – oculo ad caelum manu ad clavum eyes
to heavens and key in hand, as the maxim goes. Most importantly the globe that he will
govern, as opposed to the orb below him, is visible through the window, accessible to
him and to a universal project that is the essence of the Christian project, iterated and
reiterated in the pontifical slogan, reformatio totius orbis, of the late 12th century. The
world is to be remade and if such is the case, the project, then its basis must lie in the
universal bond, una sapientia, as Cicero has it, expressed through the numine deorum,
the signs of the gods, which rule and govern all things. This is the project expressed
structurally as much as apparently in the portrait and, by way of information, this has
been, immediately or metaleptically, what the subject in question has done. He has catapulted from Dean of the Law School, to President of the GNU, the global network
university, the multi-portal, myriad campus, universal university.41 (Figure 12)
Fig. 12 Marco Antonio Ortı´, Siglo quarto de la conquista de Valencia (Valencia, 1640), p. 893.
Courtesy of the Virtual Library of Bibliographic Heritage.
41
Marco Antonio Orti [1640], in Enciclopedia at 893.
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33
Fig. 13 “Dworkin on Dworkin,” The Law School. Detail of cover image.
There are other examples, too numerous to canvas here, of megalographic
portraits, grandiose inscriptions, statues and monuments that I cannot here
unleash. There is the portrait of Abraham Lincoln on the stairwell at Yale Law
School; there is the white marble statue of Kent just outside the Langdell Law
Library at Harvard; and then inside that library, portraits of Coke and Bacon
amongst other long dead luminaries who are somehow and curiously now emblems of a new world law school within a system that long ago denied their
dependence upon the parochial English common law that those two dubious
luminaries represent. Then there are the inscriptions of names, Langdell most
prominent, on the buildings in the law school quad. Monumental names and I
could go on. I will move, however, and against my better nature and stronger
inclinations, to a photo portrait more typical of this media swamped epoch. A
New York University Law School Magazine for Autumn (note not Fall) 2005.
There is an article, heralded on the front cover, titled Dworkin on Dworkin.
(Figure 13)
The title of the article on Dworkin on Dworkin is ‘The Transcendent Lawyer’, but stick with the images. The front cover shows Dworkin surrounded
by nature, Moses emerging from the rushes, the jurist in luxuriant foliage.
Here the legal philosopher is visibly in nature, seated amongst the signs of
the oldest of all laws, the lex terrae, the ius naturae, which is according to the
common law sources so old as to return to the divinity itself. That nature is the
34
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backdrop and surrounding has a considerable significance for the representation of transcendence in that the more usual props of legal portraiture are evidently social and man made whereas for Dworkin such institutional confines
and references would merely be restraints upon the force of natural law that
he is depicted as representing. Then note the left hand drooping with fore
finger pointing down and the other fingers slightly curled inward. No thumb
visible, obvious enough. But the left hand forms a chirogram, gestus VII, in
Bulwer’s dactylogia, the canon of the ‘discoursing gesture of the fingers’. This
particular finger signal, the grape of the index pointing down and towards the
luxuriance of nature is defined as ‘diffidentiam noto’, the mark, the fingerpost
of diffidence in the presence of a greater force. The hand is here manum occulatam, a seeing hand, and that it points thus and diffidently expresses the
subject’s awareness of the greater weight of nature and its law, a gravitas that
our philosopher alone is capable of conveying, interpreting, and transmitting.
The diffidence is that of a philosopher who bears the world, that of someone
who achieves the unattainable, who is equal to the impossible task, who has
the ability temperamentum ad pondus.
There is then another visual connotation that bears examination. The left
hand is the symbol of justice in the iconography of early modern emblems
of Gods. Justice thus, in Cartari’s Imagini, is shown precisely as a left hand,
scarcely noticeable, at the bottom left of an image of Justitia using both force
and law. The philosopher lawyer transcendent, to return to my topic, is in
the classical language “a God to men” and shares in the rays of his eminence.
Justice being a matter of faith requires the ability to see what is not there and
has no being, and this is the capacity and sacrality that Dworkin lays claim to
possess.42 If this visual connotation were not obvious already, the next images
show Dworkin on Dworkin dressed entirely in white, in angelic garb and pure
as wind, clear as alabaster, visibly part of his light, lustre, effluxions and emanations. (Figure 14) The angel is the manifestation itself, and for Hobbes for
example, ideas are angels, small epiphanies, messages from the gods and hence
the importance of white, of the absence of colors signaling as close as the human can get to that non-being, that incorporeal abstraction, that absence that
is legitimacy, authority and truth. It is a paradoxical thought but it is one that
is emphasized to the extreme in the final image of Dworkin on Dworkin, this
transcendent being, which shows him in white at the tiller of his yacht, riding
the wind and the waves. Dworkin is here gubernator, literally and metaphorically the ruler of fate and the helmsman of men. (Figure 15)
42
The image of Justitia in Vincent Cartari, Les Images des Dieux [1572] (Paris, 1610)
shows Justitia, active and passive, with a severed left hand, pointing down, in the bottom right
of the image. I discuss this Goodrich, Obiter depicta (fc 2013).
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Fig. 14 Character angelicus.
Fig. 15 Dworkin on the water.
35
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Peter Goodrich
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It is emblematically the sovereign who sits at the helm and pilots the ship of
state, and we can take this theme from a English emblem book, by the lawyer
Wither, showing the crowned holding the rudder in his right hand and the clavis
regnum, the key to the kingdom, in his left, with the motto dum clavum rectum
teneam – while holding to the true course, no storms nor windy censures fear.43
(Figure 16) Fate is thus to be mastered, there are keys, tillers, correct courses,
and for Dworkin, of course, right answers for those who can read the wind and
thereby understand the arcana imperii, the mysteries of state, the secrets of government, Bacon’s invisible politics. That is what the photoportait of the yachtsman
philosopher depicts, namely mastery, undaunted self-making, man and nature at
one. The latter point, and here I am drawing to my conclusion, I have to leave my
commentator some time to work on things, places Dworkin not simply in harmony
with nature, the lex terrae, but also bending it to his will.
Fig. 16 George Wither, Emblemes (1635), p. 37.
43
George Whither, Emblemes, at 37.
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37
Fig. 17 Sebastian de Covarrubias Horozco, Emblemas morales
(Madrid, 1610), cent. 3, emblem 67, p. 267.
The last emblem is from Covarrubias’ moral emblems of 1610. It shows the idol
of fortune, naked and with a sail, in the hand of God protruding from the clouds.44
(Figure 17) The knotted clouds signal death, the great divide, while the left hand
of God signals the power of providence and of faith over fate. The idol is about to
be smashed on the anvil below it. The idol of fortune must give way to the works
of faith and by the same token the gubernator who holds the key to the kingdom is
properly our director and ruler who, as Covarrubias points out in his commentary,
is the forger of his own destiny and the master of his own fate. That is the role then
of the transcendent philosopher, the man on the make, Dworkin on Dworkin who,
in the appropriate visual tropology has taken the seat of power which is that of the
one who judges right and wrong and directs us to do the same for our ourselves.
Justice lies in the chosen necessity of fate, in the accommodation of the wind and
the patterns of nature which faith alone, integrity and intuition can unveil and allow us to apprehend in the quotidian business of government.
The principle of the visial line now established, the figures of visiocratic rule
now referenced, I can end by adverting to what it is that the image conveys virtualiter. According to the early law dictionary Aenigmata iuris, there is a distinction to
be made between iconomus and oeconomus.45 The former is the jurisdiction and
44
Juan de Horozco y Covarrubias, Emblemas morales (1589), in Enciclopedia, at 875.
45
Antonio de Nebrija, Aenigmata iuris [1506], republished as Vocabularium utrisuque
iuris (1612) s.v. iconomus. Discussed at length in Peter Goodrich, Legal Enigmas: Antonio de
Nebrija, The Da Vinci Code, and the Emendation of Law’ 30 Oxford J.L.S. 71 (2010).
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manipulation of the ecclesiastical law, through iconic signs, the latter is the distribution and administration of the household, through the imago and imagunculae,
the persisting images of the ancestors, of lineage and inheritance. Nebrija, the author of the Aenigmata notes immediately that iconomy and economy are co-mingled, and that administrators must know how to use the iconomic in the economic
just as much as the sovereign as nursing parent of the people must know how to
penetrate the economic, the location of the subjects of the regimen animarum. My
point, lengthily deliberated, is that new media have made available an iconomic archive of legal images that had been lost for some three hundred years. Abandoned
in Latin, secreted in the archives, vegetating in libraries, the emblem book tradition has only now come again to light by dint of the facility of digital reproduction
and circulation. For the first time in over three centuries the visial lines of law, the
structures of legal imagination, the figures that depict the norms of legal regimen
are visible and available, accessible with ease for scholarly study, hermeneutic apprehension, critical investigation and public use alike. Returning to the epigraph
at the beginning – perspicua vera non sunt probanda – which stipulates that what
is visibly true needs no proof, the image archive of law can provide the dogmatic
structures, the emblematic images that can bring us closer to understanding what
is evident, manifest, too apparent to need proof for lawyers.
Daniele M. Cananzi1
Iconomy: Law and its Representation
1. Iconomy: representation and thought
Aesthetic of law is a subject that can be investigated from several points of view;
it is a way of approaching law, which is not easily drained, nor limited to a unitary
definition.
As far as I am concerned, I intensely pursued aesthetic of law with reference to
the form in and of law: such formativity that Luigi Pareyson’s aesthetic allowed me
to find, both in law and in his life.
However, in this occasion, I would like to evoke that kind of itinerary2 and in
doing so, I prefer to choose another perspective: by using the adjacent and parallel road of representation that brings to the thought, to the idea that lays behind.
Albeit immediately warning that I will just limit myself to point out suggestions,
more than anything else, by summarizing this with iconomy: nomos through representation, immago.
An etymological observation, to me, appears to be immediately suggestive: the
word icon, which is the root for the word iconomy, derives from Greek eỉkώn-óvoς
and its perfect infinitive eỉkénai means to be similar – so that by thinking about the
manhood as made in the image of God (immago Dei), i.e. being similar to God –
but it also means to appear. And eỉkóna means, therefore, image.
Iconomy is, then, a neologism that I propose in the meaning of a reflection on
the perception of image, on the representation of law3.
But why this choice? For sure, I acknowledge the structural formativity and aesthetic of law traced by Pareyson, but I also refer to my old love for icons, and to my
old passion for images and works of art on law. Interests, those ones, that are even
reinforced and, in a certain way, also rediscovered, thanks to a recent contribution
by Peter Goodrich, Visiocracy. On the future of legal emblems4.
In his study, Goodrich begins with an experiment, which took place at New
York University, aiming at analyzing the influence of the situation, intended as the
1
Professor of Philosophy of Law and Theory of Interpretation, Sapienza University of
Rome, Director of CRED
2
I briefly recapped the itinerary in the recent paper Estetica del diritto. Formatività,
morfologia ed ermeneutica della giuridicità i.e. “Aesthetic of law. Formativity, morphology and
hermeneutics of lawfulness” presented at the ISLL Congress La vita nelle forme. Il diritto e le
altre arti (Life in forms. Law and the other arts). Urbino, July 3-4, 2014.
3
P. Heritier has been writing on this issue in the process of elaborating a sort of aesthetic
of law inspired by Legendre and Di Robilant, Estetica giuridica, 2 vols. Giappichelli, Torino 2012.
4
The Italian translation, carried out by P. Heritier appeared in Il diritto tra testo e immagine, cured by C. Faralli, V. Gigliotti, P. Heritier, M.P. Mittica, Mimesis, Milano-Udine 2014, p. 15 ff.
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Daniele M. Cananzi
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physical scene, the location where actions take place, on the way of acting, and in
particular by investigating it within the legal domain5.
The outcome of this experiment was to find out that “in the theatre of justice and
truth, something can be glimpsed by reason and taken to the written page”. The
result is not to be taken superficially, Goodrich himself has pointed out the essential
questions: “What did the students see in the use of robes and official suites, or in the
use of Latin, in elevations, in rites and emblems? Why did the noticeable ornaments
and accidental elements of the judiciary presence did have an effect on their perception of the legal authority and on their comprehension of justice and trial?”6.
It would seem that through those images, those symbolizations, the sense of law
(meant as the weight of law) would be more present and pressing, and it would
result more visible, and I could shorten it up by saying: nomos would be more
present. Present through image.
Because, in the end, those symbolizations are external and formal elements:
icons, images, representations; but what do they represent? Law, justice, nomos.
The theme for an iconomy is then caught. A sort of return of form in law, against
the trivial synonymic reduction to formalism.
We are therefore moving towards a counter-modern direction, if I can say so7.
In modernity we see the word/image separation taking place and becoming prominent (in law, but not only in law); the rational/perceptive separation (in law, but
not only in law). And those two dichotomies that are brought about, are themselves generating and giving qualification both to law and aesthetic.
From one point of view, we can think to the idea of law, fomented by codification: “Law is everything: statute is the whole law”, the legalism motto, the formalism8; auctoritas non veritas facit legem, so to speak with the words of Hobbes.
From the other, this brings to our minds the re-thinking of aesthetics that took
place through recovering aisthesis9, recovering sensibleness and location, atmospherology10, just to quote Tonino Griffero.
Iconomy finds in those tracts its own premises. From thinking by definitions,
according to the model of clear and distinct ideas, to “thinking by images”, as I say
to recall Vercellone and Breidbach11.
5
In particular, some Law students, divided in two groups, were given a case to discuss:
the first group was hosted in a courtroom and asked to follow procedural/ritual rules, the second one was invited to present the case in an informal setting and in a makeshift auditorium.
The registered outcome was that the first group revealed itself more incline to respect authority,
legitimacy and justice than the second one.
6
Ibidem, p. 17.
7
And with all the specifications and details that should be taken into account when considering the theme of modernity. See B.Romano, Relazione e diritto tra moderno e postmonderno,
Giappichelli, Torino 2013. See also the proceedings of the Conference on Mito moderno e modernità senza assoluto. I. L’altra filosofia, cured by D. Cananzi, E. Rocca, Giappichelli, Torino 2014.
8
On the point it is still thoughtful and contemporary L. Lombardi Vallauri analysis in
Corso di filosofia del diritto, Giuffrè, Milano 2007, p. 29 ff.
9
See the important contribution by M. Ferraris, Estetica razionale, Cortina, Milano 2011.
10
T. Grifffero, Atmosferologia. Estetica degli spazi emozionali, Laterza, Roma-Bari 2010.
11
Cf. F. Vercellone, O. Breidbach, Pensare per immagini, Mimesis, Udine 2010.
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Because image is structurally defined, but it is not in itself a definition; it is fixed,
but it cannot be fixed in one unique meaning.
Thinking by images, through iconomy, becomes a thinking not by definitions:
and therefore, instead of the neverending (but in the end maybe also useless) progression of the several “what is it?”, there is a different thinking, according to
symbolization parameters.
I am deeply persuaded that Robert Jacob is right in observing that “il ne suffit pas
que justice soit rendue, il faut encore qu’elle donne à partager la convention qu’elle l’est.
L’être et le pareître lui sont également indispensables” (Engl. “it is not enough that justice
is made, it is also necessary that it is made to share the agreement that constitutes it. Being
and appearing are equally and reciprocally required”). And such operation iconomically
not only restores the centrality of form and forms in law, but also it also makes it clear
that a content, when deprived of a formal manifestation, is lacking one substancial
meaningful aspect of law. Thus, Jacobs continues: “l’institution qui n’aurait de la justice
que les forms serait parodie, sans doute. Mais inversement, celle qui ne serait qu’effective,
qui, tout en observant une éthique rigoreuse et sachant se faire obéir, négligerait les apparences, celle-là affaibilirait dangereusement la confiance qui fait venir à elle la demande et
accepter ses decisions. Une justice qui ne réussit pas à passer pour telle manqué en quelque
façon à sa mission de régulation sociale”12 (En. the institution taking just the formalities
of justice will undoubtedly be defined as parody. However, on the contrary, the effective
one, which by rigorously observing ethics is just
arrogantly asking for obedience, will disguise
appearance and dangerously will abuse the
confidence behind the act of recurring to justice
and accepting its decisions. A justice that does
not succeed in doing this would be somehow
failing its mission of social regulation).
Again, our iconomic question is back: on
the representation of law and justice.
The perception of the one, the law, is a
direct consequence of the perception of the
other, justice. As it is generally known, there
was a shift in the perception of justice – and
thus of law – from divine to human. Justice
as the goddess of traditional iconology, with
her symbols: the sword and the scale is only
one (but not the only one) image.
One crucial element is power. A sort of
power coming from above, from supernatural: and therefore something which is received
Fig. 1 Detail of the frontispiece calcography
and not created, or, nevertheless, something signed “G. van der Gouwen sculpsit”, from
that is not discretional and requires certain
Vol. I of Corpus juris civilis, Editio nova,
conditions.
Amsterdam: sumptibus Societatis, 1681.
12
R. Jacob, Immages de la justice, Le Léopard d’Or, Paris 1994, p. 9.
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Daniele M. Cananzi
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Fig. 2 G. Rollenhagen, Nucleus emblematum selectissimorum
(Cologne: Jasonium, 1611) emblem 83. Image taken from P. Goodrich,
Legal Emblems and the Art of Law, Cambridge, Cambridge Press, 2014, p. 18.
And this makes it clear that justice has always been represented as a goddess, as
somehow supernatural in any case. Why, then, does someone have the power to
act on others? By divine command, or, even better, by delegation, by designation.
Fig. 3 Christ delegates spiritual and secular powers to the pope and to the emperor.
Decree of Gratianus with glossa by Barthélémy de Brescia. Image taken
from R. Jacob, Immages de la justice, plate IV.
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43
As this wonderful image shows, God delegates, exactly by giving the two
swords, representing the two powers, both to the pope and to the emperor, which
are therefore commonly bound by the same decree, the same very text. Another
image taken from the Decree of Gratianus.
Fig. 4 Spiritual and secular powers invested by statute. Decree of Gratianus with glossa by
Barthélémy de Brescia. Image taken from R. Jacob, Immages de la justice, plate I.
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Justice then is secularized, highlighting the sings of its power, not related any
more to divinity, but belonging to humanity, as a human business. That is how
Giotto represents it in the Cappella degli Scrovegni: so much human to justify a
specular representation of injustice.
Fig. 5 Giotto, Justice, 1306, Cappella degli Scrovegni, Padua.
Fig. 6 Giotto, Injustice, 1306, Cappella degli Scrovegni, Padua.
Human, overly human, so much human that it can be characterized by transforming its symbols in parody: as in the renown drawing by Brant.
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45
Fig: 7 S. Brant, Xylography taken from The ship of fools, Basel, 1497.
Here, the veiled Justice appears to be actually blind and uselessly formal, made
sightless to the real needs by a clown-demon.
The idea – even though mentioned by several authors13 – of re-building the entire story of law through its representing images14 would be very evocative; but it
is not the journey I would like to take, at least, not in this time and place. It would
certainly require to go way back in the past and to dig out in such direction.
I prefer, instead, to turn my eye to the future and offer some iconomic suggestions; to see what comes out for today’s and tomorrow’s law15. To do this means to
work on the idea of Jacob: justice must also be perceived as such, and on the idea
of Goodrich: on the infrastructure that con-figures justice.
Representation, form and formalization, in law act to let the foundations be
perceivable, the foundations represented by the delegating authority in Fig. no.
13
Neither first, nor last, also F. Galgano Le insidie del linguaggio giuridico. Saggio sulle
metafore nel diritto, Il Mulino, Bologna 2010.
14
On the issue, cf. P. Goodrich, Legal Emblems and the Art of Law, Cambridge,
Cambridge Press 2014, forthcoming Italian translation by P. Heritier, Milano 2015.
15
Of particular interest, classical works, such as the studies by Cesare Ripa, on which
recently see A. G. Conte, Cesare Ripa. Icone della giustizia, in “Rivista internazionale di filosofia
del diritto”, 2012, n. 1, p. 109 ff.
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3. And the foundation lays in the light and it entails the light of equality, that light
showing under the same law, the one detected in Fig. no. 4. And equality is exemplified by impartiality of justice, not arbitrary, nor contingent, which connects the
non-disposability of Fig. no. 2 with the structure of Fig. no. 1.
And all these considerations compel us to meditate.
It has to make us ponder why the students of the first group at New York University felt more granted, more protected; they felt the weight of law more than the
students of the other group.
However this poses again the issue of positive and natural law in aesthetic
terms16, i.e. if law and justice exist by nature or by haphazard.
2. Aesthetics (of representation) of law
Here we are, again, but under different terms. Not those naïve deriving from
positivism, nor those from natural law.
In the end, the parody of justice by Brant, a natural law all consisting of form,
with sword and scale, but unable to see, and, instead, fouled by reality and by the
perception of reality, is easily associated to another parody, by Nast, which reproduces the ability of inventing reality, beyond the connection to facts, with what
simply (and I do not say naturally) is. In a post-modern fashion and following the
thesis “there are no facts, only interpretations”17.
Fig. 8 T. Nast, Stamps for milk to children, instead of milk 1876.
16
17
In the same direction, see also P. Heritier, Estetica giudirica, vol. II, cit., p. 142 ff.
F. Nietzsche, Frammenti postumi, 1885-1897, fr. 7.
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The creative and constitutive capacity, here becomes, paradoxically, totally arbitrary. In the parody there is a piece of paper saying “this is a cow, by the act of the
congress”, and another “this is a lot, by the act of the architect”, and yet another
“this is a cow, by the act of the artist”, and so on. It is not surprising, then, that
someone hands a paper saying “this is milk” to a puppet, that some other paper
defines “a true baby by decision of Congress”.
Thus “there are no facts, only interpretations” assumes a normative twist: everything can be constituted, according to the principle that establishes the most naïve
positivistic relativism.
However, mind that foundation, equality and impartiality, the qualifying elements of law, are completely excluded in this case.
And it is not a coincidence that precisely Nash is mentioned in Paolo Di Lucia
preface to Searle’s book Making the Social World18. Therefore, constitutive statements receive a strong caveat and, by looking for a proper meaning, an important
step in their definition was set19.
Very shortly – perhaps too shortly, I am aware – I can conclude these iconomic
divagations.
The terms of the issue are on the table.
Image is representation. Of what? It brings together what is similar between…
being similar to…, and therefore in analogy; but so what?
Does the great question appears to be not in the definitional terms of quid? Or perhaps it lays in those investigative ones sounding like: is there truth in law and in justice?
Foundation, equality and impartiality, in reality, show the space for truth in law
and justice.
Nowadays there is an increasing attitude to think that the moment of law without
truth has come, because – it is observed – the whole possible power is in the hand of
the human being and in his will20. Everything can be justified and normalized.
However, in this sense, is Nash caveat ignored or not? Is it the striking foolishness that Brand perpetuated or not?
A justice that measures with the scale and enforces itself with the sword, but
taking out the truth, what does have it to say about law? What do we grasp of law
and of justice if everything can be constituted?
Blind justice is an unfair justice, blind is a law that proceeds by thinking of values just because they are shared and not by considering that they are shared just
because they are values. A merely constitutive statement appears to be pointless
when it ignores any qualifying and specifying facts, as correctly pointed out by
Filippo Vassalli: the law, he says, “ends up necessarily in stating itself by reasoning,
rather than by commands”21.
In the journey that here and now I’m trying to follow, rather briefly, I leave behind the great question about truth, and I limit myself to close my discourse on the
18
P. Di Lucia, “Le due costitutività in John Searle”, in J. Searle, Creare il mondo sociale.
La struttura della civiltà umana, Cortina, Milano 2010, p. XIII.
19
G. Carcaterra, Le norme costitutive, Giappichelli, Torino 2014.
20
Recently, on the issue, N. Irti, Diritto senza verità, Laterza, Roma-Bari 2011.
21
F. Vassalli, Della tutela dei diritti, Roma 2014, p. 3.
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elements that have been forming it, which are also able to open up a way towards
the truthful reading of lawfulness.
Law does not exist if it is not qualified by a specifying structure, therefore it also
differentiates from what is not law (e.g. the arbitrary exercise of reason) and it
justifies the quarrelling over unfair content (e.g. unconstitutionality, unlawfulness,
illegality of a disposition).
What iconomy claims to argue are the characters of impartiality, equality and
foundation, i.e. the characters of the fundamental legal structure, of the aesthetic
structure of law.
In law, constitutive statement is in itself instituting.
The act of institution is always “in the name of…” – also according to the considerations by Pierre Legendre22 – thus highlighting equality for all, grounded on
impartiality and required by the foundation of law itself. Hence, on the basis of
such “order” representing the idea of a third place, the place of a constant turning
back to foundations: a problematic and inexhaustible issue.
Legal endeavor is so much structurally and substantially represented by this
constant coming back to its foundation, by actualizing, realizing it and interpreting it. It is, creatively, as a “creating conformativity”23, as the act of constituting
into morphological.
Constitutive statement, in that iconomic sense, is representing the capacity of
law to make justice.
However, such a standpoint does not mean that law constitutes justice, but rather that it constantly constitutes a solid reference back to foundations, as a sort of
beginning that continuously gathers (also hermeneutically) sense.
And in doing so, it has its own procedures, which grant equality and third-point
perspective, by taking out the foundation and giving it each time a new and different sense. According to a beginning that, thus, has no end, but rather a beginning
that is never ex nihilo.
In such terms, it looks interesting to go back – just to conclusively operate a
recall – that morphology drawn by Frosini and proficiently put under discussion
both by Cotta and Carcaterra.
Not starting ex nihilo is, in fact, connected to coming back to foundations, that
is what happens when it comes to constituting in law. But so what? The Norm of
action is the answer that Frosini gives, recalling Capograssi.
“Law is not practicity – he writes – it is, of course, action, but an action that is
given by a structure: it has, therefore, received a practical expression or definition;
such behavior is lawful (due or permitted), as far as it is conformed to an original
form (in an ideal sense, not chronological), to a structure; i.e., an action is lawful
because it reflects a forma agendi, because it is modeled, configured, profiled ab
22
P. Legendre, Leçons I, Fayard, Paris1998; and also Della società come Testo, Giappichelli Torino 2005.
23
E. Paresce, La genesi ideale del diritto, Guffrè, Milano 1955, p. 67.
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49
intra by this exemplar action, paradigm, prototype, which is defined, regulated
and stated by law”24.
Form, intended just like Frosini meant, as structure, is what gives the essence of
legality to experience.
This is a particularly relevant point, because it is through this action of in-forming, i.e. putting in a form, that law shapes itself. As Cotta observes, ‘the law constitutively states the legal form of mankind and his/her actions’ “Forma dat esse rei”
in the words of St. Thomas, based on Aristotle: form is what makes a being what it
actually is. That is to say, in our case – Cotta concludes –that form qualifies action,
and this is what makes it legal”25.
Such an aspect, always according to Cotta, is the distinctive and specifying character of law, the socionomic trait (as he calls it) of being-in-society26.
Exactly in those terms – and Carcaterra was one of the first authors to use the
expression “formativity” for law – the “idea of a ‘formative’ capacity (not merely
‘formal’) of law with relations to its contents” starts taking place; an idea that always includes the formal, intended as the act of constituting: “forming is not just
to adequate [the law] to the object, nor simply to ask and wait for the object to
modify accordingly; it is the act itself of modifying it, of giving it a new character,
of creating for it a new dimension of existence. Precisely this aspect does make the
law as a form of empowering human action”27.
To constitute: but how so? Without limits? Or in absolute terms?
What is demonstrated in law is that for human beings the act of forming and of
constituting is certainly free, but freedom – for humanity – is not unlimited: it finds
the non-contradiction principle, for instance; it finds the structure of law itself,
which is qualified on what is non-disposable.
In such terms, formativity, i.e. the structure of law, bears already some implicit
contents.
In such terms, an iconomy appears to be an interesting point of view on legal
reality.
In the end, I could conclude that what is not convincing in Brandt and Nast
hypotheses is to put the structure into brackets (foundation, equality, impartiality).
Legality finds in structures its own fundamental structure, which allows to constantly bring the question back to foundations, but always by starting from structure, from something that has already been said, fundamental for something that
yet is to be said: always in the name of… in the name of the indisputability of truth,
of the indisputability of justice. In such terms, we can avoid both Brand and Nast
results (a real danger for today’s and tomorrow’s law), shocking cases of corruption
in law and of de-formed form, and structure.
24
25
26
27
V. Frosini, La struttura del diritto, Giuffrè, Milano 1971, p. 33.
S. Cotta, Primi orientamenti di filosofia del diritto, Giappichelli, Torino 1966, p. 99.
Ibidem, pp. 130, 139.
G. Carcaterra, Le norme constitutive, cit. p. 70.
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Correctly I can state with Jacob, “it will be convenient to invent new forms”28 to
try to build a concrete reality in the “dream of justice” of today and tomorrow; but
this is exactly related to the constitution of a justice that is always to reveal itself, to
be the object of research, development and of actualization; it does not touch the
invariant structure that specifies and qualifies law.
The space of genesis for legality is increasing in possibilities and importance;
and this means not to archive the issues of impartiality, foundations, and equality.
Everything can be invented, decided, chosen, but these elements that constitutes
the fundamental structure of law (in any time and place) will never be misunderstood, at the risk of loosing the specificity of law.
And such an epilogue would have a prerequisite: deforming law, and not respecting its iconomy.
28
R. Jacob, Images de la justice, cit. p. 246.
Guglielmo Siniscalchi1
Visual Legal Signs
1. From rules to images, from images to rules
In his essay “Visiocracy. On the Futures of the Fingerpost” Peter Goodrich has
shown that the visual dimension is crucial to the understanding and the foundation
of any possible legal-philosophical discourse. Indeed, as suggested by the subtitle
of his work, Goodrich views images as the “finger post of law”, as essential signals
that guide the direction of any legal phenomenon.
One need only recall the etymology of the Latin word “signum,” which precisely
designates both images (signs, banners, paintings and sculptures, etc.) and watchwords (signals, commands, predictions, symptoms, etc.), to understand how deep
the connections run between the normative and visual spheres2.
Were we to outline an initial distinction in the relationship between law and image we would have to recognise that there are both “visual rules” and “normative
images”: there are norms that are manifested through the language of images and
images which have an undeniable normative force in the eye of the beholder. The
relationship that binds images and law is always bi-directional, with the first direction pointing straight from the law to the image, and the second, vice versa, leading
from the image into the universe of normative discourse. The first direction moves
along the tracks of legal language proper, the second strays through the vast territories of meta-legal language.
The second direction represents the open, constantly metamorphosing set of all
the images – symbols, emblems, geographical maps, pictorial and filmic representations – that exert some “coercive” force in relation to a hypothetical recipient.
The historical and legal philosopher Pierre Legendre defined these “multiple writings of normative” as “nomograms,” alluding to visual expression such as dance,
ritual, cinema3, painting, emblems and any other socially relevant normative signs4.
1
Researcher of Philosophy of Law, Bari University.
2
On the etymology of the word “signum” see A. Supiot, Homo juridicus. On the Anthropologic Function of Law, Verso, London 2007.
3
For more on the sociological and philosophical-legal significance of a particular “nomogram”, such as the “film poster”, please refer to: [eds.] C. Sarzotti, G. Siniscalchi, eVISIONI.
Il carcere in pellicola, collage e graffiti, Edizioni Linfattiva, Barletta 2013.
4
For more on the concept of the “nomogram” see especially: P. Legendre, Leçons VI.
Les Enfants du texte. Étude sur la fonction parentale des États, Fayard, Paris 1992, p. 60; P.
Goodrich, A theory of the Nomogram, in: (eds.) P. Goodrich, L. Barshack, A. Schütz, Law, text,
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In these pages I do not explore the second direction, but rather I limit myself
to an investigation of the first by asking two questions relevant to the construction of the legal discourse: Are there visual signs in legal language? And, if so,
what function do they have?
2. Visual rules
The answer to the first question is less obvious than it might seem. Most of the legal
theories from the twentieth century have always asserted that rules are the product
of linguistic utterances and have nothing to do with “visual culture.” Yet, the works
of two legal positivists such as Hans Kelsen and Herbert L.A. Hart, answer my question in the affirmative. While acknowledging that rules are expressions of utterances
or linguistic propositions, these authors explicitly or implicitly admit the existence
of rules that are manifested through visual signs. Let me be clear: these are signs that
presuppose a rule and are limited to “translating” the sense of the rule visually. The
paradigmatic case considered by both authors is that of road signs, understood as a
set of rules (prohibitions, obligations and permissions, but also gestures, guidance
and advice) crystallised in generally widespread and recognisable in images or visual
impulses that serve to regulate pedestrian and motor vehicle traffic5.
In Eine phänomenologische Rechtstheorie [1965], Hans Kelsen introduces the topic
of visual rules in reference to the light of traffic lights and the stop gesture commanded
by a traffic warden. Kelsen writes that not all rules must necessarily be expressed in
linguistic utterances: there are also gestures, such as the movement of a traffic warden’s
arm or the illumination of a red traffic light, which reinstate the full meaning of a rule6.
Likewise, in The Concept of Law [1961], Hart recalls the red traffic light to serve
as an example for one of the key points of his theory of law: the difference between
an “internal point of view” and an “external point of view.”
According to Hart, to an “external observer,” the red traffic light can only be
an indication of the likely halting of traffic: by repeatedly watching the behaviour
of the cars, the observer can easily predict what will happen every time the light
changes from green to yellow and red.
The visual signal only testifies to the existence of a habit, a behavioural regularity. In the case of an “internal observer,” i.e. an agent who participates in and
terror. Essays for Pierre Legendre, Routledge, New York 2006, pp. 13-34; and P. Heritier, Law
and Image. Towards a Theory of Nomograms, in: (eds.) A. Wagner, RK Sherwin, Law, Culture and
Visual Studies, Springer Verlag, Berlin 2013, pp. 24-48.
5
On the importance of road signs for the theory of the law see: F. Studnicki, Traffic
Signs, “Semiotica”, 2 (1970), pp. 151-172; G. Lorini, Norma nuda: un concetto ipotetico, in: Scritti in onore di Franco Modugno, Editoriale Scientifica, Naples 2011, pp. 1969-1976; G. Lorini,
La norma disegnata, in [eds.] P.L. Lecis, V. Busacchi, P. Salis, Realtà, Verità, Rappresentazione,
Franco Angeli, Milan [forthcoming].
6
The example is in: G. Lorini, La norma disegnata, in [eds.] P.L. Lecis, V. Busacchi, P.
Salis, Realtà, Verità, Rappresentazione, Franco Angeli, Milan [forthcoming].
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Visual Legal Signs
53
acknowledges the rules of a legal system, the turning on of the light expresses the
existence of a genuine rule bearing a penalty.
The paradigmatic cases cited by Kelsen and Hart not only state the existence of
visual rules, albeit implicitly, they also suggest the visual element has a pragmatic
function in terms of the legal force of rules. Could we imagine a road marking consisting of long and complicated linguistic propositions? It would be the very legal
force of rule that would be degraded. Traffic signals – both signs and light pulses –
must necessarily have two characteristics: they must be immediately apparent and
need to “speak” a language that is as general as possible. Both features are ensured
by the iconic dimension of these rules.
It is no coincidence that Hart chose to exemplify the difference between internal and external point of views in terms of the perception of a traffic light. It is a
rule that, by virtue of the visual element, can be perceived and understood immediately by a generality of observers/agents (both “internal” and “external”) who
possess different levels of knowledge of the set of rules.
Thus far visual signs are limited to simply “translating” the meaning of a rule.
3. Institutional visual signs
But are there any visual signs that are not simply related to a rule but can,
by their mere presence, testify to the effectiveness of the institutions and legal
order? In this case, the visual sign would be indicative of a widespread deontic
power not attributable to a single and well-defined rule, unlike a command to
stop or a traffic light turning on.
A possible answer to our question is found in the theory of “institutional facts” by
John R. Searle. In the volume The Construction of Social Reality [1995], Searle draws
a fundamental distinction between what he calls “brute facts” and “institutional
facts”: the former belong to the sphere of the phenomena described by the natural
sciences, the latter are the result of a collective agreement between human beings.
“Institutional facts” include citizenship, marriages, borders, strikes, laws, and so on.
As Searle emphasises, they are facts that only exist because we collectively believe in
their existence. That is why Searle identifies the verbal signs that help us to know and
recognise “institutional facts”7 (which have an epistemic function): permits, passports and public officials’ badges are signs of the existence of a series of “institutional
facts” that we could not otherwise either touch or see. Searle defines these signals as
“status-indicators”.
Generally, these status “indicators” prefer written form: in complex societies,
the most common and widespread indicators are passports and driving licenses.
This does not detract from the fact that there are also “indicators” that materialise
7
For a precise reconstruction of the debate on the epistemic or constitutive function of
“status indicators” see: M. Ferraris, Documentality: Why It Is Necessary to Leave Traces, Fordham University Press, New York 2012.
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in visual signs. As Searle writes, some status indicators do not need to be explicitly
linguistic, that is, they do not need to be expressed through words.
Two examples: wedding rings and uniforms. In both cases we are faced with signs
that can be grasped visually, clearly testifying to the existence of “institutional facts”
such as marriage and the police. Though Searle considers the meaning of these status
indicators as equivalent, we will see how these two examples can be configured to
represent different hypotheses of the legal significance of visual signs.
Let’s consider the uniforms first. What differentiates a traffic warden’s command to stop from the turning on of a red traffic light? Both visual signs ask the recipient to stop their car. If we limit our analysis to the legal meaning of the gesture
expressed by these signs, we would have no doubts about their equivalence. Even
Kelsen, in the example considered above, says that the traffic warden’s gesture and
the traffic light are both cases in which the rule need not be expressed linguistically. Yet, if we shift the gaze from the meaning of the gesture to the aesthetic dimension of the context, we quickly realise that the presence of a person in uniform
is very different from the perception of an impersonal traffic light signal. As Searle
writes, the uniform includes a deontic power that is rooted in the symbolic value
of this particular “status indicator”: the uniform worn by law enforcement plays
an expressive, ceremonial, aesthetic and, as Searle specifies, even constitutive function of the essence of a policeman. While the verbal status indicators – signatures,
passports or documents in general – only have one epistemic function in relation
to institutional fact they represent, visual indicators such as uniforms also have a
constitutive function.
But what does this mean? It is clear that a uniform does not constitute the essence of a police officer because there are also plainclothes police officers. Searle
responds by saying that the constitutive dimension of these indicators lies in their
symbolic power. The presence of a police officer in uniform is not the simple translation of a rule, as in the case of order to stop indicated by a traffic light, but it is the
symbol of the presence and the coercive force of an entire legal order. If, as Kelsen
says, the legal meaning of the gesture of a policeman and a red traffic light is the
same, the order to stop, the difference between the two signs lies in their symbolic
value: the aesthetic dimension of the indicator affects its deontic power.
As such, just as there are simple visual rules that, to be effective, must necessarily be perceived visually, there are visual signs that do not relate to individual rules,
but that are constitutive of the deontic force of the entire system. The constitutive
power of these signs lies in their symbolic value.
4. Axiological visual signs
Now I will consider the example of the wedding ring. Searle believes that wedding rings and uniforms represent similar cases. As with the uniforms, we know
that a ring is not essential for establishing the status of a husband or wife, but we
also know that the wedding ring is a visible and tangible symbol of the existence of
legal and religious institutions that are a prerequisite for any form of marriage. As
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Visual Legal Signs
55
with the uniforms, wedding rings are visual signs not attributable to a single rule,
but a more complex “institutional fact” articulated through legislation.
Where is the difference, then? In the knowledge that the sight of a wedding ring
on a finger is not only indicative of the existence of a legally relevant fact: that sign
also evokes a system of values identified by the bond of marriage. Loyalty and love
for one’s partner represent values that are not, and cannot be encoded by rules
but which reveal an inevitable value-based dimension found in the “institutional
facts.” A wedding ring is an object loaded with pathos that has a certain symbolic
value, an evocative power that opens up landscapes of values that are difficult to
translate into rules in written or verbal form8.
The same is true of national flags or ensigns. These are also “indicators” that
belong to the language of law and possess an undeniable and necessary symbolic
power. We need only think of the colours that represent a nation, the sense of belonging to a given community triggered by the sight of certain colours, the idea of the
homeland that does not coincide with that of the nation or other legal system but involves a completely different dimension of values: it is no coincidence that one of the
essays by legal historian Ernst H. Kantorowicz is vividly titled Mourir pour la patrie.
It is through shapes, and not words, that these signs construct immediately apparent legal worlds where even the aesthetic dimension testifies to an undeniable
“morality of law”. Wedding rings, national flags, ensigns, to provide other examples, are all “status indicators” that not only reveal the presence of the legal system,
but also speak of a right that lives and is handed down, beyond any particular
historical purpose, through symbols and values.
5. Symbolic Signs
There is more. Because some of these symbols are not only bearers of principles and ethical values within the law, but help constitute the very foundation of
its force. The idea is old but has been rediscovered in the twentieth century by
Ernst H. Kantorowicz in his famous volume The King’s Two Bodies. A Study in
Mediaeval Political Theology [1957].
Without retracing the turning points in Kantorowicz’s theory, I would like to dwell
only on a visual sign that occupies a very important position in the reconstruction of
his historical and philosophical investigation: the king’s crown. Using Searle’s lexicon,
we could define it a “status indicator,” even though the crown carries out a unique
and unrepeatable function, at least according to the Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence from
the sixteenth century investigated by Kantorowicz: it is a sign that “inscribes” the
“mystical body”, which is immortal, invisible, and the foundation of the sovereign’s
political power and legal, on the biological, mortal body. The sovereign thus has “two
8
On the irrelevance of ideal oughts, such as the duty to be loyal and loving, to rules,
please refer to: G. Siniscalchi, Normalità, idealità, dovere giuridico, in: “Rivista Internazionale di
Filosofia del Diritto”, 81, 2004, pp. 253-274.
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bodies” and the crown is the visual sign of this dual nature. Or rather, the crown is
the tangible symbol of that legal and political power that is eternal and unchangeable
and is passed from body to body, from sovereign to sovereign, without interruption
and without regard for mortal and fleeting human affairs. The act of coronation and
the symbol of the crown constitute this “second” nature that characterises the figure
of the sovereign and on which his legal power is based9. As Kantorowicz notes, in
the lexicon of medieval political theology there are many signs where symbolic power
establishes the very foundation of force of law: the crown is only the most important
sign because, of course, represents and constitutes the origin of sovereign power10.
In more recent times, historian and philosopher Pierre Legendre reintroduced the
aesthetic, symbolic and visual element to the centre of reflection on the foundations
of law. Again, I will not retrace the complex theoretical architecture constructed by
the French jurist in his famous Leçons – I refer mainly to Leçons VI. Les Enfants du
Texte. Étude sur la fonction parentale des États [1993] and Leçons VII. Le désir politique de Dieu. Étude sur les montages de l’État du Droit [1988] – but I will limit myself to explaining the link between visual symbols and the foundation of law. According to Legendre, every device of political and legal power consists of a representation
that depicts a “mythical third place,” that is absolutely necessary to establish the law;
an indescribable bond that cannot therefore be expressed in verbal form, and which
is the “genealogical principle” of every legal and institutional phenomenon11; a Référence fondatrice, in Legendre’s terms, which can only be represented symbolically,
i.e. through visual signs, and which constitutes the “mysterious” origin of Western
societies. For Legendre, inasmuch as it is symbolic, the visual is positioned as the
very basis of law: every culture depicts this mythical bond by creating a fictional reality that rationalises the indescribable nature of the foundation.
The particular visual sign (crowns, rings, flags, etc.) is of no significance, but
what counts is rather the recognition that there is a symbolic link at the origin of
every legal phenomenon, a fundamental image that has the task of showing what
cannot be expressed with words.
Therefore, not only is the dimension of visual rules and regulations necessary,
the images can be constitutive of the entire legal phenomenon.
The images, as Goodrich argues, are the real “fingerpost of law” because they
show the ultimate and indescribable foundation of law, that which – as Ludwig
Wittgenstein reminds us – cannot be said, but can only be shown.
9
A recent re-reading of Kantorowicz that combines the aesthetic, political and legal
dimensions can be found in: G. Agamben, The Kingdom and the Glory: For a Theological Genealogy of Economy and Government, Stanford Univerity Press, Palo Alto 2011.
10
When considering symbols of the dual nature of the body of the sovereign we must
also remember the analogy between the crown and the halo.
11
In these pages I do not, of course, consider the fruitful relationship between images and
the theatrical dimension of law as mise-en-scène. On this point, see: Antoine Garapon, Bien juger.
Essai sur le ritual judiciare, Éditions Odile Jacob, Paris 2001; and, specifically in relation to the theatrical dimension of the trial, to: G. Siniscalchi, Un coup de théâtre. Diritto, processo, mise-en-scène,
in [eds.] V. Garofoli, A. Incampo, Verità e processo penale, Giuffrè, Milano 2012, pp. 159-171.
Flora Di Donato1
Making in-Justices Visible
The Blindness of Bureaucracy
Facts have a tendency to carry abstract legal codes into the realm
of real human drama. Facts spawn stories. And stories are not easily bred
in captivity, much less in the lab. They are part of our everyday lives,
and they permeate the popular culture in which we live.
R. Sherwin
1. Introduction
The main thesis formulated by Goodrich in Visiocracy is that the law’s authority
depends upon its visibility:
[t]he visual is the primary means and medium for transmitting law because, like law,
it touches all – quod omnes tangit in a maxim that Bracton uses and that can be seen
most directly in an emblem ad Omnia from 16422.
Nevertheless, as further explained by the Author in his recent book Legal emblems and the art of law, the visibility of the law is overlooked:
[…] the most obvious and manifest dimension of law, its physical and visible forms
– the architecture, the costumes, the inscriptions, the murals and paintings, the trials,
the libraries, the books, the tomb-like tomes – are so familiar, so structural, and thence
natural that they get overlooked […]3.
In fact, lawyers are familiarised to the basic and immutable schemes of law –
made of persons, things and actions – through social structures, symbols and orders that are transmitted over time:
[…] lawyers are trained to apprehend the social and the personal by way of structures,
via the long-term schemata of ordering devices, the symbolic unities, and trans-temporal
transmission of personae and norms. Structures develops but the basic schema, I argue here,
remains the classical tripartite division of Roman law, the fond trinity set out by Gaius noster
in his exemplary Institutes, that of persons, things, actions, or in the jargon of visibilities, im-
1
Researcher of Philosophy of Law, University of Neuchâtel.
2
P. Goodrich, “Visiocracy: On the Futures of Fingerpost”, Critical Inquiry 39 (3) pp.
498-531 (fig. 5, p. 19)
3
P. Goodrich, Legal Emblems and the Art of Law, Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge 2014, p. 23.
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ages, realities, and relations. These structures, which emerge historically from law, are still the
frame through which the social is perceived, encountered, and legality recognized4.
Nevertheless, despite this «visibility per se», in most classical representations,
justice is represented as «blinded». Goodrich interprets this blindness as a way to
keep it distance from humans:
The blindfold on Justice would seem to signify that it is not for humans to see. If
Justice herself will not look but has bandages over her eyes, then how much more will it
be the case that mortals are neither to look upon nor attend to appearances? The image
of Justice signals: do not look. It acts as a prohibition. It also marks exclusion, and the
blindfold, as developed later, is an indication that mortals should keep out5.
He also explains the blindness of justice as a symbol of its interior eye that has
precedence over the exterior, as in the case of «unwritten law – custom and use
from time immemorial, the law of nature and of God». The interior eye of justice,
in some sense, is an expression of spirituality and morality, finding its roots in uses
and customs as well as natural law:
If Justice is blind, that does not necessarily mean that she cannot see. As I argue later, Justice is more than capable of seeing through a bandage and indeed of seeing without eyes. [The
delegates can in any event depend upon their principal, their sovereign. It is this dependency,
this insertion into the hierarchy of images, into the visiocracy, that will transpire to be the most
lasting effect of the Reformist conception of the image.] The blindness of Justice is emblematic. This mean as dream in interpretation that we the viewers are also somehow blind. The
spiritual meaning of the images becomes much more apparent when we realize that justice is
blindfolded but can still see metaphorically, weigh and render (daub) judgement. The simple
point is that the eye of the spirit, the interior eye, has precedence over the exterior, just as, in
common law, it is unwritten law – custom and use from time immemorial, the law of nature
and of God – that has precedence over ratio scripta, written law, namely legislation and its
various failing attempts to intervene in a law that only the learned can properly apprehend6.
Moving from Goodrich’s representations of law and justice, I propose analogies
between the «blindness of justice» and the «blindness of bureaucracy», showing
– through case analyses – how this blindness, in keeping a distance from humans,
tends to favour more the interests of the States rather than those of individuals.
Thus, the aim of this contribution is twofold: to argue, at a theoretical level, how
imagines are part of a social construction process in contributing to shape some invisible aspects of the culture in which the law is embedded; to show, through case analyses
what effects those images – as a part of a broader story – have on lay people legal paths.
It is divided in two parts. In part one, I propose a documentary analysis – also based on
images – as a counterpart to a human testimony, according to a kind of an ethnographic
approach to legal storytelling that aims to trace the influence of culture – meant in a
4
5
6
Id., 207
Id., 16
Id., 16
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wide meaning, including political aspects – in law. Finding inspiration in action research
and clinical law approaches, I emphasise the need to give «voice» to human beings as
active protagonists of their cases, on the one hand, and of joining goals of social justice
– making their voices heard within legal procedures, on the other. In part two, I reconstruct stories of people who are confronted by a specific legal system, the Swiss one, in
order to describe – including through the presentation of visual documents – their ways
to interact with legal institutions as well as deal with Swiss bureaucracy.
2. Visualizing Culture in Law
Starting from the 1970s, the social sciences and humanities experienced a significate change in their understandings of the relationships between individuals and
the law, in re-orienting human and socio-legal research towards « the unofficial,
non-professional actors’ participation – citizens, legal laymen », and so on7. This
change is usually described as the «cultural turn»8.
Since «culture» is a highly complex concept to define, with cultural meanings
being both explicit as well as implicit, conscious or unconscious, arising in everyday practices as well as in institutional discourses, it is very difficult to describe the
influence of culture in law9.
Recently many scholars have become aware that the visual is central to the cultural
construction of social life in contemporary societies, since social categories are not
natural but are constructed, with these constructions often taking a visual form10.
According to Haraway, for example, visuality [in law] may contribute to producing specific visions of social difference – of hierarchies of class, ‘race’, gender,
sexuality and so on – with it claiming not to be part of that hierarchy and thus to be
universal. Thus, as Haraway suggests, it would be interesting to examine in detail
7
G. Rose, Visual Methodologies, Sage London, Thousand Oaks, New Delhi 2007.
8
S. Silbey, “Legal culture and cultures of legality”, in: J.R. Hall, L. Grindstaff and M-C.
Lo (eds.), Sociology of Culture: A Handbook, 2010, pp. 470-479.
9
For an in depth analysis of the relationship between law and culture, see my working
paper F. Di Donato, “Narratives in Cultural Contexts: The Legal Agentivity of the Protagonists”, 2014 http://ssrn.com/abstract=2469436)
10
As Rose explains: “the narrative of the increasing importance of the visual to contemporary Western societies is part of a wider analysis of the shift from pre-modernity to modernity, and
from modernity to postmodernity (…). It is often suggested – or assumed – that in pre-modern
societies, visual images were not especially important, partly because there were so few of them in
circulation. This began to change with the onset of modernity. […] Barbara Maria Stafford (1991),
a historian of images, […] has argued that the construction of scientific knowledge about the world
has become more and more based on images rather than on written texts; Jenks (1995) suggests
that it is the valorization of science in Western cultures that has allowed everyday understandings
to make the same connection between seeing and knowing.” Finally, the use of the term of “visual
culture” refers to the “plethora of ways in which the visual is part of social life”. See Rose (id., 3-4).
For the use of the visual in legal studies, see R. Sherwin. “Visual Jurisprudence”, in: 57 N.Y.L. Sch.
L. Rev. 11, 2012-2013; A. Wagner & R. Sherwin, Law, Culture and Visual Studies, Springer 2014.
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how certain institutions mobilize certain forms of visuality to order the world and
in imposing specific visions of the functioning of society11.
Moving in this direction, my proposal is to consider «the agency of the image»
as a part of a broader story about human beings’ specific legal paths. Moving from
a law and culture perspective, my main concern is to make the relationship between
facts, people legal and institutional actions more visible or less opaque.
Thus, in order to focus on the relationship between law and culture, the main
question is «how to conciliate the vagueness of the concept of culture with the call
for objectivity of the law»?
Both culture and law are permeated by invisible meanings that take shape in human relationships and daily exchanges. Thus, my proposal is to trace the implicit
cultural meanings undermined by the law and make them “visible” following a
double method: listening to human testimonies, on the one hand, while “objectifying” them through official documents (files, newspaper journal, images including
transcripts of interviews), on the other. Both testimonies and legal documents contain traces of the culture in which they are produced12.
2.1. Documents and Images to Trace Culture in Law: Visual Ethnography
It is typical of sociology and ethnography to combine the goal of tracing and
objectifying culture partly through (legal) documents that are examined in the
context in which the (legal) trouble occurs; partly through testimonies (surveys,
interview) that aim to humanise the research on the ground; partly by re-writing
their observations. In fact, documents maintain their own objectivity despite the
interpretation of the researcher in contributing to the process of institutional social
construction13.
Visual ethnography is part of this new trend to constitute ethnographic knowledge14. According to Knowles and Sweetman, the use of visual methods in social
11
D. Haraway, (ed.), Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature, Free
Association Books, London 1991.
12
According to Ferraris, documents are the tool to pass from nature to culture, from
abstract to concrete: they contain traces of passages from a state to another. See M. Ferraris,
Documentalità. Perchè è necessario lasciare tracce, Laterza, Roma-Bari 2009, p. 256.
13
About the objectivity of documents, see V. Ferrari, Prima lezione di sociologia del diritto, Laterza 2012 Roma-Bari, p. 112) and for a typology of legal documents, see R. Treves,
Sociologia del diritto. Origini, ricerche, problemi, Einaudi, Torino 1988.
14
As Pink writes: “In the late 1980s proponents of then ‘new ethnography’ introduced
idea of ethnography as a fiction and emphasised the centrality of subjectivity to the production
of knowledge. Anthropology […], experienced a ‘crisis’ through which positivist arguments and
realists approaches to knowledge, truth and objectivity were challenged (se Clifford and Marcus
1986). These ideas paved the way for the visual to be increasingly acceptable in ethnography as it
was recognised that ethnographic film or photography were essentially no more subjective or objective than written texts and thus gradually became acceptable to (if not actively engaged with by)
most mainstream researchers.[…]. Traversing then social sciences and humanities these developments grew from social anthropology (…) sociology (…) and geography (…)”. See S. Pink, Doing
Visual Ethnography, Sage, London, Thousand Oaks, New Delhi, Singapore 2013, p. 3.
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research may be framed according to three key theoretical approaches, with images being used as 1) evidence; 2) tools to construct and manage reality; 3) texts.
Under the realist paradigm exemplified by early anthropological fieldwork and the
classical tradition of photo–journalism, images are regarded as evidence – as representations of reality and un uncomplicated record of already existing phenomena or events.
From a broadly poststructuralist perspective, however, images helps to construct reality:
they operate as a part of a regime of truth, while performing a central role in surveillance
and managements of individuals and populations. This second perspective is perhaps
illustrated by Tagg’s (1998) discussion of the role of photography in the management
and control of ‘problematic’ groups in the nineteenth century, orphans and psychiatric
patients. When viewed from the vantage point of the third key paradigm – semiotic or
semiology – already existing images are regarded as texts which can be read uncover
their wider cultural significance and the ideological and other messages they help to
communicate, naturalize and maintain15.
In my own case reconstruction methodology, images are considered as part of the
social and institutional construction of a reality process in dealing with the «materiality» of the world, on the one hand, and in complying with the «need» for «objectivity» of facts, on the other. They are parts of a multi-voiced story about reality that
takes into account the voices of laypeople as well as institutions and public opinion16.
2.2. Narratives and Human Testimony: to Make Individuals «Heard»
Since the «cultural turn», in order to achieve a «bottom up» analysis, legal scholars have plead to further integrate lay people into research so as to increase social
justice programs and make their ‘voices’ heard in decision making processes. To
reach this goal, especially clinicians tend to conduct research «with people rather
than on people», moving from the client’s needs and working together to find solutions. In fact, clinical inquiry takes one further step in respect to action research17
by including «the gathering of data in clinical settings that are created by people
seeking help. The researcher in these settings is called in because of his or her helping skills and the subject matter is defined by the client»18.
15
C. Knwoles, & P. Sweetman, Picturing the Social Landscape, Routledge London and
New York 2004, pp. 5-6.
16
See F. Di Donato, F. & F. Scamardella, F. (2013), “Epistemologia e processo. Un approccio di socio-clinical law per l’analisi narrativa di casi giudiziari”, in: “Sociologia del Diritto”,
3 2013, pp.75-109 and F. Di Donato, & F. Scamardella, “La ricerca della verità tra diritto, realtà,
cultura. Note a margine di un caso giudiziario“, in: F. Casucci & M.P. Mittica (eds.), Il contributo di Law & Humanities nella formazione del giurista. Atti del quarto convegno nazionale della
Società Italiana di Diritto & Letteratura (Benevento 31 maggio-1 giugno 2012), ISLL Papers, The
Online Collection, vol. 6, 2013, pp. 184-208.
17
About action research, see P. Reason, & H. Bradbury, Handbook of Action research,
Sage, London, Thousand Oaks, New Delhi 2001; about the Clinical law approach, see A. G.
Amsterdam, “Clinical Legal Education. A 21st Century Perspective”, in: 34 Clinical Law Review, 1984, p, 612, S. Elmann, S., “What we are learning?”, in 56 NYLSLR 2011/2012 171.
18
About the Clinical Inquiry/Research, see E. H. Schein, “Clinical Inquiry/Research“,
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Since the beginning of the movement, with the aim of actively involving laypeople in the research and making them the protagonists of the case reconstruction, clinicians have adopted storytelling as the main tool to investigate the facts
and case re-construction19.
In fact, in a socio-epistemological perspective, narrative is the natural attitude of
human beings to organize the knowledge of reality as well as the main tool to share
meanings about reality20. According to a socio-cultural perspective, human beings
actively construct social reality through narrative negotiations of daily (legal) meanings that are deeply rooted in culture21. Stories may have both a conservative as well
as subversive or transformative value of the social order22 in «maintaining» a given
order or in subverting it, in shaping collective representations of the law and social
life23. Thus, following an ethnographic approach to legal storytelling, narratives may
be considered in their dynamic dimension, located within social practices and specific action contexts (business, organizational, etc.)24..The ethno-pragmatic approach
takes into account the interactive and relational dimensions of narratives that deal
in: P. Reason, & H. Bradbury (eds), Handbook of Action research, cit., pp. 228-237.p. 228.
19
For a psychoanalytic and deconstructionist approach to narrative within the humanities, see M. Andrews, C. Squire, & M. Tamboukou, (eds.), Doing Narrative Research, Sage, London, Thousand Oaks, New Delhi, Singapore 2008. About legal storytelling and fact construction,
see F. Di Donato, La costruzione giudiziaria del fatto. Il ruolo della narrazione nel processo, Franco
Angeli, Milano 2008; F. Di Donato, La realtà delle storie. Tracce di una cultura, Guida, Napoli
2012, F. Di Donato, F., “Constructing Legal Narratives. Client-Lawyer Stories”, in: A. Wagner,
and Le Cheng (eds.), Exploring Courtroom Discourse, Ashgate, Farnham 2011, pp. 111-131.
Over the years I have adopted a psycho-socio-cultural perspective that considers stories as «a
way of world-making» in given contexts. A major source of inspiration for an epistemological
approach to the study of legal narratives has been the works by Jerome Bruner – also in collaboration with Anthony Amsterdam: A. G. Amsterdam and J. Bruner, Minding the Law: How
Courts Rely on Storytelling and How Their Stories Change the Ways We Understand the Law and
Ourselves, Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA 2000. The adoption of the legal storytelling approach to reconstruct facts and analyse the trial has inspired further researches within the
European legal debate. See for example, M. Taruffo, La semplice verità. Il giudice e la costruzione
dei fatti, Laterza, Roma-Bari 2009; R. Taranilla, La justicia narrante: un estudio sobre el discurso
de los hechos en el proceso penal, Aranzidi, Barcellona 2012 and for a more analytical approach
W. Twining, Rethinking Evidence, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (MA) 2006.
20
See J. S. Bruner, “The Narrative Construction of Reality”, in: 18 Critical Inquiry 1991,
p. 1-21; H. White, “The Value of Narrativity in the Representation of Reality”. In: T.W.J. Mitchell, (ed.), On Narrative. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London 1981.
21
See Bruner, “The Narrative Construction of Reality”, cit.; J. S. Bruner, Making Stories,
Harvard University Press, Cambridge (MA) 2003.
22
See Amsterdam and Bruner , cit. and P. Ewick, & S.S. Silbey. The Common Place of
Law. Stories from Everyday Life. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London1998.
23
See R. Cover, “The Supreme Court, 1982 – Term-Foreword: Nomos and narrative”,
in: 97 Harvard Law Review (1983-1984), p. 4.
24
Regarding narratives and contexts, Ochs and Capps conceptualize “conversational
narratives” in order to emphasize the interactive and collective nature of narration. See Ochs &
Capps (2001). About “Narratives in Cultural Context”, see my working paper, “Narratives in
Cultural Contexts: The Legal Agentivity of the Protagonists”, cit.
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with communicative exchanges. This kind of contextual dimension of the narrative
analysis deals with a dimension of the inter-activity of human beings.
Finding inspiration in these approaches to legal storytelling25, I am going to
reconstruct two stories tracing the cultural and political background in which
they are shaped.
3. Following the Path of Foreigners Asking for Permits and Naturalization
in the Canton of Neuchâtel. Laws and Procedures
This second part of my contribution is based on case analyses. It gives an account of the obstacles encountered by the protagonists of two cases, while asking
for permits and naturalization in the canton of Neuchatel, in Switzerland.
First, it reconstructs the Swiss legislative framework of the naturalization procedure within the current political and legislative debate. Second, it proposes the
stories of two foreigners living in Switzerland – on the basis of an interview with
them and the legal documents that support the story. The two protagonists, Mme
N.M.* and Mr. Bruno, were contacted within the framework of a scientific project
that dealt with the integration trajectories of foreigners in Switzerland26.
3.1. A Brief Account of the Historical-political Evolution of the Naturalization
Procedure in Switzerland
Since its origins – between the end of the 1800s and the early 1900s – the naturalization procedure was conceived as a political act, linked to the power of the local
bourgeoisie of the Swiss cantons and commons. Subsequently, at the time of the
creation of the State-Nations, around the 1920s, the naturalization procedure was
considered as «vital» to dealing with the «invasive» presence of immigrants in Switzerland27. Due to the large number of foreigners in the territory, the Federal Council
proposed a form of «forced naturalization» linked to the principle of ius soli. In
the second half of the 1900s, the Federal Act on the Acquisition and Loss of Swiss
Nationality (the Citizenship Act of 1952) was emended. Art. 14 of this Act provided
that before granting permission for the naturalization of a foreigner, the competent
authority had to check the «attitude» of the applicant for naturalization28. Further
revisions of art. 14 (emended in 1990) have explained the concept of «attitude», in
requiring that the applicant: a) is «integrated» into the Swiss community b) has be-
25
For a more extended analysis of the relationship between law and narrative, see Di
Donato La realtà delle storie, cit.; Di Donato & Scamardella “Epistemologia e processo”, cit.
26
The research project is developed by the University of Neuchâtel (Faculty of Law and
Faculty of Arts): for more, see the following link http://p3.snf.ch/Project-147287
27
On this topic, see G. Sauser-Hall, La nationalisation des étrangers en Suisse, Paris,
Leipzig 1914. G. Sauser-Hall, La nationalité en droit suisse, Berna 1921.
28
For the ratio of art. 14 Act of National Citizenship, see the notes of the Federal Council (FF 1951 II 665).
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come «accustomed» to the Swiss lifestyle and customs29 c) complies with Swiss law
and d) does not affect the internal or external security of Switzerland»30.
Whether in a first phase (under the Citizenship Act of 1952), emphasis was
placed – through art. 14 – on the subjective qualities of the candidate (his/her
attitude to becoming Swiss), in a second phase (under the revisions of 1990), the
integration of the candidate within the Swiss local community has been required31.
In fact, «being accustomed» is considered as a consequence of the integration
process as well as the adoption of a Swiss way of life and traditions by foreigners9.
Furthermore, since the beginning of the 2000s, integration goes beyond the
right of citizenship, becoming a «duty» in the daily life of «ordinary» foreigners,
those who simply want to live in Switzerland without necessarily applying for citizenship. Thus, «degrees of integration» are required not only to people who wish
to be naturalized but even for those who wish to be granted residence permits32.
3.2. Three Levels of Procedure
According to the Swiss Federal system, the naturalization procedure is articulated in three steps (trois degrès): the federal level, the cantonal level and the municipal level. At the federal level, the authority linked to the Federal Department of
Justice and Police (SEM)33, checks the prior conditions to grant naturalization, as
established by art. 14 of LN and article 15 LN. Even if the federal authorization is
a prior condition to being granted naturalization by cantons and commons and the
general requirements are established at the Federal level, the naturalization procedure may differ from one canton to another34. As a consequence of the broader
power of appreciation of the local authorities, applications of article 14 (particu-
29
On the meaning of «being» or «becoming» Swiss, see P. Centlivres, 1990, Devenir
Suisse, Georg Editeur. On «the right to be Swiss», see the recent work of B. Studer, G. Arlettaz,
R. Argast, Le droit d’être suisse, Lausanne. 2013. Several accounts about the Swiss culture, including the film «Les faiseurs de Suisse» by Rolf Lissy in 1970, highlighted the degree of discretion of the authorities in interpreting the notion of «integration».
30
For the meaning of integration and accustomation see the notes of the Federal Council
(FF 1987 III 285).
31
From the project revisions of the Law, according to art. 14 (a, b), integration is the
capacity of the candidate to be inserted into Swiss social life: «integration today is meant as a
mutual process of rapprochement between foreigners and Swiss». See the FF 2011 2639 and the
FF 1987 III 285.
32
For the historical evolution of the concept of integration within the Swiss legal system,
see F. Di Donato, (in preparation), La genesi e l’evoluzione dei significati di integrazione nell’ordinamento giuridico svizzero, Mimesis, Milano 2015. See also F. Di Donato, & P. Mahon, “Federalism and ‘Cultural’ Identities: Some Remarks on the Naturalization Procedure in Switzerland”, in:
Ratio Iuris. 22 (2) 2009, pp. 281-294
33
The SEM is a Federal Office that is competent for the harmonisation of cantonal and
federal policies about naturalisation and integration: https://www.bfm.admin.ch/content/bfm/
it/home.html
34
For the description of this procedure, see D. Sow and P. Mahon, “Ad Art. 14 LN”,
in C. Amarelle and M.S. Nguyen (eds), Code annoté de droit des migrations, vol. V: Loi sur la
nationalité (LN), 2014 pp. 45-60.
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65
larly the conditions a. e b.) in addition to having raised many legal and political
debates, provoked over the years, disparate practices by the cantonal authorities35.
A role of objectification has been absolved by the Federal Supreme Court in
evaluating refusals of naturalization. In fact, although there is no «right to naturalization» that can be enforced in the courts, the federal Court has repeatedly been
called upon to act on these non-uniform interpretations and applications, especially in light of art. 8 (par. 2) of the Constitution which prohibits discrimination36.
Thus, since 2012, a «duty of motivation» for the refusal of naturalization has been
introduced (art. 15 LN, let. b) and a consequent «right to appeal against arbitrary
and discriminatory decisions» has been recognised37.
4. Re-constructing Cases
4.1. Case 1: the Naturalization of N.M.* as a «Political Act»
The case of N.M.* is framed by the Citizenship Act (The Federal Act on the Acquisition and Loss of Swiss nationality of 1990) and is set in the Canton of Neuchatel.
Framed within the legal-political and cultural scenario outlined above, the naturalization path of N.M* has been problematic from the point of view of a) the evaluation
of N.M.*’s integration process by the cantonal Swiss authorities (art. 14 LN); b) the
fact findings and truth acquiring within the administrative and judicial procedures.
N.M* arrived in Switzerland from Cambodia, in 1979, at the age of 11, with
her parents, as asylum seekers. In 1989, she married a doctor from Pakistan and
converted to Islam. They have two children.
In 1999, N.M.* asked to be granted naturalization for her and her children.
The answer of the municipal committee was negative since it evaluated that N.M*
did not show any signs of integration to the Swiss uses and customs, as she wore
Pakistani clothes to the naturalization test; showed signs of affection to Islam; the
children were not inserted in the public schools and so on.
In 2006, a new naturalization application was made by N.M* and new obstacles
arose: irregularities in tax payments were presumably found by the cantonal justice
department that suspended the procedure. In 2009, the State Council refused nat-
35
See Wichmann et al. Les marges de manœuvre au sein du fédéralisme: La politique de migration dans Le cantons, 2011, www.bundespublikationen.admin.ch
36
A resounding ruling of the Federal Court of 9 July 2003 (ATF 129 I 217, Einwohnergemeinde Emmen) recognised the right to appeal for applicants and, on this matter, upheld their
appeal, considering the popular decision which rejected their naturalisation as discriminatory.
Similar cases include the ruling of the Federal Court (ATF 134 I 49, Gemeinde Buchs) which
regarded the rejection of naturalization to a Muslim woman on the grounds that wearing an
Islamic headscarf at the time of the naturalization exam as discriminatory on the basis of art. 8
and 15 of the Constitution. The judges considered, in this case, that wearing the veil is not a sign
of non-integration.
37
See the ruling ATF 138 I 305. On the «quasi right» to naturalization, see D. Sow and
P. Mahon, “ad Art. 14 LN”, cit.
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uralization and N.M* was invited to re-start the procedure once she had fulfilled
all the naturalization conditions (included tax payments). Thus N.M* petitioned
against the decision of the State Council, claiming that the financial situation had
not been correctly evaluated by the cantonal authorities. Finally, after several administrative and judicial steps (administrative appeal to the State Council, subsidiary Constitutional petition to the Cantonal Tribunal), the Federal Court recognized problems in the fact finding procedure by the naturalization committee.
The Federal Court sent the case to the lower Court as well as the State Council,
asking them to re-examine the case, in respect of the constitutional principles, as
well as the Swiss law, and to establish the correct personal and financial situation
of N.M.* and her family, in order to give them the opportunity to accomplish the
naturalization path.
4.2. Listening to the Story
In a first phase of the case reconstruction, the story was narrated by N.M*’s
husband, Mr. M.M*. The narration starts with the description of the naturalisation
law in Switzerland that is represented by him largely as discriminatory in its formulation, since it makes distinctions between «facilitated» naturalization (for people
married with nationals or for children born from a Swiss parent) and «ordinary»
naturalization for the others38.
The story is presented by Mr. M.M* as the story of his wife, his wife’s family,
finally presenting it as «their story»:
My wife and I have been in Switzerland for 27 and a half years, since 1979. She was
ten years old when she came with her parents. So, there’s my wife’s story, my story, and
then her family’s story, as well as those of other foreigners who live here, so I have a
lot of experience (…).
Mr. M.M.* describes his wife’s first attempt to be granted naturalization:
(...) my wife arrived in 1977 in Switzerland, at the age of ten – she is a second generation since she arrived with her parents. She studied here and then in 1998, she applied
for ordinary naturalization, and at that time, the municipal authorities said: ‘Listen, you
wear Islamic clothes because you are influenced by your husband and you dress like a
Muslim’ – she converted to Islam, it’s normal – [says doctor M.M*] ‘so we believe that
you are not integrated into society’.
He tells about the obstacles encountered, the first time, during the three levels
of the naturalization procedure: municipal, cantonal and federal.
This is the decision! It is municipal. We could not move this case to a Cantonal level,
when the local authorities have made this decision and it was negative.
38
The distinction between ordinary and facilitated naturalization (for those who are
married to a Swiss person) was introduced with the Citizenship Act of 1952.
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67
After I spoke with the Head of the Naturalization Service, Ms. Z * – this is the cantonal level – she told me: ‘Listen, you can wait a while and then appeal’. She didn’t tell
me to re-apply, no, no, no. So I waited until 2004 and I wanted to appeal and this time I
phoned Mrs. T* who said ‘no, you need to make a new application’.
So I said: ‘you had told me that ...’. She answered: ‘no, I didn’t, I never said that’.
Subsequently, he describes his wife’s second attempt to obtain naturalization:
In 2006, I made a new application for my wife and children, it was also refused with
them saying ‘you do not pay taxes’. But, I’ve regularly paid my taxes, I had an arrangement with the taxes that I paid regularly. Then they said ‘no, you don’t pay taxes’...
(...) then there was a suspension of the proceedings. The Tax Office (Canton) said
‘either you pay or it’s cancelled’. Otherwise take out legal action. They did not want to
wait and legal action was taken.
After the refusal by the cantonal authorities they decided to petition against the
decision of the State Council (at a Cantonal and Federal Level):
I did appeal at a cantonal level (Court) who confirmed the administrative decision,
appealing to the Federal Court which overruled the decision and returned it to the
Cantonal level, which also changed it and now there is no news.
According to Mr. M.M.*’s testimony, the major obstacles encountered during
the naturalization procedure came from the cantonal authorities: the head of the
naturalisation office seemed to suggest withdrawing the decision of the Federal
Tribunal – that was in their favour – and restart the bureaucratic procedure:
Just one day before the decision of the federal Court, I received a call from Ms.
Z*. She said: ‘Withdraw your federal appeal and write to us to reconsider to the State
Council and then apply’.
This is the coda of the story:
For me, it is the law of jungle because she knew that the Federal Tribunal had quashed
the decision of the State Council. If she was right, she would not have called for the withdrawal. Everyone has the right to do it, but if I applied to the Federal Court – because
the cantonal Tribunal refused and gave us the right to do so – we followed the law, okay?
We comply with the laws of Switzerland, she should also respect the laws. The next day
I received a letter from the Federal Court which quashed the decision of the Cantonal
Court and that was a sound slap to her xxx. So, that’s why she was embarrassed.
And Mr. M.M.* adds:
[...] They’re playing on my time, with my life, I think... I don’t understand... I haven’t
killed anyone! If, for example, I had killed someone, very well! This is something else!
But then we made an effort to pay everything, although...There you have it! I think it is
scary, it become exhausting.
Actually:
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The Naturalization commission has not given me any news since January 24, 2012
(...). 6 years have passed since the naturalization application, the second!39.
4.3. Analysing The Legal Documents
This part of N.M.*’s story is supported by legal documents in order to analyse the
different positions of the parts: N.M.* as a private actor; the Canton of Neuchatel
(Justice Department) as counterpart and the Federal Court as super partes institution.
The documents reported here – under the form of images – contribute to emphasizing
the power of the bureaucracy by adopting symbols to represent institutions (i.e. the
flag of the Canton of Neuchatel), on the one hand, and by using a kind of impersonal
and authoritative or threatening language (see as example image 1), on the other.
Fig. 1.
39
The passages are extrapolated from the interview with Mr. M.M.*
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69
In order to face this «supremacy» per se of the bureaucracy, the documents addressed by N.M.* contain both requests of clarifications and attempts to menace
judicial actions (see as example image 3) as ways to claim their truth about their
dealing with Swiss law on the one side and uses and customs on the other side.
As narrated by Mr. M.M.* in the interview, in 1998, N.M* applied for the naturalization procedure for her and her children (under the LN of 1992). At this stage
of the procedure, the answer of the naturalization committee was negative based
on the following arguments:
- N.M* attended the obligatory school and worked in a factory when she was young
(Swiss factory).
- She converted to Islam (the same religion as her husband) and she wears traditional
Pakistani clothes;
- Her motivations for the request to be naturalized are «badly motivated»: she is worried about the future of her children;
- She refuses the idea that the uncertainty for her children could derive from the
Muslim tradition and from the fatherhood of her husband;
- Her children are not inserted into the public school.
Thus, the conclusion of the commission was the following:
the Naturalization and Aggregation Commission finds that the applicant does not
give the impression of being integrated or assimilated to our uses and customs and
decided, unanimously, to give a negative answer to her application. She could reapply
when Mr. M.M.* will also be entitled to do so. In the meantime, time will allow the
M* family, through the integration of their children at school, to demonstrate their
integration40.
A new application was presented by N.M.* in 2006. This time a new obstacle
within the naturalization path arose: irregularities in tax payments were presumably found by the Cantonal Justice Department that threaten N.M* to interrupt
the procedure if she did not pay the entire amount required. The following is a
passage from the document issued by the Justice Office41:
Madam,
We hereby inform you that the committee appointed by the State Council to examine the naturalization applications has decided, upon studying your naturalization
request, to suspend your application because you have not paid taxes.
One of the federal requirements for issuing Swiss citizenship is to respect the law in
Switzerland which includes the obligations of public law. Tax payment is the civic duty
of all citizens. Thus, the State Council requires that candidates be fully up to date with
their tax payments in order to grant naturalization. [...]
The following image presents what is stated above:
40
41
Extract from a Naturalization Committee document (municipal level)
The letter was sent by the Department of Justice of the Canton of Neuchâtel.
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Fig. 2.
In December 2009, N.M* petitioned against the negative decision of the State
Council claiming that the financial situation had not been accurately evaluated by
the authorities. The answer of the State Council was negative based on the main
argument that the naturalization act has «a strong political component»:
The act of naturalization has a strong political component. The State Council therefore
has a broad power of appreciation in the decisions taken under the ordinary procedure.42.
In 2010, N.M* petitioned against the decision of the State Council at the administrative cantonal Court. The decision of the cantonal Court was negative based on
the following arguments:
Despite these unfortunate gaps in education and record keeping, it is, however, worth
recalling that the appellant did not fulfil the attitude conditions for ordinary naturalization
required by the cantonal government, since the payment of taxes for the year 2007 has not
42
See the beginning of par. 2.
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71
being recognized to date. It is therefore appropriate to assume that the contested decision,
which led to the rejection of the appeal, must be confirmed.
Thus, in 2011, N.M.* introduced a subsidiary Constitutional petition to the Federal Court against the «arbitrary decision» of the Tribunal Cantonal claiming a violation of constitutional rights, some of them concern the violation of art. 9 Cost. (1.
Protection against arbitrary and 2. Good faith)43:
Violation of art. 9 Cost. (1. Protection against arbitrary and 2. Good faith) was
claimed by N.M* on the basis of two main legal arguments:
1) Violation of the law because of an incomplete decision:
In its decision of 14 April 2011, the court violated the law by making an incomplete
decision, it also inaccurately and incompletely notes relevant facts. The Court in its decision
ignored a relevant part of my life, retaining the year of my marriage as my starting point
of integration into Swiss society. I arrived in Switzerland at a young age (1979) and my
compulsory education (primary and secondary I) seems, in my opinion, to be essential to
understand the path of my integration into Swiss society, and gives me the right to naturalization within the meaning of art. 34 of the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees,
above all that I am part of the 2nd generation present in Switzerland and my friends of the
era are Swiss women. Evidence: certificate of 24.08.1979, the Federal Office of Police (...).
2) No evidence established the facts:
- The court recognized in its decision (...) that «no evidence in the file establishes the allegation that all the taxes in 2009 were billed in arrears at the time of the contested decision»
(...). Evidence (...).
- Although the Court itself recognized in its decision (...) having noted the «unfortunate gaps in education and record keeping ‘by the cantonal authorities, it is guided by
ambiguous motives to uphold the contested decision’.
- For this reason I consider its decision on the basis of these findings shocking and
arbitrary and therefore it must be annulled».
Even cultural-emotional arguments were afforded by N.M* within the constitutional petition to affirm the «the violation of good faith (n. 2)»:
The principle of good faith in its simplified requirement is a sense of trust in the authorities and institutions, a trust affecting declarations and behaviours. Thus, it is a sense
of security given by the citizen to the administration.
My children and I have always upheld the image of the Swiss as being welcoming, open
to each other and appreciative of newcomers who offered their best for the well-being of the
Swiss and Neuchateloise society. This commitment is not strange for me nor for my children
because I was 11 when I arrived in Switzerland (I am a 2nd generation of immigrants in
Switzerland), and my children were born here (3rd generation). This sense of security, to
feel at home has regrettably been touched in this case, we have applied for naturalization for
the 2nd time (the first in 1998).
43
Even if there is no real right to appeal against the refusal of granting naturalization,
is it possible to appeal in the case of a violation of constitutional rights. See Sow and Mahon
(2014).
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This situation has marked the lives of my children over the years, my children felt disappointed for a period and have raised the question of their identity, citizenship and future. This
is true on the one hand, even without naturalization, Switzerland provides good living conditions, and social insurance, but the issue is deeper, because it touches a feeling of belonging
that is consolidated by naturalization. • Evidence: (omitted)
Conclusions:
Violating my constitutional rights, the contested decision cannot, therefore, only be
annulled.
The Federal Tribunal recognized N.M*’s reasons in claiming that «it is not possible to refuse naturalization on the basis of such a lacunar truth acquiring procedure». Thus, it sent the appeal to the lower Court, the Cantonal Court, for a new
decision. The Cantonal Court recognizes problems in the fact finding procedure by
the naturalization committee, that did not acquire the correct information on the
case of N.M*. It asked the State Council to re-examine the case.
The decision of the Federal and Cantonal Court has still to be executed by the
cantonal authorities. In fact, since naturalization is a political act, the administrative
authorities are not obliged to take a decision that would conform to the position of
the judicial institutions. Currently, the naturalization path of N.M* has yet to be accomplished: a further deadline to the authorities was recently set by N.M*. See the
document below:
Fig. 3.
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73
As an answer to the letter sent by N.M.*, the Department of Justice threatened
them to pay the amount due if she wanted to obtain naturalization. The following
passage is extrapolated from the last part of the document below:
We can only confirm that your application will be considered at the end of May 2014 and
that if during the exam you do not fulfil the naturalization conditions were described in the
letter dated January 23, the State Council will certainly refuse your naturalization.
4.4. Discordances between Law and Human Lives
While the legal story was reconstructed with the collaboration of Mr M.M.* and
on the basis of the document that he provided, Mrs N.M.* also accepted to do an
interview being the protagonist of the story.
Her testimony is full of emotional dimensions. She explains the legal, political
and identitary reasons that motivated her to claim for naturalization and the consequences on her life of the refusal by the Swiss authorities.
a) First, she explains the reasons of her arrival in Switzerland and her feeling
like a «Swiss person»:
came here as a political refugee with my entire family. It’s true that after 4-5 years
I never thought I would apply to be Swiss! But, after a long time, it’s true that I work
here, so I did as everybody else who pays their taxes, they... that is to say I grew up here,
I finished my studies here. Uh... I thought being here at least the Swiss would recognise
me for what I am: a Swiss citizen! But the first time I applied, it is true that they refused
me because I wore a veil and they told me that I was not very suitable, despite the many
years I had been in Switzerland...44
b) She explains her not being recognised as existing in the country by the Swiss
authorities
What can I do? it means I’ll die without being recognised. Me, all I want is for the
Swiss law to recognise me for what I am, a citizen45.
[...] I think it’s always the same thing. It’s the same thing. It always goes back to the
same…I have the impression that the law denies me to admit that I already exist in this
country. That’s it46.
c) She describes her feelings in relation to being refused naturalization:
[...] What can I say, Swiss law has massacred us. Completely! (laughs) It’s true! The
way they...
[...] It’s more like a massacre... it’s hard to swallow. I just can’t accept it! I don’t know
how to explain it! I’m not someone who has been here only 2-3 months and is applying
44
45
46
Extracted from the p. 1 of the interview with N.M.*
Id. p. 4
Id. p. 14
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for citizenship! It’s very long, you know, I’m adapted here! I don’t know! I couldn’t go
and live in another country! I think it’s true that there are a lot of advantages here, I grew
up here! Where do I go, frankly? I have all my friends, family here! I couldn’t!47
d) She explains the refusal of naturalization for religious reasons:
I1: Sorry, if I come back to this issue, to measure the effect between what happened the
first time and the second. The first time, it was language reasons, children ... I2: clothing?
N.M.*: Yes.
I1: clothing, what did they say?
N.M:* Since I wore a veil, so I’m not integrated48.
e) In facts, N.M.* feels like a Swiss citizen!
I say, as and when, the law changes. It changes all the time. But on the other hand they’re
playing with a person, it’s been a long time that it’s there, they swing from right to left. But
again, if it goes like this, I think ‘why did you call a person here? Worse after you leave the
[...]’, for me it’s like that. I feel like that. Where’s the law? Freedom? Our rights as citizens49.
f) She describes the obstacles encountered in everyday life: looking for a job!
For example, now I’m looking for work, they say ‘Oh, but you’ve been here for such
a long time and you’re still not Swiss? Why?’ See, there is another behaviour at a work
level. Even at the level of morality, my own morality, I think it’s heavy. Because we are
always foreigners.
[...] Yes that’s it! It is as if someone is looking at me ‘but you want to be Swiss? Well
no, if you don’t want to be Swiss you can’t be employed!’ See? This is everyday life! If you
want to work, you need the piece of paper!50
f1) …travelling
remember, I was travelling with my children. They have a Pakistani passport and I
have a document! It hurt me so much. We booked into a 5 star hotel, my children they
hated me in that moment. Because they couldn’t go to the hotel because of their mother,
because they are still young, so they asked me ‘Mummy, why did you choose this hotel?’
I’m not allowed to leave the airport! We stayed at the airport!51
Coda:
There are some people who are make a lot of effort and then there are those who close
the door completely.
47
48
49
50
51
Id. p. 9
Id. p. 28
Id. p. 33.
Id. p. 48
Id. pp. 51-52
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And there is no humanity, nothing. Where is the freedom? It isn’t free here! If someone
phones me, ‘ah, but it isn’t free here! Closed inside four walls!’ You say Muslims close their
woman inside four walls, I say no it’s here in Switzerland, we are closed inside 4 walls!52
Case 2: The Story of Bruno and the «Deaf Administration».
The second story is that of Bruno who arrived in Switzerland at the age of 18 as
an asylum seeker at the time of the war in his own country, Iraq.
During his thirty years of living in Switzerland, he has encountered a lot of
obstacles in passing from one permit to another and as a consequence in looking
for a job and in reaching his life’s goals. The Swiss authorities have threatened to
expel him from the country since he has lost his job and no longer has the right to
be granted a permit to stay.
Bruno’s testimony focuses on his encounter with the Swiss bureaucracy that he
defines as «deaf and incompetent», with a wide discretionary power:
I chose this country initially believing that it was welcoming. And over the years, I’ve
seen that it’s a country which unfortunately destroys people’s lives! Because I had some
real opportunities, during those years. And if I had had a permit that allowed me to take
those opportunities, I’d be on another level today.
That means that not only are you afraid of your life here because of an incompetent
administration, a deaf administration, that does everything to step on your feet and you
put up with it, of the twisted laws that are not very clear. At the end of your life, they tell
you, “You know what? We’ll send you home!”. [...] Because the problem is not over!
The problem still persists, after 30 years my problem with the administration isn’t
over. I’ll tell you one last thing about the administration. I think it’s crucial. Is this, an
official at the cantonal level, for example, can make your life miserable. And there is no
control over him!
The Swiss bureaucracy is also depicted as “impersonal” since employees try to
avoid any contact with the person who claims for the permit, Bruno in this case.
You can’t say anything, you can’t go there, he writes you a letter that says, “Send us
a letter.” Always send us a letter! There is no interaction with the person. And if you
come across the wrong people, they can make your life difficult! You know I’ve had
civil servants, after 30 years, calling my doctor to see if I was telling the truth, if I was
sick for example. Or they call my chiropractor if I really need to... at this point, after
30 years! And worse, you know, the person who is dealing with my case now wasn’t
even born the problem the first day I set foot here. It means that my case is being dealt
with by someone who is 28 or 29 years old…undoing everything. It means, the person, who is currently handling my case wasn’t even been born when I first set foot in
Switzerland. This is nonsense! How do you want me to have a relationship with such
a person! I’ll say to him, “Listen, you weren’t even born, the day I came here!” Or
52
Extracted from the last page of the interview.
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“You were just a baby drinking milk when I was working here, me !” Ah ah. And that
person, is taking care of my case. Voilà.
Since Bruno was very afraid about his own story, he refused to provide the documents supporting his story.
5. Conclusions
The aim of this contribution was to show how images are part of the social
construction of reality in supporting, in case reconstructions, the positions of both
laypeople and institutions.
Thus, the main concern was methodological, looking for a scientific path capable of including the visual – intended as the use of images – within a reconstructive
process of cases.
The main tool that I have adopted – as part of the case analyses – is the legal storytelling. I have used storytelling with a double meaning: first, as an epistemological tool
in order to reconstruct the knowledge of facts, characters and actions that give shape
to a story. Second, as a methodological tool: legal stories have been framed within a
specific cultural and political setting, the Swiss one, dealing with the procedures of
granting naturalization and permits to foreigners in the Canton of Neuchâtel.
Finding inspiration, especially in ethopragmatic approaches, with the aim of
analysing conversational exchanges in given settings, two cases have been analysed
on the basis of an interview with the protagonists and the documents exchanged
with the administration. Thus, documents – partly presented under the form of
images – gave support to the case reconstruction, in representing the position of
the protagonist – especially in Case 1 – and of the administration.
To justify the uses of images in case reconstruction, I recalled visual ethnography as a method developed under the shift of the «cultural turn» to face the call
for objectivity typical of anthropology as well as cultural legal studies. The use of
images has also been adopted as a part of a clinical inquiry that emphasises the client’s voices in the case reconstruction.
Moving from these approaches and including the collaboration of the client as
layperson, I reported two stories dealing with procedures of naturalization and
permits in the Canton of Neuchâtel: the story of Mrs. N.M.* and that of Mr. Bruno. In order to trace the relationship between the law and its cultural meanings
– this was one of my concerns from the start – I framed these two stories within
specific laws and procedures, also giving a historical and cultural account of the
evolution of the naturalization procedure in Switzerland.
In narrating the stories and reconstructing one of them in detail – Case 1 – I
showed a kind of conflict of visions between the people and the administration –
meant as bureaucracy in a wider sense. The picture of bureaucracy that arises from
the narrations is of «blindness» or «deafness» – to use the expression of Bruno, the
protagonist of Case 2 – respect of people’s needs, as it seems to deal much more
with the politics of the State than with individual wishes. In fact, in both cases, to
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be granted naturalization and permits, there seems to be a series of obstacles for
the protagonists. These obstacles in some sense are an expression of the selective
integration of foreigners policies imposed from above, by the Federal State to the
Cantonal administration, since the second half of 1900s, for the candidates to the
naturalization and in extending this selectiveness to foreigners who wish to be
established on the Swiss territory by asking permits.
In the cases reported, people’s life paths and needs – meant also as feelings,
emotions and life wishes (to work, to travel) – and administrative procedures seem
to be going in opposite directions.
In the two cases, the claim of the protagonists to be recognized as being Swiss
or to have the residence permit – considering they have spent most of their life in
Switzerland – is not only part of an identity claim, a «struggle for recognition», but
is also linked to practical aspects. In fact, if they are not recognized as Swiss – as
in the case of Mrs. N.M* – or they are not granted the permit to be resident in
Switzerland – as in the case of Mr. Bruno –, they cannot progress in their jobs, they
cannot travel, they cannot go forward in their lives!
In this sense – as I showed through the case analyses – storytelling also based on
the use of images to support the narrative re-construction of characters, facts and
places – may be adopted as a useful tool to make individual stories heard and read.
Enrico Cassini1
From the Underworld: on the Origin of Images
between the Emblemata Iuris and Film Theory
The Culturological theory of law developed by Peter Goodrich shows immediately its origins rooted in common law culture, for its exquisitely casuistic methodology. The tools of analysis derived from the ways and means of Critical Legal Studies,
from deconstruction, or from a genealogy à la Foucault, allow the English scholar
to reach a certain organic unity of discourse, remaining however, within an analysis
that deploys cases and exempla, rather than building general theories based on postulates. Among the main purposes of Goodrich’s theoretical discourse, there is the
attempt to provide a precise theoretical status for the images of law: the so-called
legal emblems. In this essay, we will attempt to articulate such status on three different levels: the epistemological, the hermeneutical and the aesthetic. Finally, we will
try to identify which elements, in the thought of Goodrich, may fix points in order
to develop a philosophical hypothesis on the origin and foundation of images in
general, and on the indivisibility of such origin from the legal field.
Borrowing neologisms found in the titles of two recent works by Goodrich, we
start to see the richness of the role of images in legal culture. On the one hand, images, as obiter depicta, are elements belonging to law itself, which enrich it with a
multiplicity of meanings; on the other, they remind us that the category of the legal
cannot be reduced to “the verbal” and that legal emblems themselves often arise to
«modes of visual governance», which establish a real visiocratic regime2.
Epistemology
According to Goodrich, the epistemology of law is summed up in the premises,
i.e. the dogmas, which set up the doctrine3. They have a political nature and manifest themselves through the rhetoric of law4, which includes legal emblems; indeed,
1
Scholar of Philosophy of Law, Turin University.
2
Cf. P. Goodrich, “Visiocracy. On the Futures of the Fingerpost”, in: Critical Inquiry, Vol.
39, No. 3, Spring 2013, pp. 498-531 (p. 501) and Id., Legal Emblems and the Art of Law: Obiter
Depicta as the Vision of Governance, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 2014, pp. 46-47.
3
Cf. P. Goodrich, Oedipus Lex: Psychoanalysis, History, Law, University of California Press,
Berkeley & London 1995, p. 13: «The positivized jurisprudence of common law, the epistemology of
doctrine, is tied by precedent to a knowledge that is known in advance, to a prior determination of
the forms, classifications, languages, and similitudes through which judgment will be repeated».
4
«[…] Scholars such as Jerry Frug and Peter Goodrich emphasise that law is simply
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the images nourish and give life to the legal discourse, along with “the word”,
which characterizes the doctrinal/dogmatic study of law.
Legal discourse, in Goodrich’s reflection, is just one among the many regulatory
systems in competition with each other: in this context, law is closely related to
the constructions of religion, ethics, or social customs. The maxim governing the
rhetoric of this discourse is that of control and the dynamics that characterize it
are domination and subordination5. The task of legal rhetoric is to publicly convey
a peculiar image of the social power relations. It is abundantly clear in what measure the thought of Goodrich is influenced by the critical theory of the Frankfurt
School, whose role was decisive for the rise of critical legal studies. Coming to
the issue of the images, it is clear at this point, the reason why the construction of
emblemata iuris, which help to transmit the meaning and sacredness of the law (we
shall soon see in which sense), is «a question of epistemology»6. The meticulous
and esoteric edification of the images of law is the device through which the rhetoric of the legal has been constructed and maintained and this rhetoric constitutes
the cognitive support, the epistemology, of the legal as a category.
At the opening, we have defined the legal theory devised by Goodrich as “culturological”. American anthropologist Leslie A. White, to indicate the way in which ways
of thinking, experiences and knowledge develop and spread, introduced the term
“Culturology”7. Cultural issues are related to borrowings, sudden shifting of paradigms, prevalence of theoretical models, territorial conquests, or parallels between
the material and technological innovations with philosophical, artistic or literary
achievements. After White, the concept of Culturology has been employed by many
other scholars, including a philosopher of science like Mario Bunge, who turned it
in profitable account in the context of the sociology of scientific thought8, and an art
critic and expert on aesthetics of phenomenological address such as Renato Barilli9.
Despite many different theoretical approaches, all these scholars have set themselves
the goal of showing that culture, as a product of human mind (to borrow the words
of Popper, we could speak of the objects belonging to World 3), does not necessarily
follow the same trends highlighted by biological evolution, but it has its own specific
features and dynamics, linked to the multiple mentalities and peculiarities of the different social organizations. The first one, however, to have developed a theoretical
language and rhetoric»; contained in: Ian Ward, Law and Literature: Possibilities and Perspectives (1995), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK 2008, p. 50.
5
Cf. P. Goodrich, Reading the Law: A Critical Introduction to Legal Method and Techniques, Blackwell, London 1986, p. 20.
6
P. Goodrich, Legal Emblems…, cit., p. 85.
7
L. A. White, The Science of Culture: A Study of Man and Civilization, New York, Farrar, Straus and Cudahy 1949, pp. 115-117 and 409-415; see also, by the same author, The Evolution of Culture: The Development of Civilization to the Fall of Rome (1959), Left Coast Press,
Walnut Creek, CA 2007, pp. 28 and ff.
8
M. Bunge, Social Science under Debate: A Philosophical Perspective (1998), Toronto
University Press, Toronto & London 1999, chapter 5 (pp. 219-256).
9
R. Barilli, Scienza della cultura e fenomenologia degli stili (1982) Il Mulino, Bologna
2000, almost entirely; but see, most notably, chapter 1 and chapter 2, § 1 and § 4.
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system similar to the culturological method, was the Russian writer and philosopher
of language Mikhail Bakhtin. He built the concept of “unitary language”, to indicate
a force of regulation, which unifies the many different accents of social dialogue10. It
is exactly the device hidden in the control activated by the law and fed by that legal
rhetoric, which aspires to create a monoglossic “legalese”11.
The dimension of legal wisdom is marked, as we have already pointed out, by
assumptions and dogmas, which function as fingerposts for both the doctrine and
judicial decisions. This fundamental feature joins law to theological knowledge.
Even images contribute, as we have already mentioned, in appending sacral meanings to the practice of law: beside the word (and removed by the doctrine), legal
emblems build the liturgy of the legal. The role of the images with reference to the
epistemology of law is therefore ambivalent. On the one hand, it takes the form of
an enriching of the meanings of law, uncovering the abyss of its irreducibility to
the verbal element, whether of the scholar, or of the judge; on the other, the image
reinforces the purposes of control put in place by legal rhetoric. From this point of
view, even the legal emblems are tools that allow a certain legal system to obtain legitimacy. Already Carl Schmitt’s distinction between legality and legitimacy tended
to put the latter, at the same time, inside and outside the legal system12. The elements that justify a given legal form, belonging to the realm of voluntas rather than
that of ratio, occupy precisely that “in between” position, which, according to Peter Goodrich, is also occupied by images. The place of legitimacy indeed unmasks
the deeper and disturbing meanings of the legal, but at the same time, shares in its
keeping and reinforcing. Images (emblemata iuris) legitimize the system, but also
show its multiple meanings and dark sides. As we will see at the end of this essay,
this is an important first step towards the discourse on the origin of images itself.
Hermeneutics
The method, by which legal emblems should be studied in order to fully understand their rhetoric nature, is that of interpretation, which is what the philosophical
language indicates with the term hermeneutics. In the context of Peter Goodrich’s
work, interpretation must meet genealogical criteria, thus only being able to expose
the contents of the historical-political-rhetorical devices. Genealogical interpretation was introduced by Michel Foucault, following Nietzsche’s Genealogy of Morals13. It tends to highlight how a given system of thought (in our case, a legal system,
or the rhetoric artifices that support a given emblem) may be the result of contingent
10
M. Bakhtin, “Unitary Language” (1934-1935), English translation in: Lucy Burke,
Tony Crowley, Alan Girvin (eds.), The Routledge Language and Cultural Theory Reader, Routledge, London & New York 2003, pp. 269 ff.
11
P. Goodrich, Reading…, cit., p. 188.
12
C. Schmitt, Legality and Legitimacy (1932-1958), English translation, Duke University
Press, Durham, NC 2004, pp. 3 ff.
13
On this topic, cf. M. Mahon, Foucault’s Nietzschean Genealogy: Truth, Power, and the
Subject, State University of New York Press, New York 1992, especially chapter 1 and pp. 107 ff.
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changes in history, or in social systems, rather than the effect of rationally inevitable
trends. In this perspective, the introduction of a cultural model or a representation able to impose itself on the other can result in changes of Weltanschauung and
experience, either philosophical, political, or legal. For this reason, in Goodrich’s
theory, interpretation, whether of a legal, verbal or visual text, «must always be
historicized»14, that is, it must refer to a precise historical and epistemological context. Genealogical analysis therefore, needs to be applied keeping well present the
dogmas and the foundations that support a specific legal or “visiocratic” rhetoric.
The need of a genealogical approach derives from the occurrence that hermeneutics, as a specific method of legal interpretation, by means of the rhetorical
tools belonging to each legal system, is certainly not the most correct method to
get a critical knowledge of law as a culture, as a discourse. The interpretation of a
legal text, «theological in its derivation», as it makes use of dogmatic premises, «is
unjustifiably authoritarian in its practices»15: hence, the need for a different evaluative approach to legal exegesis. Genealogical hermeneutics provides us with the
proper awareness, connecting the legal discourse to broader cultural dynamics and
to other regulatory systems: the theological, the political, the aesthetic and so on16.
From this point of view, the culturological method and the genealogical one are
complementary figures. The first allows us to isolate the constants of change in a
cultural context and to identify the dominant “unitary language”, while the second
reveals such “movements” which, in history and social organizations, determine
the shifting of paradigms and the way in which they find a representation in texts,
meaning by this term, any evidence (testis) of human knowledge. Genealogy must
then focus on any type of form and text, analyzing the “institutional imagination”
and the unconscious of human constructions17.
Aesthetics
Aesthetics is the dimension that contains in itself all the rhetorical devices whose
functioning is governed by a set of rules, which are normative in their inner nature.
It can be said that the thought of Goodrich is, in its own way, entirely aesthetic, as
it makes the same standards of rhetorical legal discourse (in its visual and doctrinal
components or in the issues related to judicial decisions18), its main object of study.
14
G. L. Bruns, “Law and Language: A Hermeneutics of the Legal Text”, in: G. Leyh
(ed.), Legal Hermeneutics: History, Theory, and Practice, University of California Press, Berkeley
1992, pp. 23-42 (p. 24).
15
P. Goodrich, “Historical Aspects of Legal Interpretation”, in: Indiana Law Journal,
vol. 61, issue 3, 1986, pp. 331-354 (p. 333).
16
P. Goodrich, “Ars Bablativa: Ramism, Rhetoric, and the Genealogy of English Jurisprudence”, in: Leyh (ed.), cit., pp. 43-82 (p. 44).
17
P. Goodrich, Oedipus…, cit., p. 25.
18
P. Goodrich, “Legal Enigmas – Antonio de Nebrija, The Da Vinci Code and the Emendation of Law”, in: Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, vol. 30, no. 1, 2010, pp. 71-99.
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Again, we are faced with the ambiguity of the legitimizing dispositive that characterizes the entire thought of Goodrich, in which legal emblems are the elements
most directly related with this interstitial dimension. The problem of the aesthetic,
in its relations with the theological (for the use of common epistemological strategies) and the political (for the common aim of social control), is the problem of
the foundation. Whether we will see in the foundation a fictional place giving life,
meaning and legitimacy to the law and to social systems, or, à la Schmitt, we will
interpret it as the material act that lies behind the establishment of the legal norm,
it is an ambiguous object. Both the aesthetic (as a category) and the foundation
legitimize the legal, but, in placing themselves outside the positivized system, they
will, at the same time, destabilize law itself. They bring out the hidden meanings,
the rhetorical mechanisms that underlie the law and they call into question the
same philosophical problem of the origin.
According to Goodrich, aesthetics, for the reasons stated above, is not so much
the realm of the visible, but that of the not shown. Images, as legitimating devices,
as denizens of the place of the foundation, do not matter by themselves, but because of the removed elements, that yet they continue to represent through tracks,
signatures, and rhetorical rules. The images and aesthetics, in this context, refer
to an absence. Goodrich reconnects aesthetics to genealogy, relying on the figure
of the widow, which justifies her behaviors (her liturgies) through the memories of
her deceased husband; so to say, with a present absence19.
The foundation, aesthetic by virtue of a constant reference to an absence (in
this case, its very absence), is opposed to the doctrinal dimension of the word (the
logocentrism of law), while giving it, at the same time, more meanings and legitimizing its political devices. This ambiguity is interpreted by Goodrich in psychoanalytic terms: in the legal filed, aesthetics and legal emblems represent the feminine, the place of the origin20. Then, if the image itself comes from the feminine
and represents the removed origin (the fictional place, aesthetics), also its influence
on the practice of law (the rhetoric of the word) and the methods of both analysis
and reading, developed by critical legal studies (genealogical hermeneutics, literary theory), will belong to the feminine. They flow from a common source. Interestingly enough, in Carl Schmitt’s work on the distinction between legality and
legitimacy, the second is subsumed in a voluntas that gives life to the law and not
in a ratio that guides its mechanisms21 or, as Derrida would say, its calculations22.
19
Cf. Goodrich, Oedipus…, cit., chapter 2.
20
This idea permeates entirely Oedipus Lex; see, in particular, the sixth chapter.
21
E. Castrucci, Introduzione alla filosofia del diritto pubblico di Carl Schmitt, Giappichelli, Torino 1991, pp. 30-31. This author links the founding will (voluntas) to a mythical-sacral
effect analyzed by René Girard in relation to violence and the will of the people.
22
J. Derrida, “Force of Law: The “Mystical Foundation of Authority”, English translation in: D. Cornell, M. Rosenfeld, D. Carlson (eds.), Deconstruction and the Possibility of
Justice, Routledge, New York & London 1992, for example, p. 16: «Law is the element of
calculation». Entire essay: pp. 3-67.
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Goodrich’s reflection leads us to an interrogation about the origin of images
themselves, especially in its psychoanalytic outcome, where the origin is placed in
the feminine and in the ambiguity of legal emblems, images which are suspended
between the legitimation of the legal system and the exposure of its repressed
components. This shows many points of contact with the theories developed by an
American philosopher, who, a few decades ago, asked himself this same question,
but in reference to cinematic images. This philosopher is Stanley Cavell.
In his book The World Viewed, Cavell questions about the origin of the moving
image. On a closer inspection, it can be said that the reconstruction he actuates is
both culturological and genealogical: cinema itself is the result of continuous interconnection between ideas, which move an “artistic urge”, and technological innovations that, on the one hand, feed the ideas and, on the other, allow to realize the wishes of the artist. However, the pivotal point in the discussion of Cavell lies in the bond
between the origin and religion (but we could easily speak about the category of the
“theological”). However, for what concerns cinematic image in particular, there is
a connection between the origin and something even more archaic and “destabilizing”, which can easily be compared with the feminine, identified by Goodrich
through the suggestions of psychoanalysis. The origin of the moving images can be
placed in the historical and artistic context of the late nineteenth century and the
early twentieth, when the “obsession” of many writers, playwrights and artists was
realism, which was the illusion of being able to reproduce the world as it appears,
in its forms and in its dynamics. From this point of view, the new medium perfectly
embodies the myth of the «world re-created in its own image»: the aim of realism is
thus made possible by a myth, by a fictional element which nourishes it, at the same
time exposing its rhetorical underpinnings. Stanley Cavell wonders how this incarnation of the myth has been made possible in the case of cinematography, given the fact
that, unlike most forms of art, film has not arisen from religion, understood as the
materialization of a creed in liturgical forms. The answer that he provides is simple:
movies derive precisely from that desire of reproduction of the world, wish that moving images realized by means of magic. The true foundation of cinema is magical, as
it has been sensed by some of the best-known filmmakers of the twentieth century,
from Méliès to Orson Welles, from Fritz Lang to Christopher Nolan. As Cavell flamboyantly says: «movies arise out of magic; from below the world»23.
There is also a further homology with Goodrich’s theoretical construction,
whose horizon remains, it should be remembered, the law and, in particular, common law’s cultural framework. The destabilizing foundation of the cinematic image, which wishes to be mimetic, shows itself, according to Cavell, through a concealment: that of the spectator. From the Platonic myth of the Ring of Gyges to
Tolkien, invisibility is a recurring theme of the archetypal narratives. Film then,
reproduces the world not by the simple projection of images on a screen, but allowing the viewer to watch the show, remaining unseen at the same time. As we
23
S. Cavell, The World Viewed. Reflections on the Ontology of Film (1971), Harvard
University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1979 (enlarged edition), p. 39. For the entire reflection on the
origin of the moving image, see pp. 37-41.
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previously declared, the meaning of legal emblems emerges within an aesthetics
of the absence, of the removed: according to Goodrich, images refer to something that is not present, but which is represented through the not shown, using,
precisely, an absence. The same fictional place, as the feminine source of the emblems, which legitimate the law, is systematically suppressed and removed by the
doctrine, which places at its core the word, the ratio scripta. Using the terminology
coined by the Italian legal philosopher Paolo Heritier, World 0, i.e. the fictional
place, the set, containing the underpinnings of positive law24, is, for the logocentrism of legal epistemology, something perturbing (unheimlich). The fictional place
of the origin be it magic, mythical, theological, aesthetic, feminine, or pertaining
to the element of voluntas, is a disquieting (absent) presence for the political and
doctrinal-epistemic project of the lex lata. A project of both control and legitimation-conservation of law’s own methods, which are based on the rhetoric of the
word, as the only key to the ratio’s door.
If then film occults the viewer to reveal its “magic” origin, law instead, will occult its same origin (its place in World 0), to create a rhetoric based only on the
role of the word, removing its multiple meanings and all the connections with the
other regulatory systems.
The Origin and Theology
At the end, we have to evoke an area of knowledge (which is both one of the
multiple normative discourses parallel to the law), which has appeared several
times in this article: that of the theological. We have mentioned the way in which
legal emblems refer to the sacral meanings of law, and how the genealogical method emphasizes the liturgical nature of legal practices and policies, and finally to
the fact that, in the thought of Cavell, most art forms derive from religion. Furthermore, theology will play a central role in the question of the foundation, if we
want to see, in the fictional place of World 0, the source from which all areas of
human knowledge flow out25. It is also well known that legal theory, from Leibniz26
to Schmitt27, in Legendre, Ellul and in Goodrich himself28, pointed out that the
category of the theological resides, with legal emblems, myth and magic, in the
24
P. Heritier, Estetica giuridica, vol. I, Dalla globalizzazione alla secolarizzazione, Giappichelli, Torino 2012, especially chapters I and II of the Introduction.
25
P. Heritier, cit., p. 45.
26
G. W. von Leibniz, De nova methodo discendæ docendæque jurisprudentiæ (1667), Parisiis, Tholin, 1868, part II, p. 28; according to the German philosopher, both jurisprudence and
theology are grounded on a duplex principium, made of ratio and scriptura.
27
«All significant concepts of modern theory of the State are secularized theological
concepts»; C. Schmitt, Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty (1922),
English translation, The University Press of Chicago, Chicago & London 2005, p. 36.
28
P. Goodrich, «Historical…», cit., in particular: pp. 333; 335; 344; 354. In his conclusions, Goodrich relies upon the concept of “legitimating theology” as constructed by U. Eco, in
his book Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language (1984), English translation, Indiana University Press, Bloomington 1986, p. 163.
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removed place of the origin of law. As Cavell rightly observed with reference to
the cinematic form, the origin, even in the area of law, is a problem that has to be
addressed philosophically and not only historically.
We will now come back for a moment to the movies, which we used as a tool to
better understand the role of images, in relation to the leitmotif of the origin and
to what we called the “indivisibility” from the legal. It is useful to remember that
some scholars claimed that the moving image shares a theological source, which is
the same for all western art (Jean Mitry29), or that film is inherently theological, because it is liturgical it its form of fruition (Amédée Ayfre30). This concept makes us
aware of the fact that film represents the world (by showing it on the screen) and it
is directed, in the darkness of the movie theater, to spectators participating in a ritual
situation, precisely liturgical in its mechanisms31. It is the liturgy to act as a strong
connection between the theological origin of law and the theology of cinematic image envisioned by these theorists. Ayfre elaborates an onto-theology of the moving
images echoing both modern social sciences (comparing film screening to the performing of a ritual) and pauline theology (reality as seen per speculum in aenigmate),
while Mitry states that the same theological source of the arts, is also shared by more
rational areas of human knowledge like philosophy and science32. None of them
mentions law, but here, we can easily rely on Goodrich. According to him, the visual
elements of the law, the emblemata iuris, stand precisely for this theological foundation: icons, symbols, and indexes through which the images convey their multiple
and frequently ambiguous meanings yearn to be universal, to represent eternal significances and values. The truths transmitted by legal emblems are connected to the
feminine origin, to magic, to ritual, and to the regulatory system of theology, via their
universal character33. The universalia of legal emblems, even if they are rhetorically
constructed in the same way as the doctrine is, are more directly linked to World 0,
which is probably the place where positivized law relegated the ideas of both natural
law and customary law34. Again, we are confronted with the dual nature of images
and legal emblems, because they are rhetorical tools legitimizing a legal system, but,
at the same time, the items which asymptotically, move towards the origin.
29
J. Mitry, Esthétique et psychologie du cinema, vol. I, Les structures, Éditions Universitaires, Paris 1963, pp. 15-16.
30
On Ayfre, see: J. D. Andrew, The Major Film Theories, Oxford University Press, Oxford & New York 1976, pp. 249-253.
31
On this conception, which is related to the theory developed by the jesuit French film
theorist Amédée Ayfre, see: E. Cassini, “La teologia dell’immagine di Amédée Ayfre. Fenomenologia, fonti del diritto e schermi cinematografici”, in: The Cardozo Electronic Law Bulletin, SpringSummer 2011, available at: https://www.academia.edu/695145/La_teologia_dellimmagine_di_
Am%C3%A9d%C3%A9e_Ayfre._Fenomenologia_fonti_del_diritto_e_schermi_cinematografici.
32
J. Mitry, cit., Ibidem. See also: F. Casetti, Theories of Cinema, 1945-1995, University of
Texas Press, Austin 1999, p. 68.
33
Cf. for example, P. Goodrich, “Visiocracy…”, cit., pp. 509-510.
34
See: P. Heritier, cit., vol II, A partire da Legendre. Il fondamento finzionale del diritto
positivo, particularly pp. 137-147.
Paolo Heritier1
Forms of Legal Aesthetics of the Body and Sources of Law:
the Hand, the Foot, the Eye. Plural Natural Paths in Law
1. Forms of the body, forms in law: the hand
Consuetudo est altera natura, by Jacobus
Bornitius Emblematum ethico politicorum,
Heidelberg, Bourgeat, 1654, (here reproduced in
P. Goodrich, Visiocracy)
Justinian in the act of handing down law in the
incipit of the Corpus Iuris Civilis “In nomine
domini nostri Jesu Christi…” (ed. Senneton, 154850), here reproduced in P. Goodrich, Visiocracy)
The two emblematic images reproduced above, taken from the article Visiocracy2 and the book Legal Emblems3 by Peter Goodrich, symbolically represent
two different concepts of law: law as the emperor’s legitimate device of command,
handed down in nomine domini, and written in the name of nature.
1
Professor of Philosophy of Law, Turin University and Director of DIREL.
2
P. Goodrich, Visiocracy. On the Futures of the Fingerpost, Critical Inquiry, Spring 2013,
University of Chicago Press, pp. 498-531 (pp. 504, 509).
3
P. Goodrich, Legal Emblems and the Art of Law, Obiter depicta as the Vision of Governance, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge University Press, New York 2014 (pp. 7, pp. xxii).
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I do not intend to say much in relation to the first, linked to a positivist theory of
law as command, emphasized by the Hobbesian theory and at the basis of the theory of aesthetic foundation presented by the jurist Pierre Legendre, already analyzed
elsewhere4. In particular, Hobbes, as Bobbio efficaciously points out, is the one who
separated the traditional distinction between command and advice, present in the
juridical tradition and canonic law, to form the distinction between command and
non-command (ascribed to the recapitulatory sphere of ‘advice’) the same criteria
of distinction between that which is juridical and that which is not5.
In the light of the contemporary crisis of the sources of law (from soft law6 to
governance7) and more generally in relation to a theory of the network of law8 and
the normativity of the image9 aimed at overcoming the approximation to law as
statutory commands, in order to recuperate the rhetorical, semiotic, aesthetic, legal
elements of the normative process, it is possible to give a first approximate definition of the field of legal aesthetics as the part of judicial knowledge aimed at studying
the advice, seen as a recapitulatory notion of all the different normative forms from
the aforementioned command and others not mentioned, as sources of law.
Starting from this initial observation concerning the setting and the importance
of the theory of the sources of law, between civil law and common law, it appears
to be of interest to analyze the two symbolic images reproduced, paying particular
attention to the theoretical importance of the second.
In the first, fictionally, the emperor Justinian holds, so to speak, within his body
the entire content of the law and is immortalized here, a new Moses, in the act of
indicating it (commanding it) to the scribes by dictating it, with that fingerpost, analyzed by Goodrich in his article Visiocracy, which is the index finger that symbolically summarizes that establishing act of imperial founding/dictating of the law.
This device has been seen, from the time of the doctoral thesis of the French
legal historian and psychoanalyst Pierre Legendre, as being included in the adage
Solus princeps habet potestatem condendi leges et interpretandi.
4
P. Heritier, Estetica giuridica, vol. II. A partire da Legendre. Il fondamento finzione del
diritto positivo, Giappichelli, Torino 2012.
5
N. Bobbio, Comandi e consigli, in Studi per una teoria generale del diritto, Giappichelli,
Torino 2012, pp. 39-64 and T. Hobbes, De Cive. Elementi filosofici sul cittadino, Editori Riuniti,
Milano 1999, p. 256, P. Heritier, Estetica giuridica, vol. II., pp. 137 et seq.
6
Starting with the well-known text by L. Senden, Soft Law in European Community
Law, Hart, Oxford-Portland 2004.
7
In the endless bibliography of J. Lenoble, M. Maesschalck, Toward a Theory of governance: the Action of Norms, Kluwer, The Hague, 2003,A. Andronico, Viaggio al termine del
diritto. Saggi sulla governance, Giappichelli,Torino 2012, and in the issue dedicated to Lenoble
in the journal TCRS (2007).
8
Amongst the first contributions on the topic in a bibliography that became endless, I
recall for general theory F. Ost, M. de Kerchove, van, De la pyramide au réseau ? Pour une théorie
dialectique du droit, Publications des Facultés universitaires Saint-Louis, Bruxelles, 2002; and,
in Declinazione estetico giuridica P. Heritier, Urbe Internet, vol. 1. La rete figurale del diritto,
Giappichelli,Torino 2003.
9
C. Faralli, V. Gigliotti, P. Heritier, M.P. Mittica, Il diritto tra testo e immagine. Rappresentazione ed evoluzione delle fonti, Mimesis, Milano 2014.
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Forms of Legal Aesthetics of the Body and Sources of Law
89
Legendre says, in fact, that the authority of the prince is central to the theory of
the sources of Roman law, which finds in him its unity, symbolized by Justinian’s
compilation:
“Justinien, comme le remarque Irnerius à propos du Code, n’en est pas seulement l’auteur (auctor); il en est à proprement parler le fondateur (conditor)”10. The
keeping together of the two functions has interesting implications with regard to
the unification of the emperor and the man in a single body:
Le jus condendi legem permet à son titulaire d’introduire des règles neuves, de
faire du Droit nouveau (Jus novum), come d’interpréter le Droit déjà fondé. Cette
double fonction appartient à l’empereur seul: Solus princeps habet potestatem condendi leges et interpretandi. La constitution impériale étant l’expression écrite du
Droit humain, le princeps apparaît donc comme le maître de ce Droit. La maxime
Princeps legibus solutus s’explique donc d’elle-même. La loi, en effet, a sa source dans
la volonté du princeps (lex animata). Celui-ci est au-dessus d’elle et on ne saurait
distinguer en lui l’homme et l’empereur11.
Starting from this union in the body of man and emperor as the source of law,
Legendre would then develop the theory of the mythical founding reference of
law, through the medieval pontiff, the body of the absolute sovereign and the dictator of totalitarianisms, up to the bodies/images represented in the advertising of
the period of the sovereignty of the consumer and of the technical object12.
There is however, a point that it is interesting to clarify, in relation to the comparison of this image with the other one. Immediately after presenting the theory
of the symbolic unity of the imperial ius interpretandi and the ius condendi, the
legal historian poses the question of how the princeps can be seen as a unifying
agent of law, since the legislation is not the only source of legal rules, because the
jus, according to Irnerius, is divided into lex, mores, natura, necessitas.
Here we find the notion of form, or of putting into a form. In fact, the emperor
is not subject to the people following renouncement of the imperium, and he is the
holder of the power conferred by God (in nomine domini nostri Jesu Christi […],
says the inaugural text above the image):
S’il ne peut aller contre le Droit divin, on ne saurait oublier qu’il est lui-même
l’interprète des préceptes de justice et d’équité. L’empereur met en forme des règles
(in formam redigere), si avant lui elles n’étaient pas connues (equitas rudis). Quant ’à la
coutume, la concurrence qu’elle risque de faire subir à la législation impériale est vivement rejetée par Placentin, tandis qu’Albéric ed Lanfranc (de Crémone?) s’efforcent
par des voies opposées de faire admettre l’indépendance de cette source juridique. La
constitutio, cependant, est d’essence supérieure et le développement de la théorie de
10
P. Legendre, La pénétration du droit romain dans le droit classique de Gratien à Innocent IV, (1140-1254), Thèse pour le doctorat soutenue le 28 juin 1954, (M. Le Bras, M. Dumont,
M. Gaudemet), Paris, Jouve 1964, p. 52.
11
P. Legendre, La pénétration…, cit., p. 53.
12
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la consuetudo approbata expressément ou tacitement témoigne du souci des docteurs
de respecter, au moins formellement, la prééminence de la lex.
Ainsi, le Princeps réalise grâce à son jus condendi l’unité du Droit13.
Later, in his work, Legendre once again takes up the analysis of the influence of
imperial supremacy in the history of subsequent law, but it is clear that the great
question of the link between custom and law has not been resolved at all, continuing to be a problem for post-Hobbesian juridical thinking. Without entering into
the vast topic, it seems sufficient to point out how also in Roman law the Justinian
concept of custom was indicated as problematic. For example, Filippo Gallo, in
criticizing Bobbio’s thinking says that:
[…] even Bobbio was not immune to the Justinian influence. The idea that the common vision of custom as a support for the legislative system is “based on a more mature legal awareness” is a presumption unsupported in reality, derived from the legum
doctrina that Justinian substituted for the ars iuris. The legal philosopher could not be
content with the legum permutatio, given the lack of consideration for it of the Romanists themselves. However, it is a fact that the he, even without this satisfaction, offered
a representation of the effects produced in later legal sciences, even to our day, of the
theorization of custom elaborated by the Justinian commissaries…14
Without wishing to enter the vast debate on custom as a source of law15, it appears
clear that the comparison between the two images symbolically indicates a problem
central to the theory of the sources of law, in relation to the fundamental concept of
nature, which appears controversial in relation to the Roman legal roots, in relation
to the Justinian reform and its effects on the subsequent development of law.
From this perspective, it appears interesting to analyze the second image proposed, specifically referred to the tradition of Common Law. Goodrich, starting
from an analysis of legal positivism from the perspectives of semiotics and rhetoric16, reads the legal tradition of common law as supported by a system of memories and traditions that, in referring to the language of law,
13
14
F. Gallo, Consuetudine e nuovi contratti. Contributo al recupero dell’artificialità del diritto,
Giappichelli, Torino 2011, p. 65-66. By Gallo see also on this topic Interpretazione e formazione
consuetudinaria del diritto. Lezioni di diritto romano, Giappichelli, Torino, 1993; La legum permutatio. Rivoluzione ignorata della nostra tradizione: una introduzione, in Estudios en homenaje al
Profesor Alejandro Guzman Brito, vol.II, Edizioni dell’Orso, Alessandria 2011, pp. 528-43.
15
We recall amongst others, in the Italian legal culture, R. Sacco, Antropologia giuridica,
Il Mulino, Bologna 2007, pp. 175 ss.; E. Robilant, Diritto e selezione critica. Appunti per il corso
di filosofia del diritto 1996-97, Giappichelli, Torino 1997; R. Caterina, a c. di, La dimensione tacita del diritto, Esi, Napoli 2009; P. Nerhot, La coutume. Le droit muet, Giappichelli, Torino 2012;
S. Zorzetto, a c.di, La consuetudine giuridica. Teoria, storia, ambiti disciplinari, ETS, Pisa 2008.
16
P. Goodrich, Legal Discourse. Studies in Linguistics, Rhetoric and Legal Analysis,
Macmillan, Houndmills and London 1987.
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91
is depicted as a language of record, a perfect language that harbors true reference,
that corresponds to real events, that is itself a monument, a memorial, a vestige or a relic
of previous wisdom and prior judgement” where “the inhabitants of the legal institution
are thus custodians not only of a tradition of rules and of texts but also of linguistic forms
and of techniques of interpretation that will unlock the memories of legal language17.
The theory that Goodrich presents is that, if the structures of positive law are
mobile, the tradition of common law, rather than representing a mere language for
transmitting an institutional order, writes in the body of the individual his bond
with the law. We could say that it inscribes the form of the law in the body, on
the basis of a pretense of continuity, implying the “the continued creativity, the
continued life and productive power of that order, of that plan, of the ‘law of the
persistence of the plan’”18 that we could call the aesthetic foundation of the law. So
common law “does not represent or remember the past; it repeats it by living it, it
suppresses it through the immobile memory of the mirror, through duplication”19.
In this reading the order of the rule becomes the order of things, because it overlays it like a reproduction, a copy, an image reflected in a mirror. In this way it is
possible to see the proximity of the models of civil law and common law from an
aesthetic perspective, where the latter is a relevant enunciation of the iconic device
present in the version of the Legendrian imperial model.
Through this itinerary there emerges, therefore, described in an approximate
and abbreviated manner, all the extension and the importance of the question of
the image for the analysis of common law. Also in this model, starting with the approach of the Critical Legal Studies, it is possible to identify all the theoretical, conceptual ambiguity and the complexity of the form of the law, always aimed at denying the normativity of the image and the idol, in its paradoxical position within
a founding iconic-liturgical device of its own discourse, seen as writings and text.
Goodrich notes that, “law is always a governance of thought and so can perhaps be
most radical rethought as such it also constitute itself upon an unthought – upon
custom, repetition, and repression”. Though the law is so ‘aristotelianly’ “wisdom
without desire” it appears at the same time to be “a truth that represses desire, a
text that negates its images and denies the figurations or fluidity of its texts”20.
In his recent text, quoted above, dedicated to legal symbols, in order to revive
visiocracy as a system of legal power that makes use of the normativity of images, the author takes up and extends the analysis of the two images reproduced
above, representing the two apparently alternative concepts of law, reducing
them to a unit of the aesthetic-legal perspective. This highlights the common underlying iconic-liturgical structure, beyond the rationalistic myths of modernity
17
P. Goodrich, Languages of Law. From Logic of Memory to Nomadic Mask, Weidenfeld
and Nicolson, London 1990, p. VII.
18
Ibid.
19
Ivi, p. VIII.
20
P. Goodrich, Oedipus Lex. Psychoanalysis, History, Law, University of California Press,
Berkeley, Los Angeles, London 1995, p. X.
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and legal positivism, convinced that man has been forced to reason by the (text
of) law, made logical and rational.
Goodrich’s vision, which re-reads the tradition of common law taking into account the grammatology of Derrida and the dogmatic anthropology of Legendre,
appears particularly illuminating when he analyses the symbol consuetudo est altera
natura, contrasting it with the image of Justinian, which was analyzed first of all.
The Roman emperor is shown in the symbolic gesture of dictating the law; in
the written text that heads the image he is indicated in the place of (in the name
of) Christ, as the most holy, perpetual and august. His body can thus be the source
of the text (Corpus Iuris), he is the pure law that incorporates and inaugurates
the new code. The image, on the other hand, shows him sitting on a throne, on a
pedestal, with the symbols of power (the scepter in his right hand, the crown on
his head) but it is his left hand, extended towards the choir of doctors in law that
shows, in ideal contrast with the foot of the armless cripple in the other image, as
we will see. The symbolic reading of Goodrich’s model is precise, in relation to
the notion of the “legal indicators of direction” (fingerpost), signals that indicate a
path, an aesthetic form of the law, a behavior:
Justinian is shown leaning forward and down, left hand with thumb and index
finger open and apart over the book, the code, that is being inscribed. The canon of
the fingers (dactylogia or indigitatio) indicates that this gesture signifies protection
and exordium. The hand extended and covering the audience is the signal of bringing them under the governance and safety of law, while the specific indigitation, the
claw made of the thumb and index finger marks the exordium, the beginning of the
laws as given by the emperor and through him by God. The throne with its billowing
backdrop screen signals the division of the human and the divine as is mirrored in
the separation of the sovereign from his subjects…The fingerpost as here portrayed
is of interest primarily because it makes so evident that the finger is not ours but his,
not here but elsewhere. The digit that writes is not that of the hand that inscribes;
indeed the law is acheiropoietic, without intervention of hands precisely because it
is nature and divinity, apprehended through time immemorial, that historically have
sent the writ that the lawyers have merely tabled and entered into the rolls…21.
The analysis of the ostensible divine foundation of the law could not be more
clearly indicated. The question of the natural and divine foundation of the juridical represented and communicated through the aesthetic mediation of the symbol
raises, on the other hand, for Goodrich, the question of recognition of the normative
and the corporal form of the law. He therefore formulates the point by picking up
the Legendrian query, which is in turn taken from Corpus Iuris Civilis, of what youth
wishing for laws22 can recognize in the theatrical scene of law, in the drapery and the
21
P. Goodrich, Visiocracy, cit., pp. 504-5.
22
P. Legendre, Lo sfregio. Alla gioventù desiderosa… Discorso a giovani studenti sulla
scienza e l’ignoranza, Giappichelli, Torino 2009.
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garments, in the art and the artifice of the presence of the law in the audience chamber, in other words in the aesthetic and visual representation of the juridical. Why do
the law and the text demand an iconic scene that founds them and supports them?
Thus, according to Goodrich, the paradox that every conception of regulation
encounters is instituted in this model; its acheiropoietic basis, not created by man,
of law and the mute trait of legality, the silentium of law: all elements that, fictional
or not, inasmuch as they are represented, lead us to recognize the other scene of the
juridical, the founding aesthetics of the juridical and the normative:
The ceremonial dimensions of legal trial are markers of a greater presence, a
tradition and authority that is captured well… More than that, the signaling of an
elsewhere, another scene (in the argot of the Vienna brigade), is the marker of the
paradox of legality. Law’s authority depends upon its visibility, and yet the source
of law is an absent sovereign: the Triunity of the divinity, and by delegation from
that impossible unity, the first sovereign, as also the pattern of custom and precedent from time immemorial. The source is never present except as the fingerpost,
what Cicero terms the signature of things23.
Here lies, in my opinion, the question of the indicator of direction as a norm
of behavior necessarily corporal and plural. The visibility of the law is founded on
the absence of its source, substituted by command: the scheme is that of a juridical
theology of the law and the image, which inscribes the body as a form of the law
made present. Thus the interest in comparing the signals such as the hands that
point, the feet that write; thus the interest in an aesthetic anthropology of law,
which poses the question of form, of the image and the law, as similar topics. An
immense question that here can only be alluded to and certainly not dealt with,
but, at least, not systematically removed, as the positivist theory of law tends to do.
That the point is both theological and juridical can be seen shortly afterwards
when Goodrich observes:
- in the first place how
The initial point, as theologically obvious as it is materially opaque, is that what
is seen is significant only by virtue of being seen through, by virtue of what is not
there. It is a Pauline principle, but we can use Edward Coke, who usefully begins
his Institutes by suggesting that the reader visit the tomb of Thomas Littleton, the
lawyer whose work Coke is commenting upon, glossing and interpolating, in the
first part of his multivolume code of English common law… He tells us to look
at the portrait, stare long and hard at the effigy— “the Statue and portraiture”…
Behind the text, beyond the tome, there is the tomb, and kept long enough in the
“visual” line the portrait can give way to the “child and figure” of the author, the
face of the law itself24;
- and secondly how:
23
24
P. Goodrich, Visiocracy, cit., pp. 505-507.
P. Goodrich, Visiocracy, cit., p. 507.
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The fescue, which is Whitehouse’s version of the fingerpost in his commentary
on Fortescue, has a primary meaning of straw or “mote in the eye.” This suggests… an internal obstruction to vision, the outside making its presence felt on
the surface of the inside, the retina, the via regia to the soul.25
The indicator of direction, the signal aesthetically communicated thus becomes
“a mode of activating the body, of giving the lawyers their marching orders, their
visual line, the figures that will take them forward.26
The structure indicated here, without stopping to examine the individual points,
in this passage from the writings of Saint Paul to the tradition of common law, from
the invisibility of the divine to the iconic form of the law, is precisely the question
of juridical theology and its importance for the understanding of the question of the
foundation of the scene of law. A structure that remains intact also when the theory
of law intends to deny it, immersing itself in the modern myths of rationality, of the
text, of the positive foundation of the juridical or of power. Thus, it is “the visual and
paradoxical spectacle of things not seen” that presides over the structure of the juridical. On this question, Goodrich conceives the passage and the articulation between
the two symbolic images and the ‘positivist’ hand – the index finger that points and
guides – and the ‘customary’ foot that writes: different forms of an underlying common scheme, of a theological-aesthetic-juridical structure after the various forms of
the writings of the text and the fictional constitution of juridical tradition.
However, it remains to emphasize the importance of the difference between the
forms of indicators of direction, of the diversity of the paths that are traced within the
forms of law. Custom is not already the text; the foot that writes is not the hand that
transcribes, although the underlying theological juridical structure is the same. In the
custom, the presumed founding relationship with the divine remains, but the way in
which the text is written is different; man is the ‘fescue in the hand of God’:
The political emblematist Bornitius can provide an instance in his emblem of custom
as law (fig. 4). The armless generoso, the gentleman inscribing the law with his feet, is
spelling out the message of tradition, the recurring signs that nature loves to hide, the
footprint—impresa—of the father. Laws are made by “men excited by God” is how
Whitehouse puts it, and then he continues to stipulate that “all the learning of men and
ages, are but fescues in the hands of God”. The correspondence of law to its principal
cause is thus precisely a posting, the carriage of a letter with all of the authority of him
who sent it. That the legal scribe in Bornitius’s emblem has no arms and writes with his
feet is precisely an image of such posting, a sesquipedalian law, a footpath marked by the
sign of the cross, an instance of the fingerpost27.
The other traditional form of law, custom, hierarchically submitted to our arrangement of law, ironically displays, in Goodrich’s iconic reading, a law of the
foot, a writing of the path, a classic image of the precedent, of the tradition, of
the custom and its divine rooting and at the same time, a structure of juridical
25
26
27
P. Goodrich, Visiocrazia, cit., p. 26-7.
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temporality that makes the myth present, makes the opinion iuris present, the link
between custom and nature: “Not any feet, but visible and repente footpaths, the
manifest marks of the ambulation of the fathers, the elders, the praesidentes” observes Goodrich, indicate the normative direction of human behavior.
The symbolic image of the armless man, and his comparison with the Justinian
symbol shows how language divides, but the vision unites, referring to a structure
that binds, holds together, operates in the invisibility of the foundation: the visual
thus becomes a topos, it is the symbol of an image of the form of the law:
Language divides, but vision unites. The visual is in classical emblematic terms
universal, undivided, free of the chaos that Babel inflicted upon language. The visual
is the primary means and medium for transmitting law because, like law, it touches
all—quod omnes tangit 28.
Thus, Goodrich highlights the underlying iconic structure of the normative,
apart from the plurality of its forms and the methods of its writing.
2. Forms of the body, forms of the law: the foot
Nevertheless, starting from the identification of this universal communicative
structure (at least in the juridical view of the West), there remains something to
say, in relation to this second symbolic image and its developments. We will try to
enter the topic by adding some textual and visual glosses to the commentary, in
this paragraph, and extending the discourse, in the next and conclusive paragraph.
A wider analysis of the second symbol is in truth also carried out by Goodrich,
not in the article Visiocracy, but in the book Legal Emblems and the Art of Law:
Obiter Depicta as the Vision of Governance, placing the topic in an even wider discourse, if possible. Following the development of the analysis will therefore form
a detour that will be useful in understanding the link between hand and foot as
posed at the origin of the question of the forma plural of the writing of the law using the body, communicated and learned through image and vision, as a problem
of the basis and the tradition.
Noting that common law is first of all an unwritten form of law, Goodrich emphasizes that “custom and precedent rather statute or code that marks and defines
our national law”29. Knowing the law from this perspective, means accepting an
unwritten tradition that exists outside history, in the dominion of the divine:
28
P. Goodrich, Visiocrazia, cit., p. 28.
29
P. Goodrich, Languages of Law, cit., p. 116-117. For other analyses of the topic of common law, variously historiographical and juridical theory: D. J. Bederman, Custom as a Source of
Law, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, New York 2010; G. Postema, Philosophy of the
common Law, in J. Coleman, S. Shapiro, The Oxford Handbook of Jurisprudence and Philosophy
of Law, Oxford University Press, Oxford, New York 2004, pp. 588-622; M. Lobban, A History
of the Philosophy of Law in the Common Law World (1600-1900), Springer, Dordrecht 2007.
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in Coke’s words, even where it is a matter of reading the law, it is a question of reading not simply the words of the text but also the tradition that accompanies them; the
text is a mere representation of an external memory; it is a vestige in the classical sense of
vestigium, an imprint, a footprint, a mark or trace of something, of some bodv, of some
practice that passed on time out of mind or countless years ago. Where it is a question
of reading, then it is not the words but the truth that is to be adhered to: in lectione nonverba sec veritas est amanda30.
The memory is, classically, the product of a collective faith (communis opinio) or
of a faith in the truth of the texts (de fide istrumentorum), which belongs to both
the religious text and the juridical text. Thus, traditions and customs, in the theory
of common law, lead us back to nature, seen as a model and the image of the divine
source. Common law occupies a position in nature, walks on the paths of the earth
and as Bornitius says – custom is second nature – it belongs to this tradition:
Nature precedes writing or, better, it is a higher form of scripture, an acheiropoietic, which is
to say handless inscription. Nature is the primary law, the first chirography, and its most immediate form is that of images, the visible world with all of its of paths and marks. Nature imitates
divinity, and humanity, in imitating nature, responds to and observes the divine31.
The meaning of the symbol that represents the armless scribe sitting on a tree
trunk, outside the city, in the countryside, intent on writing with his right foot
means that actions are more believable than words and follow a path that does not
pass through the hand:
We can speak while we walk, in motion, but we cannot write while ambulant. Ambulation is then the mark of prior law, the inscription of a higher cause, the archetype
of writing, and it is by showing the truncated subject inscribing with his right foot that
Bornitius expresses the power of a law that appears without the intervention of any
human hand, a law of nature herself. This is what is classically meant by an unwritten
law – ius non-scriptum – that is inscribed invisibly on the heart, in memory alone,
without any need for writing32.
It is inevitable to recall what Goodrich wrote on grammatology as a question of
the form of law:
For grammatology, the key question is precisely that of the form of law: a science
of legal writing will look at law specifically as writing; it will define law by its opus,
its work which is a body of writing, a special literary genre or species of writing that
would have to be placed close – in the order of genres – to drama on the one hand and
to the epic on the other33.
30
31
32
33
P. Goodrich, Languages of Law, cit., p. 117.
P. Goodrich, Legal Emblems, cit., p. xxii.
P. Goodrich, Legal Emblems, cit., p. xxiii.
P. Goodrich, Languages of Law, cit., p. 114.
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The question of law as form concerns the staging of writing in a hierarchical order,
in a metaphysics of the presence, which Derrida’s deconstruction would criticize.
For Ricoeur, an exponent of a traditional hermeneutic, in the writing the written
text would fix, so to speak, a prior word, in a concept of the relationship between
word and writing according to which the former is antecedent, necessarily, to the
second and where first the word and only later the writing, emerged as formalization of a phonetic element. This would make a relationship of substitution, between dialogue and textuality possible: the writing would substitute the word; the
reader would substitute the interlocutor34, in a device of fictions forming the order
of sense proper to the ‘metaphysics of the presence’ with the aim of resolving the
paradox of legality, building a hierarchy of the sources supported by the notion
of nature and the theological juridical structure already mentioned. As is known
the difference between the position of Derrida and that of Ricoeur starts from the
proposal to invert the relationship between word and writing fixed in the natural
hierarchical order indicated by Aristotle in the renowned affirmation of De Interpretazione “Sounds produced by the voice are symbols of mutual impressions, and
writing is a symbol of vocal signs.”35
In this traditional vision the voice, in fact, has a relationship of initial proximity
with the soul: the moods being in direct, natural contact with the voice. The point
means that the writing is condemned as a secondary, derived and negative phenomenon, enunciated by Plato in Phaedrus, one reason for this assumption about
the proximity to the original voice of the soul, which would lead to Plato’s celebration of memory. This led to Derrida’s criticism of the concept, to the ‘metaphysics
of the presence’, designed to reassign primacy to writing.
In this deconstructionist context, we also find Goodrich’s interpretation of the
juridical symbolism and the role of the image in the science of juridical writing.
The writing, for scribes with hands, is a human artifice, a second juridical order
reflecting the first divine decree, the first order of the images of nature itself, guaranteed by the sovereign.
The image precedes writing and the written is thus but a secondary mode of imaging:
the printed word is simply another figurative sign, a species of hieroglyph, if you will,
that hierophants, or we say learned lawyers, the brethren, will interpret and unpack. The
image then is part of what Derrida termed “writing in general,” an aspect of the custom
and use, the immemorial practice that common lawyers call the lex terrae a realm of
prior images, of emblematic patterns.36
We can reach a first conclusion about the proximity and the differences between the two emblems, between the two different forms of normative writing
34
P. Ricoeur, Qu’est-ce que’un texte?, in Du texte à l’action. Essais d’heréneutique II,
Editions du Seuil, Paris, 1986, pp. 156-178.
35
The quotation from Aristotle appears in Ricoeur, op. cit., p. 176 e in J. Derrida, Della
grammatologia, Milano, Jaca Book, 1998, p. 29.
36
P. Goodrich, Legal Emblems, cit., p. XXIII.
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that they establish. It is a matter of analyzing the conditions of possibility of the
staging of the normative text37, in its relationship with the divine foundation.
From the iconic point of view, the classic contraposition of civil law and common law is symbolized by the opposition of hand/foot (decree/custom) but within a common visual conception of the reference to the nature and the problem of
the plurality necessary to the forms of writing of truth. The obvious references by
Goodrich here are to Legendre and Derrida, but the problem posed is precisely
that of the plurality of the forms of orientation of human behavior, all differently
linked to the position of the iconic and the theological basis for the legitimization
of the juridical.
We have already pointed out how, for Goodrich, the tradition of common law
is to be seen as a language that implies the transmission of an institutional order;
it remains to be said how this is written in man: the tradition of common law,
Goodrich recalled in Languages of Law, “implies the affective attachment of the
individual to the order of institutional existence”38. The analysis of the juridical
texts implies taking into account the image as a form of writing of the normative,
part of that phenomenon of writing in general sought by Derrida in Grammatology. In this sense, the analysis of the different forms of writing in the two emblems is indicative of an anthropological and cognitive problem. The two images
differ in the limb that writes (the hand, the foot) in the sense already explained
by Goodrich, and also in the different scenarios: the collective setting of the
scribe in the imperial architectural structure, or the individual setting of the armless man, surrounded by nature (and yet it also refers to the collective process of
institution of the path, in the custom, of the trace deriving from the action). The
point that I would like to raise is that of the conditions of possibility – or of impossibility – of writing with the hands. The armless scribe cannot write with his
hands, he must necessarily find another way of writing, which takes other routes,
in other forms of the body. Is there, in this distinction between writing with the
hands and writing with the feet, a simple equivalence of results? What do the
differing forms in which the writing is rendered indicate?
In my opinion, there is inherent in this overlapping, the possibility of a trap.
In a trap, as Derrida notes in his introduction to the second edition of the text
by Silvano Petrosino Jacques Derrida e la legge del possibile, we ignore ‘who is
trapping who’: the victim is one, but essentially subject to substitution, given the
essential iterability of the machine thus called trap. Therefore, we do not know
who is trapping whom, since he who sets the trap can also potentially be trapped.
We never know which animal will lose its paw (piège – trappola –, pedica, pes,
pedis), since the trap is also an aporia that prevents the living being from walking properly. It even interrupts the ability to walk, with or without shoes”39. The
37
This is, amongst other things, the task of Critical Legal Studies according to Goodrich,
rereading with Foucault, following (and against Kant, the conditions of possibility of the juridical texts of common law. P. Goodrich, Languages of Law, cit., p. 2.
38
P. Goodrich, Languages of Law, cit., p. VII.
39
J. Derrida, Prefazione. La scommessa, una prefazione, forse una trappola, in S. Petrosino,
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theme of the introduction to Petrosino’s text is linked to the title of the book,
referring to the possible in the ‘father’ of deconstructionism, already an interpretation of that link between possible and impossible and the prevalence of one
over the other in Derrida’s thinking.
When the impossible becomes possible, the event takes place (possibility of
the impossible). It is even unimpeachable, the paradoxical form of the event: if
an event is possible, if it is inscribed in conditions of possibility, if it does not do
more than explain, uncover, reveal, enact that which was already possible, then it
is not, or is no longer, an event. For an event to take place, for it to be possible, it
is necessary for it to be, inasmuch as it is an event, inasmuch as it is an invention,
the occurrence of the impossible40.
The condition of possibility always operates as a condition of impossibility,
what makes this possible also makes at the same time, according to Petrosino,
impossible the reality itself that makes possible: this ‘incredible filiation’, notes
Derrida, is the origin of faith. In what relation does this faith that derives from
the impossible stand with regard to the collective faith previously mentioned,
with reference to common law, communis opinio41? The condition of the impossibility of writing with the hands manifested in the figure of the armless man is at
the same time the condition of possibility to write with the feet, but here, what
is that ‘at the same time’, what form does this impossibility take in its becoming possible? What are the ‘conditions of possibility’, the subject of the analysis
of Critical Legal Studies according to Goodrich, of this taking different forms,
and what is the complex relationship with the idea of nature? The comment by
Bornitius on the emblem begins by stating, “Admirandum est naturae artificium
acque ingenii humani vis ac potentia” and repeats the secheme Consuetudo altera
est natura con Consuetudo altera extat natura. The emblem faces the problem
of continuation of the nature of the custom in a device that takes into account
the bodily impossibility of carrying out an action (Vidimus manibus carentes fila
texere, litteram pedibus exarare), inserting the impossibility as a condition of another action, of another (form of) writing; as the starting point necessary for the
normative discourse, inasmuch as it is a plural bodily form of the law. Are we
naturally born without arms? Is this not the same trap, the same paradox present
in the notion of law (of the possibility, characterizing the philosophical definition
of Derrida, according to Petrosino)?
Can the image as a secondary form, other than the writing of the law, therefore open to the impossible possibility of the event to which it is, from Derrida’s
perspective, the figure itself of the intrusion of justice, a further juridical form of
law and never reducible that calls into being the notion of event?
Jacques Derrida e la legge del possibile. Un’Introduzione, Jaca Book,Milano 1997, p. 17.
40
J. Derrida, Introduction. cit., p. 11-12.
41
Memory is, for Goodrich, the product of a collective faith (communis opinio) or, lastly,
of a faith in the truth of the texts (de fide istrumentorum). See Languages of Law, cit., part one.
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3. Forms of the body, forms of law: the formation of the inner eye
George Wither, – sapiens dominatibur astris42.
Wolf Vostell, video installation (Nîmes, May 2008)43.
42
George Wither, A Collection of Emblems, Ancient and Modern: Quickened with Metricall Illustrations, Wolf Vostell, both Morall and Divine: and disposed into Lotteries (London:
Robert Allot,1635), p. 31– sapiens dominatibur astrusi
43
Wolf Vostell: Carré d’art, Nîmes (13 février-12 mai 2008), Archibooks, Paris, 2009.
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In these two images, we can see, conclusively, a topic linked to what we have
said so far: the idea that there is something that precedes the letter of the law (the
inner eye, the spirit that illuminates) and also, specularly, the phenomenological
problem of the writing of the knowledge, that is to say how the inner eye is formed,
and how it influences the law. ‘The inner eye’ precedes the formation of the law
and assists its interpretation, it is said classically, but, at the same time, there is
something that precedes it and institutes it, a previous writing, dogmatically instituted, that, so to speak, forms the soul and directs it.
The theme of the heart as the source of the law, as another way of understanding the meaning, is one of the great instances of natural law, starting from the
Paulinian formulation that instituted Christian jusnaturalism in the Epistle to the
Romans 2, 14-15
Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the
law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that
the requirements of the law are written on their hearts...
The problem presented here is that of the plurality of paths that lead to the realization and the enactment of the law: one exterior (the observance of the written
law), the other interior (the realization of the works of the laws)44. Of great interest
is the idea of a writing preceding the laws in the heart of man, without it being
made clear how this happens: naturally? Or through the same device indicated by
the emblem of the armless scribe, the writing of an impossible, of an impossible
justice? The theme of the heart as a genuine bodily source of the juridical is then
explained by Legendre for the foundation of the law in his adage, referring to the
medieval pontiff as the ideal successor of the Roman emperor in the Corpus Iuris
Canonici, as witnessed in the adage “Omnia iura habet in scrinio pectoris sui”45.
The first emblem is once again taken from the article Visiocracy and from Legal
Emblems. For Goodrich:
The eye of the spirit, the interior eye, has precedence over the exterior, just as, in common law, it is unwritten law – custom and use from time immemorial, the law of nature and
of God – that has precedence over ratio scripta, written law, namely legislation46.
44
I analyzed this point in P. Heritier (2008). L’uomo del diritto. Il problema della conoscibilità della legge naturale in San Paolo. In: Di Blasi F., Heritier P. La vitalità del diritto naturale,
pp. 117-58; P. Heritier (2008). L’umano e il giuridico. Pluralismo delle verità e diritto naturale
nell’Epistola ai Romani. Iustum, Aequum Salutare, vol. 2008/4, pp. 47-60.
45
P. Legendre, Sur la question dogmatique en Occident, Fayard, Paris 1999, partial Italian
translation L. Avitabile (Ed.), Il giurista artista della ragione, Giappichelli, Torino 2000, pp. 28596. Also H.J. Berman, Diritto e rivoluzione. Le origini della tradizione giuridica occidentale, il
Mulino, Bologna 1998; P. Prodi, Il sovrano pontefice. Un corpo e due anime: la monarchia papale
nella prima età moderna, il Mulino, Bologna 2006.
46
P. Goodrich, Legal Emblems, cit., p. 16.
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The author, apart from the description of the symbologies implicit in the emblem, such as the role of the sun, the stars, the scribe intent on writing, precisely
notes the theoretical center of the device:
The key to the picture, front and center, is thus the eye in the sovereign’s chest. Here
is wisdom exemplified and embodied as the very heart of sovereignty, expressed as an
interior eye. The sovereign, like Justice, has no need of bodily eyes or of exterior vision.
What matters is the unwritten law, the reason of nature that is carried inside and seen by
the eye of the spirit as it looks in before it emanates outward. Wisdom precedes vision,
and knowledge comes before sight. We have, in short, to learn how to see and make
sense of the external world. This is the political theology of the image as we inherit it and
manipulate it in law. Vision is mediated and motivated. It is constructed and constrained
and it is to this that the emblem tradition was directed47.
The point raised here is the link between iconomia and oikonomia, inasmuch
as it is linked to the nexus between iconocracy and visiocracy48, to the question of
the iconoclastic struggles and the plane of historical meaning of oikonomia, in its
reference to the existence of the Trinity, raises49.
Without intending to explore this immense theme, it is necessary to qualify that
what Goodrich calls political theology of the image, the inner eye as an image of the
precedence of the unwritten law, represented iconically as the capacity to penetrate
the divine truth of the world and to dominate the external through the internal is
closely linked, as Paolo Prodi also explains in his monumental volume on the topic,
to dualism between consciousness and law50. Jacob Taubes, in his dialogue with the
political theology of Schmitt in relation to the thinking of Saint Paul, qualifies this
complex point of intersection as follows: “Do you understand what Schmitt wanted?
Did he want to show how the division between earthly power and spiritual power is
absolutely necessary and that without this delimitation the West would breathe its last
breath? This is what I wanted him to understand, against his totalitarian concept”51.
Prodi ‘glosses’ or better adds a minor corollary to this distinction by Taubes, ob47
P. Goodrich, Legal Emblems, cit., p. 18.
48
P. Goodrich, Emblemi giuridici, cit., in publication, in enunciating the neologism visiocracy, Mondzain makes use of the term iconocracy in the article Can Images Kill?, Critical
Inquiry 36 (Autumn 2009), p. 20 (”The Christian revolution is the first and only monotheist
doctrine to have made the image the symbol of its power and the instrument of all its conquests.
From East to West, it convincer all those in power that the one who is the master of the visible
is the master of the world and organizes the control of the gaze”).
49
J.M. Mondzain, Immagine, Icona, Economia, Jaca Book, Milano 2006; G. Dagron, La
règle et l’Exception. Analyse de la notion d’économie, in D. Simon, a c.di., Religiöse Devianz,
Klostermann, Frankfurt a.m., pp. 1-18. G. Agamben, Il Regno e la Gloria. Per una genealogia
teologica dell’economia e del governo, Neri Pozza, Vicenza 2007.
50
P. Prodi, Una storia della giustizia. Dal pluralismo dei fori al moderno dualismo tra
coscienza e diritto, Il Mulino, Bologna 2000, to which we refer for the analysis of the development of the doctrine of the inner conscience / external conscience; conscience / law, moral / law,
which concern the qualification of the notion of custom.
51
J. Taubes, La teologia politica di San Paolo, Adelphi, Milano 1997, p. 186.
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serving that “if this division is to exist it is necessary that, somehow, old or new, the
two powers exist just as Western men have existed in our experience.” 52 (analyzed
in the book, which reproduces the historical development, from the Middle Ages
to modernity). Apart from Taubes’ apocalyptic discursive style and his prophesies,
I would like, in turn, to ‘gloss’ Prodi’s gloss, noting how this division of powers is
inevitably linked to the Iconocracy of Mondzain and the Visiocracy of Goodrich.
There is a nexus between the question of the ‘external’ dualism of the powers and
the dualism between internal and external within man, and the image cannot be
separated from these two aspects. The reference to the “political theology of Saint
Paul” must not be separated from the notion of the Christological link between the
visible and the invisible, which, through Saint Paul, has influenced the history of the
image in Western culture53. The opportunity that the discipline known as Law and
Humanities, the reanimation of the question of legal aesthetics and the analysis of the
question of the normativity of the image seem to offer to the normative culture of the
West represents that theoretical nucleus identified here, and which has to do with
the complex aesthetic juridical editing of the distinctions between image and text,
consciousness and law, moral and law, in relation to the notions of custom and of the
staging and formation of the normative. The problem of the form of government, the
problem of the positive form or customary law cannot be reduced to a mere opposition between moral and law, between jusnaturalism and juspositivism, even when it
is reformulated in the current terms of the debate between the neoconstitutionalism
à la Dworkin and the post-Hartian positivism, but demands a humanistic passage,
within the artistic and iconic dimension of the juridical.
In addition to the traditional distinction between law and moral, or between jusnaturalism and juspositivism, it appears essential, in maintaining the form of dualism between temporal power and spiritual power considered essential by Prodi and
Taubes – in order to avoid falling into some form of neo- or post-totalitarianism à
la Schmitt – to analyses the political juridical artistic dimension of mankind, starting
from the iconic breakthrough54, to assume an “affective breakthrough55 in anthropology: instances that seem to appear with increasing relevance in contemporary
philosophy, in relation to the overcoming of the so-called “linguistic breakthrough”
preiconized by Rorty56. Examples are Goodrich’s reference to the affective in the de-
52
P. Prodi, Una storia della giustizia., cit., p. 485.
53
Col. 1, 15, which defines Christ as “visible image of the invisible God, generate before
every other creature”. See O. Boulnois, Au-delà de l’image. Une archéologie du visuel au Moyen
Age (Ve-XVIe siècle), Seuil, Paris 2008.
54
I will only mention W.J.T. Mitchell, Pictorial turn: Saggi di cultura visuale, Duepunti,
Palermo 2008.
55
Presented in the 2013 issue of Rivista TCRS (Teoria e critica della regolazione sociale);
Mimesis, Milano 2013 e http://mimesisedizioni.it/libri/scienze-sociali/tcrs/antropologia-dellagiustizia.html
56
R. Rorty, a c. di, La svolta linguistica, Garzanti, Milano 1994, A. Somma, Introduzione,
La rappresentazione artistica del diritto, in M. Stolleis, L’occhio della legge. Storia di una metafora,
Carocci, Roma 2007, pp. 22.
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constructive sense57 and, above all, in this same issue of the journal, Sequeri’s reference to the affective declined in the sense of the third Kantian and Schillerian criticism (“La question est la suivante: comme faut-il que l’être soit pour être comme il
faut, afin que l’homme puisse habiter poétiquement la vie qui lui est destinée?”)58;
and the reference by Ossola to the link between law and poetry (“they live off the
same ‘architectural’ virtue; they do not create, but they ‘model’ [one society, the
other language], they ‘fabricate’ sanctions or memory, to be relived in the behaviors
or the pronouncements”59 and by Vercellone to the nexus between chaos and order
in the form of the individual ((“Order (chaotic) is, therefore, the principle of singularity beyond the univocality of being, according to the notion that its very foundation is dispersed in each and every single individual…”)60.
The problem of the inner eye deriving from the closeness to the origin (supposedly divine) 61, expressed by the metaphor of the inner eye thus appears, in turn, to be
preceded by the problem, to be defined in a phenomenological key, of the preceding
“writing on the soul”. In this sense the temporal leap from the emblem of Georg
Wither to the image of Wolf Vorstell, who places at the center of the heart of man
not the inner eye, but a machine external to man, the television, appears to be of considerable interest and attributable to the maintenance (or the definitive decline) of
that dualistic structure that presides over the formation of the bald conscience of the
technique. While the TV dé-coll/age of Wolf Vostell associates the television broadcasting of memories of Nazism62 the image of the television placed in Christ’s heart
borrowed from one of his video-installations can efficaciously contribute to exemplifying the notion of Bernard Stiegler of tertiary retention. In Husserlian terminology,
as read by Stiegler following Derrida, the primary retention is that which the perception retains of the object, so that the secondary retention is a primary retention held
and selected, that is to say the constitutive memory of the genuine (temporal) flow
57
See note 46.
58
P. Sequeri, Esthétique du commandement. Phénoménologie et herméneutique de l’injonction, TCRS 2/14 Visiocracy, p. 124 (Italian translation) e pp. 124-125. Sequeri explains the
point variously: «Le miracle de la beauté qu’on peut universellement respecter (pas consommer,
ou simplement faire fonctionner) est le sublime de la justice qu’on peut individuellement aimer.
Ce pouvoir, enfin à besoin d’être autorisé : c’est-à-dire d’être reconnu comme un impératif du
don, qui personne peut me donner, au moins que nous tous – indistinctement – ne l’avons reçu
de Dieu» and again «Il faut penser le sublime du commandement et du beau de la raison humaine jusque-là. Et on doit le penser comme il faut. Dans l’Europe qui doit arriver, l’intellectuel
dégagé de cette tâche n’aura droit d’appeler au peuple : pas plus que les scribes et les prêtres
qui vont substituer les règles à la loi et à la foi ; ou les faux prophètes et les zélotes du désir sans
règles, qui appellent à l’amour du beau et – par cela même – à la volonté de rien». See also the
2013 issue of TCRS previously mentioned, dedicated to Sequeri and, for the notion of affectio iuris, P. Heritier, La dignità disabile. Estetica giuridica del dono e dello scambio, Dehoniane,
Bologna 2014.
59
C. Ossola, La legge e la leggenda, p. … in reference to Vico and Rousseau.
60
F. Vercellone, Chaos and Morphogenesis in German Romanticism, TCRS 2/14 Visiocracy, pp. 129-134.
61
M. Stolleis, L’occhio della legge. cit.
62
P. Webel, Der Deutsche Ausbück (1958-59) aus den Zyklus, pp. 251-256 in Wolf Vostell,
artista europea, Mudima Milano 1994 (and in general the entire volume).
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of the conscience, important on the plane of the imagination (and not of the perception), finalized in holding and selecting the primary retention.
The problem that Stiegler poses with his notion of tertiary retention is precisely
that of the writing from the outside on the conscience of man through standardized
materials, infinitely repeated in the mass society. For example, the distinction between attending a concert, which will always be interpreted differently from the orchestra – example of individual secondary retention the fruit of a personal culture,
and listening to the same concert on an I-pod, through a device that impoverishes and
can be replicated ad infinitum, always in the same and objective way for a potentially
infinite number of subjects. In the first case, there is room for an inner hermeneutic
dimension, when in the meaning there is the risk of a mass standardization within
an infinitely replicable repetition. Stiegler’s criticism of Husserl therefore lingers on
the derivation from outside, of an exteriorized memory, from channels coming from
outside man, to the work of the inscription of traces that influence (forming) the flow
of conscience, potentially standardizing and massifying it63.
Vostell’s image and the subsequent ones, taken from another well-known exponent of the movement of video art, Nam June Paik, clearly show the point, if
compared with the detail of Wither’s emblem.
Television, but all media, nowadays enter, so to speak, in the device of the political theology of the image inherited by Christianity, showing how the institution
of the image is important for the purpose of the inscription of given content in the
consciousness of a man who is considered such as a mere surface of writing, of inscription of content determined a priori.
The image of a man literally dismembered and decomposed by the violence
of war in the famous painting by Picasso Guernica (1937), is thus magnified by
the violence of the stylized image of Vostell’s man (TV-Schue, Décollage, 1970) in
which the body of the man is composed of a head/television, a ‘body’ of old shoes
placed above the legs/batteries or, the man-robot by Nam June Paik (Family of
63
In particular Stiegler’s analysis, later taken up in a number of volumes, can be found in
La technique et le temps, 2- La désorientation, Galilée, Paris 1996. See also, the reference to the
notion of hypomnémata, as support for the process of exteriorisation of memory.
106
Paolo Heritier
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Robot, 1986)64, in which the human body takes the form of a number of televisions
assembled in a humanoid form.
P. Picasso Guernica (1937)
W. Vostell (TV-Schue, Décollage, 1970) Nam June Paik (Family of Robot, 1986)
Here it is the form of the human being that becomes modular, decomposable in
external pieces that determine the interior. Here the custom, far from acting as a
64
Nam June Paik, Becoming Robot, Yale University Press, New Haven, London 2014.
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107
reference to a consciousness linked to the divine, is entirely supplied by technology,
seen as a form of inscription, of writing, televisual, media of the consciousness. The
heart of man is constituted of images that he retains (tertiary retentions). Interesting,
nevertheless, is the analogical permanence of the form of the human being, entirely
composed in an artificial manner, which corresponds to the modern dream of man/
machine already present in that figure of the Corpus Iuris conceived by Hobbes in
the emblematic image of the Leviathan as a personal representation of power in the
Absolute State (after the Roman emperor and the medieval pontiff).
The aesthetic writing of power in the iconic representation of the foundation is transformed into technological writing of custom, mediated by new sources, both communicative and media, inscribed in the heart itself, in the perception and the imagination
of man. As Mondzain emphasizes, the terrifying show that began with the attack on
the Twin Towers of New York in 2001, to the recent iconoclastic destructions of the
representations of the divine and the ferocious executions transmitted via Web by the
new totalitarian subjects seem to lead us back to a new war of images that amplifies the
juridical aesthetic content, until it leads us to formulate new queries. While, in fact, noone can deny that in our society of images, said images are “an instrument of power over
bodies and minds” and that this power, considered over the twenty centuries of Christianity as liberating and redeeming, are now, with the advent of mass-media, potentially a
genuine instrument of alienation and dominion: “images are considered to have incited
the crime when a murder seems to have been modeled after fictions shown on screen”65.
Who then becomes responsible for the acts committed? Those who commit them, or
those who broadcast the images that inspire them? The scholar of images Mondzain
poses a series of questions that the new wars of images seem to raise:
Can images kill? Do images make us killers? Can we go so far as to attribute to them
the guilt or responsibility of crimes and offenses that as objects they couldn’t actually
have committed? Do edifying allegories of virtues and patriotism produce a virtuous
and patriotic world? Does Picasso’s deconstruction or Dora Maar’s face provoke the
carnivorous cutting up of a loved one? No? Then how could some images be more irresistible than others?66
In relation to all these questions that are today represented in the technological era, the reintroduction of the anthropological debate of the tradition of the
juridical emblematic and the considerations on the custom and the consuetude is
obligatory. Against the background of political and juridical theology of the image inherited from the tradition of the Corpus Iuris, it must give way to a radical
consideration of the nexus between the technology, as a new normative source
assumed by the post-totalitarian mass society, and the institution of new customs
and consuetudes through the inscription of new dogmas blindly and enforcedly
inscribed in the conscience of man, through the technologies of communication
and technological propaganda.
65
66
M.J. Mondzain, Can Images Kill?, cit., p. 22.
M.J. Mondzain, Can Images Kill?, cit., p. 26.
Forum “Emotional Force and Form
in Legal Education”
Carlo Ossola1
La legge e la leggenda
1. «Omnis poëtica […] a legislatoribus originem habet»
BIANCHE, bianche, bianche,
come pittura di steccato
si allineano le leggi
e a passo di marcia
entrano.2
Non ha tono e non ha ombra: “bianca”, candida, passa la Legge; così Paul Celan. Ma ciò che è scritto una volta per sempre, la legge che giudica dell’avvenimento, che norma l’agire, può – a sua volta – trovare ‘scioglimento’? Rari sono i casi;
la Legge, come le Tavole mosaiche, è piuttosto circondata da silenti custodi che da
eloquenti interpreti; così nell’apologo figurato di Victor Hugo:
À propos de la loi Faider
Ce qu’on appelle Charte ou Constitution,
C’est un antre qu’un peuple en révolution
Creuse dans le granit, abri sûr et fidèle.
Joyeux, le peuple enferme en cette citadelle
Ses conquêtes, ses droits, payés de tant d’efforts,
Ses progrès, son honneur; pour garder ces trésors,
Il installe en la haute et superbe tanière
La fauve liberté, secouant sa crinière.
L’œuvre faite, il s’apaise, il reprend ses travaux;
Il retourne à son champ, fier de ses droits nouveaux,
Et tranquille, il s’endort sur des dates célèbres,
Sans songer aux larrons rôdant dans les ténèbres.
Un beau matin, le peuple en s’éveillant va voir
Sa Constitution, temple de son pouvoir;
Hélas! De l’antre auguste on a fait une niche.
Il y mit un lion, il y trouve un caniche3.
1
Collège de France, Chaire Littératures Modernes de l’Europe Néolatine
2
«WEISS, weiß, weiß / wie Gittertünche, / reihn die Gesetze sic hein / und marschieren
/ einwärts» (P. Celan, WEISS, da Fadensonnen, 1968 ; poi in Poesie, a cura di G. Bevilacqua,
Milano, Mondadori, 1998, pp. 892-893).
3
V. Hugo, À propos de la loi Faider [“Jersey, Décembre 1852”], poème tiré de Châti-
112
Carlo Ossola
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La Legge, come in Kafka, si ritira, non si pronuncia, si chiude su se stessa; di
non averla potuta leggere o custodire, è il dolente canto nei due poeti. Essa non
si fa testo, è monumentum, si ritrae in alto con i suoi custodi, invisibile, indicibile.
Ma all’origine, il rapporto tra legge e poesia non si presenta così: esse vivono della
stessa virtù ‘architettonica’; non creano ma ‘modellano’ (l’una la società, l’altra la
lingua), ‘fabbricano’ sanzioni o memoria, per essere rivissute nei comportamenti o
nella pronuncia. Nel capitolo della Poetica dedicato alla Natura della poesia Campanella situa bene il primato di tale “poetica arte”:
prima è quella che comanda a tutte l’altre e si dice architettonica, come la legislature
di Licurgo e di Solone e, più divinamente, quella di Mosè, la quale, riguardando alla
felicità pubblica, sa indrizzare l’altre arti al fine4 .
Mosè, David, poeti ebrei “per intendenza architettonica”5 del fine, non per “cieca imitazione” del già scritto. ‘Architettonica’ e ‘memorabile’ la poesia confonde
le proprie origini con quelle della legge, ed ‘edificando’ si fa, secondo Campanella,
vero “poema filosofico”:
perché le cose utili e buone devono essere da tutti tenute a memoria, il verso per
la dolcezza e stringimento delle sentenze e per la regola del numero, resta assai più in
mente e ognuno lo legge, come si vede che ha grandissima forza di allettare i lettori [ad]
imprimere nella loro mente. Però gli accorti legislatori, come fu Solone, in versi mise la
legge di Atene, e quando voleva avvertire il popolo, che pretendeva la tirannide, come
poi avvenne, scriveva il suo giudizio in verso; e Moise, non mai a bastanza lodato, fece
quel cantico nel fine della sua legge […], acciò, tutti imparando quella canzone in mente,
fussero saldi nella legge divina, con sì dolci e verdadieri versi commendata e impressa
nell’animo del popolo involto ad edificar la città e apprendere i precetti politichi. Onde
si vede che questo poema filosofico è più antico e più utile degli altri6.
Nella Poëtica latina, anzi, Campanella è più radicale e sentenzia che “omnis poëtica […] a legislatoribus originem habet”7; esiste dunque, alla base del vivere associato, un “poëma legale” che edifica e custodisce la “communitatis virtus”, e che il verso
‘stringe’ in sentenze memorabili: “quoniam lex est communitatis virtus, potest poëma
legali fieri, ut Solon; at melius leges claris strictisque verbis canendae videntur”8. Poesia e legge obbediscono dunque a uno stesso ‘principio di condensazione’ [“claris
strictisque verbis canendae”], incrementato da apporti mnemotecnici come l’ausi-
ments; dans Oeuvres poétiques, II: Les Châtiments, Les Contemplations, par P. Albouy, Paris,
Gallimard,1967, pp. 88-89.
4
G. Campanella, Poetica, cap. III; in Tutte le opere, a cura di L. Firpo, vol. I: Scritti
letterari, Milano, Mondadori, 1954, p. 319.
5
Ibid., p. 320.
6
Ibid., cap. XI: I generi poetici, p. 339.
7
G. Campanella, Rationalis Philosophiae pars quarta, videlicet: Poëticorum liber unus
iuxta propria principia, cap. V, ibid., p. 1014.
8
Ibid., cap. VIII: De poëmatum speciebus, pp. 1054-1056.
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113
lio delle lettere alfabetiche, così che il Salmo CXVIII [Aleph: “Beati immaculati in
via…”] e l’Odissea vengono ad assumere un stessa “affectionem iucundam”:
Poëma legale in psalmo CXVIII, ubi legem laudat, et ad illam nos animat, virtutesque eius docet. Neque est versiculus in quo lex . aut mandatum, aut testimonium, aut
iustificatio, aut verbum Dei non nominetur in gloriam Dei, varie semper loquens de
eadem re, ut non satietatem sed affectionem iucundam generet; et iuxta alphabeti literas
distinctus est, sicuti Homeri Odyssea9.
Ma quel tempo mitico nel quale legge e poesia identificavano la “communitatis
virtus” è remotissimo e i poemi giuridici sono caduti in disuso, osserva Campanella
nell’apposito “articulus” De poëmate legali:
Poëmata legalia cessarunt, qualia fecit Solon, et Arabum legifer, et Amphion, et
Orpheus, si Horatio credimus. Attamen Iuvencus legem evangelicam versibus expressit,
ipsique legum glossatores, ut memoria tenax sit multarum et abstrusarum conditionum
et legum, versiculos pangunt10.
Dagli Evangeli in esametri alle glosse giuridiche in versi, poesia e norma sono
state per millenni legate: “validissimum enim carmen memoriae adiumentum et
aeternitatis custos”11; tutto ciò che ambisce ad essere aere perennius si confida al
verso, le leggi – come vuole la tradizione platonica12 e propone lo stesso Campanella13 –, la virtù, l’essenza del divino manifestata all’uomo: “totam quoque legis
summam cantico comprehendere, sicut fecit Moyses incipiens: Audite coeli, quae
loquor, etc., laudabile est”14. Una poesia siffatta, piena di legge, di memoria, di
eternità, sarebbe concisa e perenne, “piena d’amore per tutto il genere umano”:
Huius carminis autor sapientia plenus et amore generis humani esse debet. Sermo non
erit longus, qui in hora vix una recitari possit et ab omnibus populis memoriter addisci15.
E mentre da un lato, sul versante della sincronia dei generi, sarà agevole osservare che nel XVII secolo ‘legge’ e ‘mistica’, il dettato del sempre e l’illuminazione
dell’istante, sembrano convergere nella pointe aforistica, in un’infiammata (e non
meno lancinante) “ex pharetra sui cordis”16 sagitta iaculatoria ”17, prima di trovare
9
Ibid., cap. VIII, p. 1060.
10
Ibid., cap. VIII, art. III, pp. 1072 – 1074.
11
Ibid., p. 1074.
12
Cfr. Platone, Le Leggi, lib. V, 10 §§ 739-40; e anche Minos, XVI, §§ 320-321.
13
“Leges quidem omnes carmine comprehendere esset formam vagae materiae imprimere” (T. Campanella, Poëtica, cap. VIII, art. III, ed. cit., p. 1074).
14
Ibidem. La citazione biblica è tratta da Deut. XXXII, 1-2: “Audite, coeli, quae loquar:
audiat terra verba oris mei. // Concrescat ut pluvia doctrina mea, fluat ut ros eloquium meum”.
15
T. Campanella, Poëtica, cap. VIII, art. III, ed. cit., p. 1074.
16
G. Bona, Via compendii ad Deum, per motus anagogicos, et orationes jaculatorias. Liber
isagogicus ad Mysticam Theologiam, Romae 1657, cap. XI [cito dalla edizione, più tarda, presso
Giovanni Maria Lazzaroni, Venezia 1742, p. 91].
17
Ibidem.
114
Carlo Ossola
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una concisa18 “scienza nuova” – nel XVIII secolo – nelle “degnità” di Giambattista
Vico; d’altro lato, nella diacronia della tradizione, non sarà impossibile – sebbene
raro – trovare qualche esempio di legge suggellata dal sigillo memorabile del verso.
2. «L’antica giurisprudenza fu una severa poesia»
La tradizione, infatti, non si può mai dire del tutto spenta, e anzi troverà nuovo vigore nella riflessione storica di Vico, tanto nella prima formulazione ch’egli
ripropone, sulle orme di Campanella, del legame tra ‘legge’ e ‘poesia’ nel De constantia iurisprudentis (1721), quanto nelle successive riprese del tema nelle varie
stesure della Scienza nuova (1724-1744). Nella “pars posterior” del De constantia,
dal titolo De constantia philologiae, l’argomento è ripreso più volte nei capitoli XIIXV, che di quel legame fondativo lasciano memorabili definizioni, sin da quella che
inaugura il paragrafo dedicato alla Prima gentium lingua poetica :
[…] Veritas est linguas religione et legibus conservari. […] fatentur [omnes] primos
scriptorum poetas quoque fuisse; et […] poeticam primam gentium fuisse linguam,
qua primae ipsarum leges et religiones fundatae sunt”19.
Ma Vico vede nel legame tra poesia e legge non solo una spiccata risorsa per la
‘memorabilità’ (come suggeriva Campanella), bensì un vincolo necessario, ch’egli
esemplifica ricorrendo all’autorità di Cicerone:
Eodem impetu in cantum erumpebant, principio arhythmicum, immodulatum,
quali cantu romani pueri legem XII Tabularum, “tanquam necessarium carmen”,
ut Cicero tradit, ediscebant20.
18
“Ex primo fonte est brevitas poetica praeceptorum, quam monet in Arte Horatius.
Ex qua nata primum concisa oraculorum responsa, quae carminibus omnia dabantur, et legum
primarum brevitas, quae latinis “carmina” dicta sunt, quia certis verbis concepta erant: ex qua
certa formularum conceptione, plenissima gravitas, et oraculorum instar, iurisconsultorum responsa provenere” (G.B. Vico, De constantia iurisprudentis, II: De constantia philologiae, XII: De
linguae heroicae sive de poeseos origine, § 15: Ex verborum inopia et ingenio gentium…, in Opere
giuridiche, introduzione di N. Badaloni, a cura di P. Cristofolini, Firenze, Sansoni, 1974, pp.
460-461 (testo latino e traduzione a fronte) [“Dalla prima fonte scaturisce quella brevità poetica,
che Orazio raccoglie nella sua Ars poetica. Donde dapprima i concisi responsi degli oracoli che
venivano dati tutti sotto forma di carmi, e la brevità delle prime leggi, dette dai Latini “carmi”
perché erano redatte con parole fissate. Da questa redazione certa delle formule, e piena di autorevole gravità, e a somiglianza degli oracoli, discesero i responsi dei giureconsulti”].
19
G.B. Vico, De constantia iurisprudentis, II: De constantia philologiae, XII: De linguae
heroicae sive de poeseos origine, § 2: Prima gentium lingua poetica, in G.B. Vico, Opere giuridiche,
introduzione di N. Badaloni, a cura di P. Cristofolini, Firenze, Sansoni, 1974, pp. 450-451 (testo
latino e traduzione a fronte).
20
G.B. Vico, De constantia iurisprudentis, II: De constantia philologiae, XII: De linguae
heroicae sive de poeseos origine, § 20: Cur primi homines cantando loqui coeperunt, ed. cit., pp.
466-467 [«prorompevano con impeto nel canto, al principio aritmico e non modulato, a quel
modo che i fanciulli romani – stando a Cicerone – imparavano cantando la legge delle XII Tavole
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115
Questo vincolo si ricapitola, primariamente in Mosè, legislatore e poeta, fondatore della Legge (“Et hinc quoque cur Moses, qui primo historicus, philosophus et legislator, primus quoque poeta fuerit, ut ipsius Canticum docet”)21, ma
si prolunga poi nei “teologi politici”22 delle nazioni, creando così una coesione
originaria tra poesia, leggi e religio: “Et lingua poetica primis gentibus fuit lingua
religionis et legum”23. Questo sacramentum rappresentato dalla poesia è insieme
la sua ferma durata24 e la sua sapientia: “prima omnium fuit sapientia poetarum,
in fundandis respublicis posita, ut tradit in Arte Horatius”25; e rende sacro il suo
esercizio: “Hinc poetae “divini” et “vates” et “sacerdotes” e “deorum interpretes”
dicti”26. Simmetricamente i legislatori vanno considerati, nelle origini, circonfusi
della stessa ‘aura sacra’ riservata ai poeti: “Quia iurisconsulti fuerunt proprii vates
romanorum, qui poetas heroes in sua origine antiquissima referebant”27, sì che –
negli aforismi conclusivi di Vico – legge e canto furono un unico modulato νόμος:
V. Et carmina fuisse leges, quae […] cantu dictatae, facilius memoriae mandabantur.
VI. Unde idem verbum νόμος et “legem” et “cantum” significat.
VII. Et sic poetas fuisse primos legislatores28.
Tali principi verranno ribaditi e compendiati nella Scienza nuova, tanto nella
redazione 1725 (“La prima sapienza legislatrice fu de’ poeti”)29, quanto soprattutto in quella conclusiva 1744, ove, giunto Vico al compimento dell’opera, ne
“come una poesia obbligatoria”»].
21
Ivi, cap. XIII, § 13: Cur Moses primus quoque poeta, ed. cit., pp. 474-475 [“Con ciò si
spiega perché Mosè, oltre che primo storico, primo filosofo e primo legislatore, fu anche primo
poeta, come testimonia il suo Cantico”].
22
Ivi, cap. XIII, § 16: Theologi politici – Ut dii gentium nati, ed. cit., pp. 474-475.
23
Ivi, cap. XIII, § 19: Lingua poetica est religionis et legum, ed. cit., pp. 476-477 [“Presso
i popoli primevi la lingua poetica fu la lingua delle religioni e delle leggi”].
24
Ivi, cap. XIII, § 21: “Romanis legum formulae “carmina” appellata, certis verbis, non
metris conclusa; uti νόμοι (“cantus”) graeci leges vocatae”, ed.cit., pp. 476-477 [“I Romani chiamarono “carmina” le formule delle leggi: composte di parole fissate, non conchiuse in metri; così
i Greci chiamarono “νόμοι” (“canti”) le leggi”]. Il concetto “νόμοι” = “canto” è ripreso poco
oltre: cfr. cap. XIV: De vulgarium linguarum et characterum origine, § 1, ed. cit., pp. 480-481.
25
Ivi, cap. XIII, § 24: Prima sapientia poetarum, ed. cit., pp. 476-477 [“La prima sapienza dei poeti fu posta e esercitata nella fondazione degli Stati, come tramanda Orazio nella
sua Ars poetica”].
26
Ivi, cap. XIII, § 28: Cur poetae “sacri”?, ed. cit., pp. 478-479 [“Perciò i poeti furono
detti “divini”, “vati”, “sacerdoti” e “interpreti degli dei””].
27
Ivi, cap. XIII, § 32: Iurisconsulti tales quales primi poetae, ed. cit., pp. 478-479 [“Perciò i giureconsulti furono propriamente i vati dei Romani, che riportavano i poeti-eroi alla loro
antichissima origine”].
28
Ivi, cap. XV: Ex vulgarium linguarum et characterum origine consectanea, §§ V-VII, ed.
cit., pp. 484-485 [“V. E carmi erano le leggi , che […] dettate col canto, più facilmente erano
mandate a memoria. VI. Per questo la parola “νόμος” significa legge e canto ad un tempo. VII.
In tal modo, i poeti furono anche i primi legislatori”].
29
G.B. Vico, Princìpi di una scienza nuova intorno alla natura delle nazioni, [1725], lib.
III: Princìpi di questa scienza per la parte delle lingue, cap. XIX: Prima sapienza legislatrice come
fu de’ poeti?, in Opere, a cura di A. Battistini, Milano, Mondadori, 1990, vol. II, p. 1123.
116
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ricapitolerà il senso in un finale corollario dal titolo: “Il diritto romano antico fu
un serioso poema e l’antica giurisprudenza fu una severa poesia, dentro la quale si
truovano i primi dirozzamenti della legal metafisica, e come a’ Greci dalle leggi uscì
la filosofia”30.
Nella Querelle des Anciens et des Modernes31, Vico riportava all’antico, all’Ars
poetica di Orazio, il principio della poesia, il fondamento delle leggi:
………….. Fuit haec sapientia quondam,
publica privatis secernere, sacra profanis,
[…]
oppida moliri, leges incidere ligno.
Sic honor et nomen divinis vatibus atque
carminibus venit […]
…… Dictae per carmina sortes
et vitae monstrata via est…32
Sullo stesso tono la riflessione di Jean-Jacques Rousseau, attento anch’egli a munire le leggi (nelle loro origini) di un valore mitopoetico:
Les premières histoire, les premières harangues, les premières lois, furent en vers :
la poésie fut trouvée avant la prose ; cela devait être, puisque les passions parlèrent
avant la raison.33
Nel secolo successivo, il Leopardi estenderà alla filosofia stessa il dovere di aderire
– per mantenere la propria predicabilità ed efficacia – alle «leggi universali» dell’ «idioma popolare». La «precisione» diviene anzi un «ostacolo» alla vera ‘comprensione’:
essa definisce, certo, ma non attinge a ciò che, essendo comune, è per tutti valido:
Gridino a piacer loro i mezzi filosofi. Ricchezza che importi varietà, bellezza, espressione, efficacia, forza, brio, grazia, facilità, mollezza, naturalezza, non l’avrà mai, non
l’ebbe e non l’ha veruna lingua, che non abbia moltissimo, e non da principio soltan-
30
G.B. Vico, Princìpi di scienza nuova, [1744], sezione XIV: Ultime pruove le quali confermano tal corso di nazioni, cap. II, Corollario, ed. cit., vol. I, p. 921. E, poco dopo conferma lo
stesso concetto: “Talché tutto il diritto romano antico fu un serioso poema, che si rappresentava
da’ romani nel foro, e l’antica giurisprudenza fu una severa poesia” (ivi, p. 926).
31
Rinvio al mirabile saggio di Marc Fumaroli, Les abeilles et les araignées, preposto a La
Querelles des Anciens et des Modernes. XVII°-XVIII° siècles, Paris, Gallimard, 2001, pp. 7-220.
Nel volume trova centrale rilievo l’orazione vichiana De nostri temporis studiorum ratione, 1709
(cfr. pp. 432-449).
32
Q. Orazio Flacco, Ars poëtica, vv. 396-404, in Le opere, II, 3: Le epistole, L’arte poetica,
testo critico di P. Fedeli, traduzione di C. Carena, Roma, Istituto Poligrafico dello Stato, 1997, pp.
952-953 [“Questa fu la sapienza di quei tempi: / distinguere dal pubblico il privato, / il sacro dal
profano, […] / costruire città, / incidere su tavole di legno / le leggi. In questo modo onore e fama
venne ai vati divini e ai loro canti. / […] / In versi furono espressi gli oracoli, / fu guidata la vita”].
33
J.-J. Rousseau, Essai sur l’origine des langues [saggio abbozzato nel 1755 e pubblicato
postumo nel 1781]; cito dalle Œuvres complètes. Philosophie, Discours, Paris, Dupont, 1824,
tome II, chap. XII, p. 469. Nostro il corsivo.
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to, ma continuamente approfittato ed attinto al linguaggio popolare, non già scrivendo
come il popolo parla, ma riducendo ciò ch’ella prende dal popolo, alle forme alle leggi
universali della sua letteratura, e della lingua nazionale. La precisione filosofica non ha
punto che fare con veruna delle dette qualità: e la ricchezza filosofica e logica, cioè di
parole precise ec. e di modi geometrici ec. serve bensì al filosofo, è una ricchezza, ed
è necessaria, ma non importa veruna delle dette qualità, anzi serve loro di ostacolo,
e bene spesso, com’è avvenuto al francese, ne spoglia quasi affatto quella lingua, che
già le possedeva. Tutte le dette qualità sono principalissimamente proprie dell’idioma
popolare; e se la lingua italiana scritta, si distingue in ordine ad esse qualità, fra tutte le
altre moderne; se è ricca fra tutte le moderne, ed anche le antiche di quella ricchezza che
produce e contiene le dette qualità; ciò proviene dall’aver la lingua italiana scritta (forse
perchè poco ancora applicata alla filosofia, e generalmente poco moderna), attinto più,
e più durevolmente che qualunque altra, al linguaggio popolare.34
3. «La legge e la leggenda»
Nel Novecento, tra i protagonisti della Costituente repubblicana, non mancherà
chi saprà fornire ragioni all’art.1 proprio attingendo alla memoria poetica.
Quale infatti sia stato il fervore di pensiero, il valore simbolico, che riunì gli italiani intorno al dibattito, parlamentare e pubblico, che preparò la redazione della
Costituzione italiana, dal 1945 al 1948, è ancora dato leggere nelle pagine vibranti
di Piero Calamandrei, tutte tese a forgiare una democrazia ricca di avvenire :
Come potrà la costituente italiana tradurre in norme legali soltanto una serie di propositi e di speranze? Dovrà redigere un elenco di tendenze, non di fatti compiuti.
Questo mi pare che sia il problema centrale, non solo politico ma anche tecnico,
della costituente: questa dura necessità, imposta dalla situazione in cui l’Italia si trova, di
dover essere non l’epilogo, ma il prologo di una rivoluzione sociale.
Agli uomini che dovranno redigere la legge costituzionale da cui dovrà iniziarsi il
nuovo risorgimento italiano, si presenteranno in forma di problemi tecnici le stesse domande accorate che quasi settanta anni fa poneva il poeta:
Quando il lavoro sarà lieto?
quando securo sarà l’amore?
Quando una forte plebe di liberi
dirà, guardando nel sole – Illumina
non ozi e guerre a i tiranni,
ma la giustizia pia del lavoro-?
Io temo, ahimè, che a questa angosciosa domanda, la costituente non potrà rispondere:
– Oggi! – Ma questo non dovrà scoraggiarci: noi uomini vissuti e destinati a morire in questa tragica stagione del dolore, dovremo serenamente creare nella costituente lo strumento
per aprire alla giustizia sociale le vie di un domani che noi potremo soltanto intravedere.35
34
G. Leopardi, Zibaldone, §§ 1247-1248, [30 giugno 1821]; cito dall’edizione a cura di
F. Flora, Milano, Mondadori, 1937 e 1973, vol. I, p. 841.
35
P. Calamandrei, Costituente e questione sociale, in «Il Ponte», I, agosto 1945, pp. 368379; raccolto poi in Costruire la Democrazia. Premesse alla Costituente, con un saggio introdut-
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La seconda parte del XX secolo ha reso, grazie all’ausilio dell’ermeneutica e
delle scienze sociali, più acuta la coscienza che la Legge non solo codifica ma anche ricapitola: nel normare, essa stessa interpreta e condensa, stringe e suggella il
lascito dell’esperienza di società e di generazioni che si sono date regole e comportamenti36; si potrebbe così affermare, con il poeta Piero Bigongiari, che «la
scrittura della legge corrisponde alla sua rilettura».37 E poiché il poema è dedicato
al riaffiorare – nella figura biblica di Mosè e di altri miti classici – della Legge, giova
ulteriormente annotare quanto il crescere dell’ermeneutica biblica abbia notevolmente contribuito all’affinarsi dell’ermeneutica giuridica:
D’altronde la Legge iscritta sulle Tavole fu spezzata sulla roccia da Mosè, e fu riscritta. Esiste dunque nella legislazione dei fatti e dei comportamenti umani il momento
leggendario, e primario, della loro mancata accettazione: che par quasi corrispondere al
rifiuto primordiale dell’essere alla propria modificazione.38
Ma la poesia, rispetto all’interpretazione, mira – come la legge – a inscrivere una
parola durevole, tale che, condensando il tempo, lo fissi e lo superi, nell’anamnesi
lo medichi, nella scrittura lo depuri per renderlo “seme” e “tegumento”; e Bigongiari stesso ne formula il più vivido emblema:
Cammino dietro a poche cose, quelle
meno necessarie, le più volatili,
le meno rare. Forse in mano ad esse
è il codice per leggere il messaggio
che la legge ha lasciato sul tuo tavolo,
semiaperto, semicancellato,
fra terribilità e dolcezza.39
In quello iato si dispone, fascino e limite della legge, «la benda / dei segni che
l’accertano o la mettono / in forse, perché, vedi, sotto sanguina».40
tivo di Paolo Barile, Firenze, Vallecchi, 1995, pp. 91-113; riedito da Le Balze, Montepulciano
2003, pp. 69-83. Citerò, per la sua più ampia diffusione, dall’edizione Vallecchi (la citazione è la
pagina conclusiva, ivi, pp. 112-113). I versi citati sono quelli di G. Carducci, La Madre (Gruppo
di Adriano Cecioni), dalle Nuove Odi barbare, Bologna, Zanichelli, 1882; Adriano Cecioni (Vaglia 1836 – Firenze 1886), scolpì il gruppo marmoreo La madre nel 1880; esso è conservato a
Roma, Galleria nazionale d’arte moderna e contemporanea.
36
Si veda, ad esempio, e recentemente, G. Benedetti, Oggettività esistenziale dell’interpretazione : studi su ermeneutica e diritto, Torino, Giappichelli, 2014; ed anche G. Zaccaria – F.
Viola, Diritto e interpretazione : lineamenti di teoria ermeneutica del diritto, Bari, Laterza, 2013
[VIII ediz.; Ia: 1999]; e P. Nerhot, Il diritto, lo scritto, il senso : saggio di ermeneutica giuridica,
Ferrara, Corso, 1992.
37
P. Bigongiari, La legge e la leggenda, Milano, Mondadori, 1992, Avvertenza e qualche
nota, p. 143.
38
Ibidem.
39
P. Bigongiari, Tra la legge e la leggenda, in La legge e la leggenda, cit., p. 85.
40
Ibidem.
Pierangelo Sequeri1
Estetica del comandamento
Fenomenologia ed ermeneutica dell’ingiunzione
Occorre iniziare da qualche parte. Vorrei dunque iniziare con Immanuel Kant.
E precisamente, dal celebre paragrafo (§ 59) che è alla fine della prima parte della
Critica del giudizio (1790). In realtà, il punto culminante del primo argomento della mia riflessione sarà consacrato piuttosto al paragrafo 60, che figura (ma, penso,
che si tratti di un understatement legato all’ironia filosofica) come un semplice appendice metodologica (§ 60 Anhang, Von der Methodenlehre des Geschmacks, KN,
Marassi, A 261; p. 408).
Ora io dico che il bello è il simbolo del bene morale. E che anche solo sotto questo
punto di vista (di una relazione che è naturale in ognuno, e ognuno esige dagli altri come
un dovere) esso piace con la pretesa al consenso universale, mentre in esso si sente come
nobilitato ed elevato sulla semplice capacità di provare piacere dalle impressioni dei
sensi, ed apprezza il valore degli altri secondo una massima simile del loro Giudizio. È
l’intelligibile ciò cui mira il gusto, come è stato dimostrato nel paragrafo precedente; ad
esso, cioè, in cui si accordano anche le nostre facoltà superiori della conoscenza, e senza
del quale nascerebbe una profonda contraddizione tra la natura delle facoltà conoscitive
e le pretese del gusto. In questa facoltà il Giudizio non si vede, come quando è empirico,
sottoposto all’eteronomia delle leggi dell’esperienza: riguardo agli oggetti di un piacere
così puro esso dà a se stesso la legge, come fa la ragione riguardo alla facoltà di desiderare; e, sia per questa interna possibilità che è nel soggetto, sia per la possibilità esterna di
una natura che si accordi con la prima, il Giudizio si vede legato a qualche cosa che è nel
soggetto stesso e fuori di esso, che non è natura né libertà, ma è congiunto col principio
di quest’ultima, vale a dire col soprasensibile, nel quale la facoltà teoretica e la pratica si
congiungono in una maniera comune, ma sconosciuta_2.
La maggior parte dei commentari si sono prodigati a restituire coerenza a queste parole, vale a dire a comprenderle in modo da poter conservare la distinzione
kantiana tra giudizio estetico e giudizio morale. Gli esperti ricordano lo scambio
con Schiller a proposito della legge e della grazia, dell’ingiunzione e della felicità,
del piacere e del volere. La chiarezza dello scambio non cambia nulla: la facoltà del
desiderio, vale a dire del voler il bene, è altra cosa dalla facoltà del piacere, vale a
dire il sentimento della bellezza e della soddisfazione del gusto.
1
Preside della Facoltà teologica dell’Italia Settentrionale e membro della Commessione
Teologica Internazionale.
2
I. Kant, Critica del Giudizio, Laterza, Roma-Bari, 1997, traduzione di A. Gargiulo, pp. 385-7.
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Nella prospettiva di Kant, per cominciare, non vi è nessun desiderio di bellezza
che possa ingiungere il volere del bene. Non è una cosa facile da pensare per noi
oggi – lo dico di passaggio, seguendo J.F. Lyotard su questo punto – e può darsi che
per noi Occidentali, abitati come siamo dalla passione del volere, non si distingua
tra potenza e godimento, tra imperativo della legge e grazia della fede. L’interesse
del bene, per noi, dipende piuttosto dalla legge del desiderio che dal desiderio
della legge. E anche, la grazia della felicità è più vicina al desiderio che al comandamento. In questa prospettiva, paradossalmente si è più vicini a Kant, allontanandosene. Da un lato, la bellezza e il gusto sono questione del desiderio, del volere,
della potenza dell’interesse e del bisogno del bene. D’altro lato, l’imperativo, la
legge, il comandamento, non hanno nulla a che fare con la “libera soddisfazione”
e “la felicità del gusto”. Non vi è posto per una “estetica del comandamento”, né
per “la grazia della libertà”, in quanto sovranità della manifestazione che si impone giustamente a causa della libertà e dell’affezione: modalità dell’essere che è in
sé senza ingiunzione e per me senza interesse. Quindi, l’opposizione della legge
e della libertà è divenuta radicale (in accordo con Kant). L’identificazione della
bellezza con il bene (fuori quadro per Kant) è pressoché totale. L’imperativo del
Godimento, come ha mostrato bene Slavoj Žižek (il moralismo-immoralismo di
Nietzsche) è all’opera, e va ad abitare l’imperativo categorico di Kant (il desiderio
dell’uomo, va ad ammansire il diritto degli uomini, e va a occupare la semantica dei
diritti dell’uomo, cfr. A. Supiot, per esempio).
Il rispetto della legge, in Kant, certo, è in Sè un’affezione libera. Un certo rapporto tra estetica e etica si gioca nella condizione che Kant accorda al piacere di
stima per quel che riguarda la felicità del gusto (Foucault e Nancy, a questo proposito). Ma la legge “quant à elle, et pour ainsi dire après coup, par ce qu’elle prescrit, ne serait-ce qu’une forme des actions à accomplir, la loi impose à la volonté
des intérêts pour certains objets”_. Questi oggetti sono delle azioni, o piuttosto, dal
momento che la legge è formale, della massime di azione. E “ils deviennent, du fait
de la prescription, puissamment intéressants”.
Tuttavia, l’affermazione di Kant è categorica (!): “poiché dove parla la legge
morale non resta oggettivamente alcuna libertà nella scelta circa ciò che si deve
fare”_. Ritorno del vincolo dell’oggetto in quanto ritorno alla facoltà di desiderare.
La stima, da questo punto di vista, soggiace alla stessa posta in gioco della “saturazione”, la Vergnüngung, che è la posta in gioco specifica della facoltà di desiderare.
In quel che è ragionevole giudicare buono, si può distinguere il “wozu gut” dall’
“an sich gut”: ma l’uno e l’altro suppongono “il concetto di un fine”. Si deve, in
ogni caso, mettere dalla parte dell’utilitaristico il piacevole, al quale la ragione non
ha parte (KpV, 59-65; 68-74). Resta che a questi due estremi della soddisfazione, il
piacevole e il buono puro e semplice, passando per l’utile, per quanto diversi essi
siano quanto alla ragione, un tratto comune si riconosce che li distingue dal piacere
estetico, l’interesse “relativo al loro oggetto” (53; 46)3.
3
J. F. Lyotard, Leçons sur l’Analytique du sublime, Galilée, Paris, 1991.
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La distinzione dell’estetico e dell’etico pare qui senza appello. Essa obbedisce all’eterogeneità tra le due “facoltà dello spirito’ rispettivamente in gioco, il
sentimento di piacere e di dolore, la facoltà di desiderare: “S’agissait pourtant,
dans la troisième Critique, d’établir un pont entre le pouvoir de connaître et le
pouvoir de vouloir, et le sentiment en question, le sentiment esthétique, devait
servir de pilier central pour lancer un pont à deux arches entre ces pouvoirs. E
voici que la première arche viendrait à manquer, celle qui devait ouvrir le transit
de la volonté vers le sentiment? Ce qui interdit de la bâtir, c’est l’intérêt. [...] Ce
divorce [entre goûter et vouloir, NdR] ne se prononce pas sans débat. Le juge critique multiplie les procédures en conciliation. Notamment dans les paragraphes
42 e 59, qu’on est convenut de lire comme s’ils exposaient la ‘thèse’ kantienne
sur le problème”.
Vogliamo indicare alcuni punti di questa analogia senza peraltro lasciare inosservate
le differenze. 1) Il bello piace immediatamente (ma solo nell’intuizione riflettente, non,
come la moralità, nel concetto). 2) Esso piace senza alcun interesse (il bene morale è
bensì necessariamente legato con un interesse, ma non con un interesse che precede il
giudizio di piacere, perché anzi l’interesse è prodotto dal giudizio). 3) La libertà dell’immaginazione (quindi della sensibilità della nostra facoltà) è rappresentata nel giudizio
del bello come in accordo con la legalità dell’intelletto (nel giudizio morale, la libertà del
volere è concepita come accordo della volontà con se stessa secondo le leggi universali
della ragione). 4) Il principio soggettivo del giudizio del bello è rappresentato come
universale, cioè valevole per ognuno, ma non conoscibile mediante alcun concetto universale (il principio oggettivo della moralità è rappresentato anche esso come universale,
cioè valido per tutti i soggetti e nello stesso tempo per tutte le azioni di ogni soggetto,
ma anche come conoscibile mediante un concetto universale). Perciò il giudizio morale
è non soltanto capace di principi costitutivi determinati, ma non è possibile se non sul
fondamento delle massime che derivano dalla loro universalità.
L’osservazione di questa analogia è familiare anche al senso comune; e chiamiamo
spesso gli oggetti belli della natura o dell’arte con termini che sembrano avere per principio un giudizio morale. Diciamo maestosi e magnifici degli edifici e degli alberi, ridenti
e gai i campi; anche i colori li chiamiamo innocenti, modesti, teneri, perché eccitano
sensazioni, le quali hanno qualche cosa di analogo con la coscienza di uno stato d’animo prodotto da giudizi morali. Il gusto rende possibile così il passaggio, senza un salto troppo brusco, dell’attrattiva dei sensi all’interesse morale abituale, rappresentando
l’immaginazione anche nella sua libertà come capace di essere determinata in modo da
accordarsi con l’intelletto, e insegnando a trovare perfino negli oggetti dei sensi, anche
senza attrazione sensibile, un libero piacere4.
Il sentimento del bello nasconderebbe comunque un interesse, un ‘interesse
intellettuale’, da comprendere qui come non empirico. Un interesse, quello dell’ingiunzione a realizzare quel che la legge morale prescrive, interesse ‘intellettuale’
perché sarebbe attaccato all ‘oggetto’ che la ragione prescrive alla volontà di realizzare, il bene (p. 273 ss.). L’oggetto di un’Idea della ragione, impresentabile per
se stessa nell’intuizione, diviene presentabile mediante un analogo intuitivo, che
4
I. Kant, Critica del Giudizio, § 59, Laterza, Roma-Bari, p. 387-9.
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è allora ‘simbolo’. La bellezza potrebbe così essere “il simbolo della moralità” (p.
385). Non si tratta di attraversare il varco così aperto (contro i molteplici avvertimenti di Kant) per re-impiantare la testa di ponte metafisica sul suolo critico, per la
fretta di transitare dal bello al bene. Neppure di continuare: facendo sentire il bello
si farà fare il bene. L’analogia non distrugge l’eterogeneità, che resta insuperabile.
E tuttavia, il montaggio analogico è lungi dall’avere l’aspetto di un vero ponte.
Però, a dispetto del pericolo, e nella prospettiva stessa di Kant, occorre consolidare questo passaggio fragile, “parce l’unification qu’il vise, celle du système, en a
grand besoin”5.
Quanto a me, potrei aggiungere, su questo punto (e su questo ponte) che vi
è qui una aporia fondamentale da risolvere, che è divenuta cruciale (e può darsi
drammatica) attraverso l’eredità kantiana del post-moderno nell’ambito delle categorie implicate nel rapporto tra interesse e desiderio (singolare/universale, legge/
libertà, ingiunzione/godimento). Lo dirò in qualche parola.
Nella prospettiva kantiana, la legge non dipende dall’interesse della volontà per
il bene, essa la comanda. La legge coglie immediatamente la volontà, mediante l’obbligazione, senza riguardo ad alcun oggetto (KpV 66; 76). Il suo dictum (il contenuto) è ridotto al comandamento (senza oggetto). La costituzione morale (umana,
razionale) del desiderio, quindi, è ridotta all’ingiunzione del dovere. L’analogia è
quindi giustificata da questo raddoppiamento dell’ingiunzione del bene che conduce immediatamente a essa stessa. L’interesse che il pensiero che giudica del bello
porta al suo oggetto è così immediato. La differenza, fondamentalmente, rimane
stabilita tra il gusto (che è il sentimento estetico) e il rispetto (che è il sentimento
etico). Tuttavia, vi è un altro aspetto che occorre considerare (e che, a mio avviso,
la critica dimentica). Nell’esperienza comune, soprattutto quando si tratta della
qualità umana dei doveri relazionali, il sospetto di un interesse (sia la giustizia o il
godimento) produce immediatamente la delusione della scoperta che l’obbligazione del dovere che si intende compiere o la speranza di una ricompensa che si vuole
ottenere hanno preso il posto dell’affezione che si sarebbe in diritto di attendere:
almeno se è vero che il dovere assoluto viene stabilito dalla massima che comanda di considerare ogni essere umano come fine in sé e non come mezzo per altro.
Quindi al rispetto dell’assoluto morale occorrerebbe unire la modalità disinteressata dell’affezione. D’altra parte, l’affezione morale non può essere comandata allo
stesso modo che la volontà del bene. E tuttavia, essa deve esserlo, se l’ingiunzione
non è la conseguenza dispotica (o pragmatica) che dipende dall’interesse per il
bene, ma il suo stesso comandamento: e quindi la forza stessa che ne stabilisce la
forma (forma della volontà, ma anche forma della libertà), in quanto factum rationis della moralità trascendentale che s’impone, costituendola, al soggetto umano).
Al di là di questo quadro, vale a dire, di una modalità della volontà del bene staccata da sé, l’interesse – persino se razionale e puro, per la giustizia e per il dovere
– non si troverebbe lontano dall’indifferenza. Avrebbe, può darsi, una competenza
sulla volontà razionale del bene, ma non del tutto sul razionale voler-bene. Si può
5
J. F. Lyotard, op. cit., p. 203.
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veramente dubitare che il voler-bene sia in diritto – e anche in dovere – di essere
iscritto, vale a dire sottomesso, all’imperativo morale (e quindi alla legge?).
D’alto lato, occorrerebbe riflettere sull’antinomia del giudizio di gusto, che è
speculare. La bellezza è oggetto di un giudizio disinteressato, è vero. E tuttavia,
la bellezza ci interessa, e molto. Perché la bellezza è anche il simbolo di quel
che il giudizio morale non sarà e non potrà mai essere: vale a dire il sublime del
dover-essere, che non può rispondere all’ingiunzione morale né per obbligazione,
né per dovere, né per giustizia. Neppure quando intima il godimento, la felicità,
il gusto come una perfezione della forma: compiuta, sostanziale, corrispondente
metafisicamente o funzionalmente.
La questione è la seguente: come deve essere l’essere per essere come deve, affinché l’uomo possa abitare poeticamente la vita che gli è destinata? Per questo si
richiede l’universalità virtuale del bello: affinché ogni singolarità reale possa attingere alla fonte del voler-bene. Mancano le parole all’intuizione kantiana di questa
teleologia, perché il rispetto è una modalità dell’amore, ma l’amore è più che una
modalità del rispetto. D’altra parte il sentimento dell’amore, come la modernità
illuminista e romantica ha scoperto, non ha semplicemente nulla a che fare con la
ragione e con la volontà. Non esiste come fenomeno morale, è polarizzato dal lato
del fenomeno estetico. In quanto l’estetica è irrazionale (e dunque a-morale): sentimento interessato se mai ve n’è uno, quello dell’amore, ma l’interesse per il bene,
l’abbiamo detto, – e chiunque può osservarlo oggi – non dipende più dalla ragione
morale. Il disinteressarsi dell’intenzione morale, quanto a esso, allorché sopravvive
alla risoluzione economica del bene (o dei beni) è pressoché completamente colonizzato dalla moralità del disinteresse: vale a dire la moralità libera, quella che deve
sottrarsi alla forza dell’ingiunzione e alla forma dell’universalità. Quando si sceglie
di “realizzarsi” (vale a dire “realizzare il Sé”) il sentimento è fuori dell’etica e fuori
dell’estetica. La situazione attuale è eloquente: i diritti di realizzazione dell’uomo
sono doveri della intera società, e tuttavia, i diritti della società non sono doveri
dell’uomo-individuo. L’ingiunzione dei diritti ha mutato destinatario, il bello del
diritto ha mutato soggetto. L’appello di Kant a una nuova alleanza tra gli intellettuali e il popolo per ristabilire il legame che occorre coltivare tra la forza della
ragione e la forma dell’umano, come si deve, è, forse, d’attualità.
La propedeutica di tutte le arti belle, in quanto mira al grado supremo della loro
perfezione, sembra che non consista nei precetti, ma nella coltura delle facoltà per via di
quelle conoscenze preliminari che si chiamano humaniora, probabilmente perché umanità significa da un lato il sentimento universale della simpatia e dall’altro la facoltà di
poter comunicare intimamente e universalmente; due proprietà che, prese insieme, costituiscono la socievolezza propria dell’umanità per cui essa si differenzia dalla limitatezza
propria della vita animale. L’epoca e i popoli, in cui la spinta viva a una vita associata
regolata da leggi che fa di un popolo una comunità durevole, lottò con le grandi difficoltà
in cui si avvolge l’arduo problema dell’unione della libertà (e quindi anche dell’uguaglianza) con la costrizione (piuttosto col rispetto e la sottomissione al dovere, che con
la paura); quest’epoca e questo popolo dovettero trovare dapprima l’arte della comunicazione scambievole delle idee tra la parte più colta e la parte più rozza, l’accordo dello
sviluppo e del raffinamento della prima con la semplicità naturale e l’originalità della
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seconda, stabilendo in tal modo quel mezzo tra la più alta coltura e la semplice natura,
che costituisce anche per il gusto, in quanto senso comune degli uomini, quella giusta
misura, che non può essere data secondo regole generali.
Difficilmente un’epoca successiva potrà fare a meno di quei modelli, perché essa si
terrà sempre meno vicino alla natura, e infine, se non ne avesse degli esempi permanenti,
sarebbe appena in stato di farsi un concetto di quella felice unione, nello stesso popolo,
della costrizione legale propria della più alta coltura con la forza e la sicurezza della
libertà natura, che sente il proprio valore.
Ma, poiché in fondo il gusto è una facoltà di giudicare dalla rappresentazione sensibile delle idee morali (mediante una certa analogia della riflessione su l’una e le altre),
e poiché ancora da questa facoltà, e da una maggiore capacità (fondata su di essa) di
avvertire il sentimento risultante dalle idee morali (che si chiama sentimento morale)
deriva quel piacere che il gusto proclama valido per l’umanità in generale e non pel
sentimento particolare di ciascuno; si vede chiaramente che la vera propedeutica per
fondare il gusto è lo sviluppo delle idee morali e la coltura del sentimento morale; perché solamente quando la sensibilità è d’accordo con questo sentimento, il vero gusto
può ricevere una forma determinata e immutabile6.
In questa prospettiva occorrerebbe, forse, riflettere più di quanto non lo si sia
fatto fino ad ora – in primo luogo la teologia – sull’ossimoro del comandamento
dell’amore (del prossimo), la cui struttura e il dinamismo sono assai istruttivi. L’uomo contemporaneo rifiuta l’idea che l’amore possa essere materia di ingiunzione.
Pensa che questo non sia né etico né estetico. E tuttavia credo che qui il paradosso
della forma è anche la chiave della riuscita della forma del legame morale tra il
volere e il bene, la legge e la grazia del voler bene.
Il miracolo della bellezza che si può universalmente rispettare (non consumare, o
semplicemente far funzionare) è il sublime della giustizia che si può individualmente
amare. Questo potere, infine, ha bisogno di essere autorizzato: vale a dire di essere
riconosciuto come un imperativo del dono, che nessuno mi può donare, a meno
che noi tutti – indistintamente – non l’abbiamo ricevuto da Dio. Destinato a tutti
prima che Dio sia divenuto il nostro Dio. La legge non si afferma senza la fede che il
voler-bene preceda assolutamente ogni conoscenza e ogni volere del bene. Il comandamento è la forma e la forza da cui l’ingiunzione fa sorgere il riconoscimento della
libertà di poter amare come si deve. Amare la giustizia del voler-bene a chiunque è lo
specchio della bellezza d’essere benvoluto da chiunque. La creazione del diritto non
può – e può darsi non deve – assicurare questo legame (la trasformazione dell’utopia in legge è sempre terribile). La cura della bellezza, però, è la testimonianza che
questo legame ha diritto di esistenza: il negarlo corrompe il diritto (la sua sostanza,
il suo funzionamento). La società civile non deve essere comunità etica e religiosa. E
tuttavia, se non vi è un riferimento sociale all’intenzionalità etica e religiosa praticata
in questa fede, la società va a perdere anche la razionalità della legge.
Vi era tutto questo in Kant, certo. Fino a ora, però, si è riflettuto soprattutto su tutto
quello che restava al di fuori di questo. Ora, ciò diviene del tutto necessario. Non si
deve rifiutare il compito – e l’occasione – a mio avviso. Occorre pensare il sublime del
6
I. Kant, Critica del Giudizio, cit., § 60, pp. 393-5.
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comandamento e del bello della ragione umana fino a quel punto. E lo si deve pensare
come si deve. Nell’Europa che deve arrivare, l’intellettuale che declina questo compito
non ha diritto di rivolgersi al popolo: non più degli scribi e del preti che vanno a sostituire le regole alla legge e alla fede; o dei falsi profeti e degli zeloti del desiderio senza
regole, che chiamano all’amore del bello e – attraverso questo – alla volontà del nulla.
L’imperativo categorico: vi sarebbe là qualche cosa a cui non potremmo sottrarci? Vi sarebbe là – in riferimento a Kant, senza dubbio, ma anche tenuto conto
di quel che ci conduce lontano da Kant – un’obbligazione per il nostro pensiero?
L’obbligazione, per il nostro ethos moderno, è l’alienazione stessa. Tesi che non
è, del resto, senza singolari confusioni: perché questa sensibilità non distingue
più, per questo aspetto e per esempio, tra dei motivi rousseauiani e dei motivi
nietzscheani o, per esempio ancora, essa non cessa di gettare uno sguardo su Stirner e su Feuerbach a un tempo. A un tempo, è l’umanità ed è l’individuo che si
autodeterminano, a un tempo la libertà è una natura e un progetto. Una cosa è
chiara: la libertà è contraria a ogni obbligo, essa non deriva la sua autorità se non
da essa stessa, e si dà la sua legge: ma invece di giustificare questa autodonazione,
le nostre etiche e le nostre politiche errano dalla Natura alla Storia, dall’Uomo a
Dio, dal Popolo allo Stato, dalla Spontaneità ai Valori…
Tuttavia, non è certo che l’imperativo categorico non sia, allo stesso tempo,
quanto più vicino a noi. La libertà stessa, questa libertà concepita come uno stato
– o come un essere – si sottrae a ogni potere e a ogni comandamento esterno, noi
la poniamo o la vogliamo porre come un ‘imperativo categorico’, mediante il quale
comprendiamo almeno che non si discute. (Tale è, per esempio, il motivo esplicito
o implicito della nostra pratica più generale della difesa dei ‘diritti dell’uomo’).
Non di meno resta, come per effetto di un’insistenza sorda e ostinata, che noi
pensiamo qualcosa (per esempio la libertà) come una prescrizione incondizionata.
Può darsi che noi non possiamo pensare da noi stessi, in generale, senza riconoscere
in una maniera o in un’altra maniera che obbedisca a qualche segreta intimazione (inconscia, biologica, ...). Così, nel suo stesso allontanamento, l’imperativo si riavvicina
quanto più vicino a noi.
Non può trattarsi di ammansire l’estraneità dell’imperativo, né di placare la sua
ossessione. Nel tempo dell’ossessione, non si può e non si deve avere che un pensiero e che un’etica – se ve n’è una – dell’ossessione.
Perché, in Kant, l’imperativo?
La risposta di Kant è semplice: vi è l’imperativo perché vi è il male nell’uomo.
Di primo acchito la risposta ci sconcerta. Il male ha natura di accidente. Ma il
male non è semplicemente una possibilità di scelta; non è il libero arbitrio che è
in questione qui. Il male è la possibilità radicale di trasgredire la legge, se ve n’è
una. V’è la legge come comandamento, affinché essa possa essere violata. Il che
non vuol dire che vi sarebbe da una parte la legge stessa (simile a una legge fisica,
vale a dire confusa con essa), e d’altra parte l’imperativo rivolto a colui che, per
accidente, non si comporterebbe spontaneamente secondo la legge. Perché l’imperativo, in questo caso, (che è, del resto, il caso ordinario delle leggi), non sarebbe
la legge stessa, non si confonderebbe, in quanto imperativo, con essa. L’imperativo
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non porta né castigo né ricompensa: è in questo stesso che consiste il suo carattere
categorico e non ipotetico (morale e non tecnico).
Se il male fosse una legge di natura la prescrizione del bene sarebbe assurda, e
vana. Ma è così, in quanto possibilità incomprensibile, che il male è male, vale a
dire che è libero. Non essendo libero, non sarebbe male. Il male non è una legge
contraria, è la disposizione contraria alla legge, la disposizione non legislatrice.
Il diritto dice una regola e vi sottomette il caso, ma in quanto tale esso non comanda. O, più esattamente, comanda nella misura in cui ha forza di legge, ciò che
presuppone il ritagliare un’area di validità della legge in quanto tale (collettività,
Stato, Chiesa, ecc.). Ma qui si tratta della legge di tutti gli esseri ragionevoli – di
tutti gli esseri capaci di legge. L’imperativo dice il caso della legge, assolutamente.
Non è, però, un ordine, con il quale la nostra sensibilità non smette di confonderlo.
L’obbedienza per dovere non è l’obbedienza conforme al dovere, e nemmeno l’obbedienza per interesse. Il dovere obbliga al dovere. La legge del dovere obbliga al
dovere della legge, di questa legge che non è data. La legge non è dunque esterna
al dovere, mentre è esterna all’ordine. “L’ordine è più antico del linguaggio, altrimenti i cani non potrebbero comprenderlo”_.
Non più del modo in cui non è un ordine, il dovere della legge non è un dovere
d’amore: dovere obbligatorio, e non dovere d’amore (I. Kant, Opus Postumum). Esiste nello spirito (Gemüt), non nell’anima, un principio puro, l’imperativo categorico.
L’imperativo è la condizione di possibilità della praxis, o ancora ne è il trascendentale, vale a dire l’azione il cui risultato non è distinto dall’agente. Agire in quanto ragione pura, è fare la legge.
L’ingiunzione fa di più e di meno dell’ordine. Essa non minaccia, e non forza
all’esecuzione (l’imperativo è privo di ogni potenza esecutiva). Ma essa impone, applica, unisce alla ragione la prescrizione di un’azione libera, di una libera legislazione
di cui nessuno fa conoscere né rivela alla ragione la necessità, e neppure la semplice
possibilità. L’ingiunzione imperativa congiunge assolutamente la ragione a quel che
l’eccede assolutamente. È perché l’imperativo “ci si impone (uns aufdringt) per se
stessa come proposizione sintetica a priori, la quale non è fondata su nessuna intuizione né pura né empirica”7. Esso si impone come factum rationis. Dunque è anche
il modo pratico dell’essere-affetto della ragione. L’imperativo affetta la ragione.
L’imperativo è inattivo, eccede la coppia dell’attivo e del passivo, dello spontaneo
e del ricettivo. L’imperativo impone la separazione di una passività (a cui ingiunge)
e di un’attività (che ingiunge). Ma non l’impone come se la producesse: essa si impone piuttosto a essa, e l’impone in quanto si impone. Il factum rationis, ben lungi
per conseguenza dal corrispondere alla razionalità in quanto fatto (posto, stabilito,
disponibile), designa una fatalità eterogenea e incommensurabile alla ragione in seno
a cui, nondimeno, sorge. Questo incommensurabile ci misura: ci obbliga.
Noi siamo obbligati – la ragione è obbligata – al cospetto della legge. Noi vi siamo obbligati non per l’effetto di un ordine autoritario – che non è tuttavia né un
7
I. Kant, Critica della Ragion Pratica, Laterza, Roma-Bari, 1997, trad. di F. Capra, Analitica, cap. 1, § 7, p. 67.
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fondamento, né un’istituzione: “La restauration en nous de la disposition primitive
au bien n’est pas l’acquisition d’un mobile pour le bien, mobile perdu par nous, car
ce mobile, qui consiste dans le respect de la loi morale, nous n’avons jamais pu le
perdre” (R p. 69).
La legge morale – l’imperativo – prescrive l’universale, e quindi la razionalità,
come un compito. Al contrario la legge impedisce che l’universalità consista nell’erezione a universale di una volontà singolare. Ciò esige, senza dubbio, uno statuto della
singolarità che non è più quello della soggettività. È perché il rispetto è simultaneamente ammirazione, o venerazione della legge, e umiliazione del soggetto davanti a
essa. Il rispetto è l’alterazione stessa della posizione e della struttura del soggetto. Il
rispetto per la legge si accresce con la sua sublimità: “La majesté de la loi (semblable
à celle du Sinaï) inspire le respect (non la crainte qui repousse, ni le charme non plus
qui invite à la familiarité) qui excite la considération du subordonné à l’égard de son
maître et, en ce cas, comme ce maître est en nous, le sentiment du sublime de notre
propre destinée, qui nous ravit plus que toute beauté” (R p. 42).
La legge eccede assolutamente i limiti ultimi della rappresentazione e della
misura – e se essa deve essere regolata, secondo la seconda formula dell’imperativo categorico, sul tipo di una legge universale della natura, non è nel senso di
una legge fenomenica, ma piuttosto nel senso in cui la legge del fenomeno non
appare essa stessa nel fenomeno. Il sentimento del sublime si rivolge a quel che
eccede la forma. Kant notava, nel suo esemplare della Bibbia, a proposito del
Regno di Dio che non viene con manifestazioni esteriori (Lc 17,20), queste parole: “visibile (forma)”. Dio esiste perché esiste un imperativo categorico. “Dio”
non è il Dio della natura né il Dio della religione. Dio è la destinazione divina
dell’uomo, in quanto questa destinazione gli è intimata. “Dio” non è al di là della
rappresentazione. Ma l’al di là della rappresentazione – fine della forma – fa la
legge. E la legge destina a questo fine (essa non destina a Dio o a incontrare Dio).
Il sublime della legge è nel fatto che essa destina all’universale, all’assolutamente
grande e all’incommensurabile nella finitudine.
La legge è insuperabile in quanto legge imperativa perché essa non è autolegislazione di un soggetto. L’imperativo – al contrario del pensiero di una legge come
schiavitù – impone la legge come limite ultimo, irrinunciabile, a partire dal quale
l’ingiunzione è rivolta. Così la legge è rivolta a una libertà e non fondata tramite
essa. Reciprocamente, la libertà non consiste nell’obbedire alla sua propria legge –
legge di una natura propria – ma a cominciare da se stessi.
La libertà è la ratio essendi della legge morale e la legge morale è la ratio cognoscendi della libertà (Prefazione della KpV). L’imperativo è essenzialmente rivolto alla
libertà. Ciò significa che la libertà è essenzialmente e non accidentalmente l’ascoltatrice dell’ingiunzione. In quanto tale, questa libertà, che non è autoposizione del
Soggetto, non è più il libero arbitrio del soggetto individuale. Essa concerne, nell’individuo, quel che non è dell’individuo. E quel che non è dell’individuo – ma non di
più del collettivo in quanto tale – è la possibilità di essere ‘ascoltato’ dall’altro. L’imperativo categorizza il suo destinatario: afferma la sua libertà, gli imputa il male, e lo
destina o l’abbandona alla legge. Trattare l’umanità come un fine, in ultima analisi,
significa non trattarla come questo destinatario dell’imperativo.
Federico Vercellone1
Chaos and Morphogenesis in German Romanticism
1. Aesthetic absolute
If there is to be a common element in the manner in which poetic form is conceived
in German romanticism, this could be defined using the concept of secularisation.
Talking about the secularisation of the poetic form in this conxtext is not to
be seen as a simple evocative suggestion. Rather it is the actual thing-in-itself that
presents itself in these terms, in a paradoxal journey liberating – in line with modern art’s own defining characteristic – art from the sacred and the absolute, to
become absolute itself. This is a problem that clearly emerges in Wilhelm Heinrich
Wackenroder, who has, at times, been evocatively defined as the first among the
romantics; but also in the works of Ludwig Tieck, who was Wackenroder’s friend
and collaborator. In Wackenroder’s eyes the sacred nature of German medieval
art and Italian Renaissance art (which constitutes a paradigm for art tout court) is
revealed where such continuity has been interrupted. The apologia of the art of
the past, that insists on its religious nature, on its absolute reach, is possible only
within a present that has indeed broken the bond between art and the sacred. Art
asserts its claim to absoluteness just as it shows its terrible loss of contact with absolute truth, almost becoming ineffectual. Wackenroder significantly contributes
to this, as the religious sphere is truly what connects art to daily life, in keeping
with a never discarded continuity between individual, world, and cosmos, as paradigmatically asserted by Dürer in Mediaeval Nuremberg.
On the other hand, what is the status of present art? What shape does the latter
take, with its claim to the aesthetic absolute, as opposed to the other, that kept the
religious absolute as a standpoint, to which the elements of truth and aesthetic appearance were in the end subordinate? Let’s go back to Dürer, and in particular to
a text by Wackenroder dedicated to the German master. In Homage to the memory
of our revered forefather Albrecht Dürer from an art-loving monk, after recalling the
lost living conditions of old Nuremberg, the art-loving monk asserts that modern
art has betrayed the conditions that are needed for the creation of an authentic
work of art, or rather and more precisely it springs form their denial: in direction
1
Professor of Aesthetic, Turin University and Director of CIM (Centro Interuniversitario di ricerca sulla Morfologia “Franco Moiso”).
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of an exercise of art as technical skill, and then as a kind of experience which is
only aesthetic without a wide significance.
Now, we are, here, in the presence of that two-step by which art, that has
freed itself from the sacred, it has after all access to another form of absolute –
only aesthetic, only artistic; it becomes an absolute in itself and presents itself,
first and foremost from an etymological standpoint, as the unconditional: art has
distanced itself, it has loosened its bonds on the two dimensions it was tied to
traditionally, the sacred and the truth, to impose itself independently. The absolute that is envisioned is, therefore, an absolute in loss, a paradoxical absolute, a
near-absolute, one could say, of poverty. We are dealing with a surprising pas de
deux that leads us, on the one hand, to l’art pour l’art and the aesthetic absolute
and, on the other hand, to nihilism, the most direct descendant of this aesthetic
absolute. What, in fact, is romantic nihilism if not the most patent testimony of
the truly absolute power that artistry has taken on, forsaking the relationship
with the other two elements to which the absolute was traditionally connected:
i.e. truth and goodness? Thus absolute beauty is suddenly proposed as a separate
sphere, that of l’art pour l’art, originating – as has been said – from that distancing of the truly aesthetic sphere from the two elements that were still associated
with it in Schlegel’s first attempt to found a systematic aesthetics, Von der Schönheit in der Dichtkunst. In this work the beauty of poetic art is actually thematized
in relation to goodness and truth. Thus, however, art encounters also the nihilism
of pure appearance, the one that Wackenroder denounces in his second passage
above. Art having lost contact with the truth and with goodness, assumes two
definitions that are not evident at first: on the one hand that of artificial, a Künstlichkeit that signals that subjectivity has taken on that distance from but also
that dominance over materials that leads it to the very borders of free will; and
on the other – as a kind of inevitable consequence – we have nihilism.
It will be Hegel, in his Lectures on Aesthetics, and paradoxically partly alongside the Romantics themselves, who will denounce this new status of modern art
which has forfeited absolute truth, and is incapable of expressing it adequately.
Even this art that has reduced itself within the confines of artificiality, that has lost
its relationship with the absolute (be it, I repeat, to impose itself as absolute, as
the aesthetic absolute) will end up testifying to a sort of infinite exuberance, that
from romantic nihilism to Nietzsche has been constantly denounced, and which,
depending on the author or even within a single work (Nietzsche is again a case
in point), can turn into exaltation.
It is truly in this intimately duplicitous attitude that the double-sided face of absolute art is revealed. Art, as it is absolute, can never hold back from a comparison
with the other absolute of which it is but a surrogate. It becomes then, so to speak,
a second absolute, that – starting from Bonaventura’s Night Vigils by the Anonymous (August Klingemann?) and coming to (citing without order) names such as
Jean Paul, E.T.A. Hoffmann – creates phantom universes; and the degraded meaning of this absolute is revealed only in the light which has become in the meantime
a critic of absolute truth. Nevertheless this absoluteness that only pertains to aesthetics is inclined to present itself as a pervasive reality, permeating the universe,
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tending to aestheticize it. A dimension that impregnates the religious cosmos, giving it an almost aesthetic aspect, that interprets it as the erhabenstes Kunstwerk, the
“most sublime masterpiece” of the human race; thus religiousness is viewed as a an
ecstatic contemplation of the universe, where the stable metaphysic determination
of the divine is dissolving to assume instead a mythopoeic semblance.
But this aspect of an absoluteness whose distinctive trait of metaphysical finality
is constantly transcended, coincides, in line with what will be examined later, with
another dimension of the absolute and of transcendence, that is typically romantic, and not simply, as is usual with this egoic emphasising that is brought about
through the medium of transcendental imagination, fichtian. We will find ourselves
within a frame (where Jacobi’s influence plays a fundamental role) in which the
transcendence of the absolute is revealed as complete alterity that exhibits its own
peculiar absoluteness precisely in its intranscendibility. This is how the aesthetic
absolute appears as intrinsically contradictory, i.e. in terms of in relation to; and
this strange absoluteness, which is lacking, cannot present itself in the classical
sense as a complete and well-rounded presence.
These considerations place us yet again at the heart of the Romantik-Hegel debate regarding the death of art, rather depriving the latter of authority, since, along
these lines, art is given back its own absoluteness on the one hand, but, on the
other, paradoxically, one escapes from the hybris of the latter, to the emptiness of
sole appearance, correlating it once again to an unattainable infinity.
2. Chaos as genesis
Now, exactly because of this, it may be useful to remember that German romanticism is to define also as a poetics of birth; and so the correlation between chaos
and morphogenesis is present right from the start. Furthermore, in this context,
a thoroughly anti-idealistic proposition is revealed, aiming to substitute the supremacy of a single origin with the idea of a double origin, that is able to bind the
polar opposites of spirit and body, visible and invisible, word and silence, etc. In
many respects, Frühromantik is a philosophy that proposes the problem of relation
in terms of the emergence of being from a state of not-being that comes first; thus
we are dealing with genesis by considering the identity of the subject in terms of its
relations, that is on the basis of its differentiation from otherness.
This can be found, not only on the philosophical plane but also for example
on the pictorial one, where, for example, Philipp Otto Runge expresses his metaphysical ideas relating to the genesis of pictorial art, which are not so different
form the ontological one, as a process where nature reveals itself to consciousness2.
The question could be greatly extended; but here I would simply like to cite
Novalis as an example and then Friedrich Schlegel. From the former’s perspective,
2
P.O. Runge, Color Sphere, Princeton Architectural Press, New York 2010.
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therefore, nature as the place of genesis, is not to be seen as stable, but in constant
evolution – one could say: from chaos to form. In his Allgemeines Brouillon Novalis
asserts for example that: “Nature is a singular image of the eternal kingdom. The
world of fairy tales is the absolute opposite world to the world of truth (history) –
and for this reason so remarkably similar to it – as chaos is to completed creation”.3.
In this definition of being we move uninterruptedly (according to a tendency
also present in Goethe’s work) form nature to the structuring of the being, from
nature to culture. Morality is for Novalis where the definition of the individual
being occurs; it pushes the flow of creation towards a formal definition, moving
towards spirituality. He leads us from character to character, defining and distinguishing, in a constant need to improve, where this progressive definition is leading to an increased chaos: the place in which all the characters fuse into one. This
is the process that Novalis will deal with in his Ofterdingen.
Thus, chaos is the realm of pure intensity that needs to be extended, in this analogy to the thing-in-itself and to the unconditioned absolute that encompasses all
possibilities before being explicitly rendered.
We are dealing with a purely negative determination, the realm of a truly inexplicable intensity, as we were saying, that Novalis associates to the thing-in-itself.
The thing-in-itself represents the undetermined absolute, pure and simple matter
in need of being processed and therefore of being inserted within a framework of
relations to find definition:
...We could say – the world has come into being out of a silly question)4.
Also in Schlegel, in the essay on Univerständlichkeit, on incomprehension, a
similar assumption can be found. Here too chaos is that dimension that originates
the definition of being:
Verily, it would fare badly with you if, as you demand, the whole world were ever to
become wholly comprehensible in earnest. And isn’t this entire, unending world constructed by the understanding out of uncomprehensibility or chaos?5
Chaos is therefore, coming back to Novalis after this short digression – the inexplicable that needs to be explicitly rendered. This explicit rendition creates a framework of relations that is at the same time the framework that makes up the identity of
each individual being. The identity of a being is defined as a constant need to relate
3
Novalis, Notes for a Romantic Encyclopaedia. Das Allgemeine Brouillon, ed. D.W.
Wood, Suny Press, Albany (NY). 2007, Kindle Edition, 716 (234).
4
Novalis, Notes, cit., Extract from the Freiburg Natural Scientific Studies (1798/99),
2845 (94).
5
F. Schlegel, On Incomprehensibilty, in trans. P. Firchow, F. Schlegel Lucinde and the
Fragments, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis 1971, p. 261.
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to someone; this is testified particularly in Novalis Allgemeines Brouillon, an encyclopaedic project pertaining not only to knowledge but foremost to ontology itself.
Enciclopedistica .....“Trascendental physics is the first science, yet the lowest – like
the Doctrine of Science…It treats of Nature, before it becomes Nature – in those states,
where mixture and motion, (matter and force) are still one. Transformation of chaos into
harmonious heaven and hearth”6.
This transformation of chaos into order coincides in the encyclopaedia as this is
the place of ontologic definition; chaos and formal definition, origin and completion, are, from this point of view, in very close contact moving from the realm of
possibility to reality, so that Novalis can formulate this utopic assertion:
In the world of the future everything is just as it in the former world – and yet everything is utterly different. The world of the future is rational chaos – chaos suffused
with itself – inside and outside of itself – chaos or ∞7.
Now one must not forget that the chaos/order relationship coincides for Novalis, as for Goethe, with the ancient/modern relationship and vice versa; in such
a way that natural elements flow into historical and cultural ones. So, in Novalis’
eyes, a universe that deals with the problem of morphologic definition within infinity is modern; that is an indefinite redefinition of the relationships within which
form takes shape. Thus chaos is the unlimited flow of form that looks onto the infinite universe (modern, idealism), which is, however, also closed within the confines
of the cosmos (old, realism).
From this standpoint utopia and tradition are not alternative but complementary in the definition of modernity:
Synthesis of the ancient and modern8.
And again:
Our (modern) history has antiquity at the end – our (older) history at the beginning –
et sic porro9.
But if we translate the ancient-modern-ancient formula into “chaos-formchaos” are we not coming back to the core of the (ontological) question, that of
identity definition which is the common thread of these notations? And, wanting
to conclude these reflections with a simple notation: is this not the same project
outlined in Heinrich von Ofterdingen? Here the peak of the characters’ final agnition process is reached with the confusion of origin and completion, with the one
flowing into the multitude and the multitude as one, according to the notion that
6
7
8
9
Novalis, Notes, cit., 398 (50).
Novalis, Notes, cit. 717 (234).
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in the end chaos is order, but an order that is grounded and dispersed within each
single entity, after this has experienced the unity of the multitude.
Order (chaotic) is, therefore, the principle of singularity beyond the univocality of being, according to the notion that its very foundation is dispersed in
each and every single individual renewing the uniqueness of the morphological
concretion each time.
Le recensioni
Chiara Bottici, Imaginal Politics. Images beyond Imagination
and the Imaginary, Columbia University Press, New York 2014
Una recensione in italiano su un libro inglese di una studiosa italiana, che vive e
insegna a New York, su una rivista italiana scritta in inglese e italiano, edita on line
da un editore filosofico italiano, che aspira a divenire internazionale per provare
a portare il pensiero italiano all’estero. La babele linguistico-culturale italinglese
della globalizzazione culturale e non solo (globalizzazione che, sul tema dell’immagine in politica, per l’autrice è un punto di non ritorno, per il rischio che le
immagini non solo svolgano un ruolo mediatore, ma letteralmente facciano politica
in nostra vece) è già tanto immaginata, quanto reale. E quindi the show must go on
e la recensione può prendere avvio, in italiano con citazioni in inglese, anzi, come
scrive l‘autrice nella sua introduzione, la recensione, con buona pace dei referee,
può iniziare notando come “Spectacle prevails over content” in un mondo globalizzato – anche giuridico – in cui “Deprived of imagination, the political world we
live it is, nonetheless, full of images” (basti pensare al ruolo politico dei media e
alla visiocrazia di cui si discute nel numero). Il paradosso di cui Bottici si occupa
e che l’autrice intende risolvere mediante la teoria proposta, è infatti quello di un
mondo pieno di immagini, ma del tutto privo di immaginazione.
Il punto che emerge, riprendendo Castoriadis e rileggendo con attenzione la
storia della filosofia sul tema nei primi capitoli del libro – utilissimi e chiari nell’identificare le poste in gioco teorico e pratiche per i non addetti ai lavori – è il legame tra immaginazione e realtà. Sì, avete capito bene: non realtà e immaginazione,
come i tanti risorgenti realismi e pragmatismi, che oramai si incontrano ad ogni angolo delle università, sembrano presupporre. L’immaginazione, per Bottici, viene
prima della realtà, concetto, quest’ultimo, coniato nella tarda Scolastica e riferibile,
con Scoto, alla haecceitas o, nella Scolastica, all’essentia: alcune delle ragioni per
le quali “it is important to point out that defining the imagination as simply the
faculty to represent what does not exist – the unreal – is inadequate”.
L’obiettivo che il libro si propone, tuttavia, è ambizioso: superare l’impasse che
la teoria di Castoriadis pone tra la concezione individualistica dell’immaginazione
e quella sociale-storica (collettiva), inserendo un polo di mediazione da leggere nei
termini della teoria della complessità: fonte di produzione dell’immaginale (la teoria
che viene proposta e discussa nel libro) sono a un tempo non solo l’individuale e il sociale-collettivo come termini da concepire in opposizione, ma l’interazione tra i due.
Il termine latino imaginalis infatti, riferendosi anche a Corbin, denota “something that is made of images”, ponendosi oltre la filosofia del soggetto individuale e quella del soggetto collettivo grazie a un’antropologia dell’immagine
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fondata sull’idea semplice che l’uomo sia un animale immaginale e che senza immagini non vi sia un mondo per il soggetto né un soggetto per il mondo. Si tratta del
pictorial turn posto oltre il linguistic turn (nei nostri termini delineati sul numero
2013 di questa rivista diremmo affective turn) o del primato dell’immaginale, del
fatto reale, insomma, che le immagini vengono prima del linguaggio. E che non
sono completamente traducibili in parole (immagini simboliche – “once a symbol
is interpreted and thus fixed into a series of linguistic descriptions… it ceases to
display its fully multiplicity of meanings”). Basterebbero questi pochi rilievi per
mandare in pensione la povertà antropologica e l’irrealismo della filosofia analitica
del linguaggio (e della teoria dell’analogia e delle istituzioni) che ha dominato la
filosofia giuridica del secondo novecento (e la correlata teoria della separazione
tra diritto e politica che fa sì che venga ben compresa l’espressione “uso politico
dell’immagine” allorché rimane incomprensibile il tema dell’uso giuridico dell’immagine, con la sola eccezione dei cultori di Legendre e Goodrich e poco altro). Il
concetto di immaginale, specie in inglese, viene prima della distinzione tra il fittizio
e l’immaginario e, pur se designa un campo di possibilità, è lungi dall’essere un
concetto vuoto e malleabile: ci parla della crucialità per l’uomo della produzione
di immagini e dell’irriducibilità di tale capacità dell’individuo al contesto sociale,
di qualunque grado di oppressività si tratti.
Molti altri sono gli spunti che il testo pone e discute con un’analisi sempre precisa e argomentata e che meriterebbero di essere approfonditi e discussi (ma con altri
spazi e non in una recensione). Tra i tanti, l’affermazione per cui la teoria dell’immaginale implica la critica alla lettura di Lacan operata da Žižek, in cui il tratto
alienato dell’Immaginario, identificato con la fase dello Specchio, impedirebbe
di cogliere il portato costitutivo del reale proprio dell’immaginario (immaginale).
La proposta dell’immaginale che viene avanzata può contribuire a chiarire molte
questione interne alla teoria del diritto, in particolare in relazione alla difficoltà
di pensare (e realizzare) il portato simbolico e mitico dell’Unione in un’Europa
affatto priva di immaginazione. Questo libro aiuta a coglierne le ragioni profonde
e a prospettare un nuovo senso non solo per il rapporto tra il mito e il diritto ma
anche tra l’immaginale e il giuridico.
Paolo Heritier
Gilles Deleuze, Istinti e istituzioni, Mimesis, Milano-Udine 2014
Ripubblicato da Mimesis a dodici anni dalla prima edizione, vale la pena tornare
a ragionare su Istinti e istituzioni, che risulta oggi, soprattutto in ottica filosoficogiuridica, ancora più interessante di un tempo.
Occorre subito ricordare che si tratta di un libro assai peculiare dal punto di
vista formalistico, essendo composto da un articolato collage di frammenti estratti da autori varissimi, ordinati secondo un piano tematico enunciato dall’autore
nella breve Introduzione.
Deleuze, agli esordi della sua avventura di filosofo, decide di parlare attraverso
altri autori, facendo però risuonare la propria voce tra i concatenamenti che costituiscono l’intreccio del libro e, come notato nella Premessa di Katia Rossi, inaugurando così uno stile che caratterizzerà anche le successive opere monografiche
dedicate ai pensatori più amati.
Attraverso i tanti autori collezionati, Deleuze parla di istinto, di istituzione
e dei rapporti tra i due, ma anche di tecnica, gioco, di sociale e individuale, di
dialettica tra animale e uomo.
Circa quest’ultima, per fare un esempio, è affascinante scavare nella profonda
cultura etologica deleuziana, già sapendo che essa, soprattutto in Mille Piani, farà
da sfondo ad alcuni concetti come il divenire-animale.
Più in generale, è affascinante soffermarsi sulla variegata serie di riferimenti bibliografici, nei quali già si scorge la coloritura filosofica, classica ma originalissima,
che caratterizzerà il Deleuze immediatamente successivo e quello maturo.
Se il testo si chiude con un frammento di Marx, e non mancano stralci di filosofi
come Leibniz, Rousseau, Kant, Hume e l’amato Bergson, nonché di grandi antropologi come Lévi-Strauss e Frazer, vi sono pure autori apparentemente lontani
come Balzac, Darwin, Blondel, Malinowski, Hauriou, Eliade, Cuvier e scienziati e
giuristi di vario genere, a testimonianza, come si diceva, della ricchezza bibliografica e di pensiero dell’autore francese, capace di stilare un’opera così inconfondibilmente propria, pur scrivendone solamente l’introduzione.
A fronte di un materiale tanto ricco, pigiato in 120 paginette densissime (comprensive, oltre che delle citate Premessa e Introduzione, di una Prefazione a cura
di Ubaldo Fadini), si possono qui solo evocare temi come il citato rapporto tra
animale e uomo e quello, così complesso, tra individuale e sociale, che porta alla
mente alcuni argomenti sul Transindividuale di Gilbert Simondon, autore che Deleuze avrebbe, tempo dopo aver scritto il libro in questione, scoperto e apprezzato.
Si può, però, provare a collocare il discorso sull’Istituzione svolto nel testo in
esame in un più ampio discorso filosofico-giuridico su Deleuze e assumere come
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vademecum L. de Sutter, Deleuze e la pratica del diritto, Ombre corte, Verona,
2011, primo libro in cui viene tentata una sistematizzazione della carsica riflessione deleuziana sul diritto.
Mostrando da subito le carte, si può azzardare l’ipotesi che de Sutter abbia
sottovalutato, in un’opera comunque interessante e ricca di spunti, il problema
dell’Istituzione, elaborato nel testo qui recensito, così confinando il giuridico ad
una dialettica tra Legge e Giurisprudenza.
Per Deleuze, in effetti, l’Istituzione risulta fondamentale e ciò, come notato da
Fadini, traspare già nel testo Empirismo e Soggettività. Saggio sulla natura umana, in
cui viene elaborata una teoria dell’artificio tesa a troncare la dicotomia tra natura e
cultura, mostrando come l’elemento istituzionale appartenga naturaliter all’uomo.
Secondo Deleuze, lontano tuttavia da un’antropologia negativa à la Gehlen,
“L’istituzione non si spiega con la tendenza o con il bisogno” (Lévi-Strauss), così
come il desiderio non si spiega come una risposta al lacaniano Manque e come,
contrariamente a quanto sostenuto dalla ragion dialettica, il positivo non si spiega
con il negativo.
L’istituzione è piuttosto espressione di una potenza, tanto che non sono le regole del diritto a fare le istituzioni, bensì “Sono le istituzioni che fanno le regole
del diritto”, come scrive Maurice Hauriou, il giurista da cui Santi Romano trarrà
ispirazione per elaborare la nota teoria istituzionalista e che compare a più riprese
nel testo deleuziano.
Indubbiamente “le istituzioni cambiano e si affrontano” (Bachofen), ma nondimeno devono esistere, con buona pace di chi contrabbanda l’autore dell’AntiEdipo per agitatore politico massimalista o per politologo minimalista intento a
tracciare una linea di netta demarcazione tra movimentismo e istituzionalità.
In Deleuze, l’istituzione è, volendo, concetto utile per comprendere l’oscillazione tra deterritorializzazione e riterritorializzazione e, soprattutto, rappresenta un
momento antropologicamente fondativo.
Nell’opera di de Sutter su Deleuze, invece, l’istituzione è sollevata sì come problema, ma non trova, a parere di chi scrive, una collocazione adeguata, forse proprio a causa dell’assenza di riferimenti bibliografici al qui recensito Istinti e istituzioni ma anche, come si vedrà, ad una ragione di prospettiva.
L’autore belga individua nell’istituzionalismo uno dei quattro problemi dell’assiomatica del diritto e, citando Empirismo e Soggettività e L’anti-Edipo, indica come
le istituzioni, prese nel giogo della Legge, diventino “agenti dell’assoggettamento
concreto del diritto alla legge” e addirittura “polizia del diritto”.
In effetti de Sutter sottolinea come in Deleuze le Istituzioni, sottraendosi alla
stessa Legge, possano essere “espressione giuridica dell’immaginazione o dell’invenzione”, rappresentando “il lato gioioso e fecondo” del diritto, ma, ad ogni
modo, nella categorizzazione sutteriana, le istituzioni rientrano nell’assiomatica del
diritto, che, in fondo, costituisce la stessa pratica del diritto svolta dalla legge, seppur da un altro, e “gioioso”, punto di vista.
L’istituzionalismo rimane così, pur fecondamente, un problema del grande obiettivo critico di Deleuze, rappresentato dalla Legge, e si contrappone, in quanto tale,
alla topica del diritto costituita dalla Giurisprudenza. Quest’ultima, intesa come atti-
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vità creativa, vive nella pratica dei casi singolari e rappresenta, in sé stessa, la grande
filosofia del diritto deleuziana: sembra, così, che, secondo de Sutter, in tale filosofia
del diritto non vi sia posto, se non residuale, per la categoria dell’Istituzione.
Si deve aggiungere però che molto dipende dalla prospettiva scelta: nel ragionamento sutteriano, il discorso di Deleuze non ha nessuna utilità per il giurista, ma è
interamente rivolto al filosofo. Egli precisa infatti come “Deleuze intende istituire
un concetto di giurisprudenza che possa servire da dispositivo di collegamento tra
il diritto e la filosofia”, aiutando quest’ultima a sbarazzarsi della legge, per conquistare l’immanenza propria del giuridico.
Chi scrive è d’accordo con l’autore belga, ma ritiene che esista quantomeno un
altro discorso deleuziano sul diritto: in tale discorso le istituzioni svolgono un ruolo essenziale per comprendere il proprium del giuridico e persino per affrontare
il complessissimo tema della sua origine, come si può rammentare sfogliando
le pagine del testo qui recensito in cui Kant, Freud, Eliade, Plekhanov e Groethuysen si rincorrono per cercare una risposta.
Si può concludere affermando che se il concetto di Giurisprudenza è quello
utile al filosofo, il concetto di Istituzione risulta imprescindibile per il giurista.
Alessandro Campo
G. C. Pagazzi, Fatte a mano. L’aﬀetto di Cristo per le cose, EDB,
Bologna 2014
Il testo di Cesare Pagazzi si sofferma su un aspetto spesso trascurato della fede
cristiana: la relazione di Dio con tutte le cose e la conseguente funzione pedagogica del loro magistero, pegno di trascendenza che invita l’uomo a misurarsi con
una dimensione sostanzialmente indisponibile, che “obbliga alla dilazione, al
differimento e all’attesa” (p. 39); la riflessione antignostica, epistemologicamente unitaria, del teologo lombardo mira al recupero di un rapporto equilibrato
dell’uomo con le cose, un rapporto sincero che richiami, ad un tempo, l’ontologica bontà delle res in quanto “ratificazioni della carne” (p. 31) e, simultaneamente, la necessaria accettazione della opposizione e della indisponibilità delle cose
stesse, segno della caducità cui è sottoposto il creato.
La (ri)configurazione dell’umano, operata da Pagazzi attraverso la centralità del
legame cosale, si presta ad un’applicazione pluridisciplinare; estremamente interessante, in particolare, appaiono le conseguenze sul terreno del diritto: è proprio
questo uno dei settori, infatti, ove maggiormente il culto dell’astrattismo pare essersi morbosamente diffuso. Il sapere giuridico avrebbe bisogno di un recupero
del reale, in tutta la sua crudezza pedagogica, recupero che implica valorizzazione
di radici, che troppo spesso un diritto ancora identificato con la volontà del potere
politico distrugge o, nella migliore delle ipotesi, marginalizza. La configurazione
del diritto come cosa rimanda, invece, ad uno schematismo teorico che promuove
spontaneismi normativi assiologicamente determinati, dunque rispondenti a bisogni concreti, reali, carnali; la fonte che meglio si presta ad esprimere tali valori è
costituita dalla consuetudine, tristemente (e non a caso) relegata nell’oblio della piramide gerarchica dall’articolo 1 delle nostre Preleggi. La consuetudine riveste un
carattere carnale, proprio perché dalla carne e per la carne origina; urge allora un
ripensamento epistemologico, in grado di bilanciare la rilevanza della normazione
politica in senso stretto e della normazione autenticamente sociale, liberando definitivamente il diritto, il diritto privato almeno, dall’abbraccio secolare del potere
politico. Vediamo, nello specifico, il percorso compiuto da Pagazzi e le conseguenze sul piano prettamente giuridico.
Il libretto si compone di cinque capitoli, nei quali il tema della relazione del
Signore con tutte le cose si sviluppa seguendo lo schema biblico, dunque a partire
dalla creazione, nella quale assume fondamentale importanza l’opera manuale di
Dio stesso, colto nella sua efficace abilità, che “continuamente opera, custodendo e
alimentando le sue creature”; tutta quanta la creazione si presenta come “risultato
della manualità di Dio” (pp. 8 – 9). L’operosità manuale del Signore impegna la cre-
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atura umana all’atto prensile, perché a ognuno sarà reso secondo l’opera delle sue
mani (Pr 12, 14): per questo motivo, “mani pienissime e possenti” ha l’eletto (p. 19).
Il secondo capitolo si concentra sulla funzione ratificatrice delle cose, testimoni
di un “patto, antico quanto il mondo, tra tutto ciò che fa presa e colui che può
prendere” (p. 30); le cose chiamano in causa l’uomo, costituiscono cause giudiziarie composte immancabilmente di “affetto, volontà, pensiero, chiamati a decidersi
circa le ragioni delle cose” (p. 31). L’ascolto ricettivo dell’insegnamento delle cose
costituisce momento pedagogicamente umanista; la vita delle cose richiama, infatti,
il cammino dell’umano: “le cose/rifiuto e le cose/scarto in-segnano che l’«u-mano»
non solo si consuma fino alla morte ma pure consuma”, poiché lo sviluppo dell’uomo si nutre del sacrificio di altri viventi; perciò “c’è sempre un che di sacrificale a
garantire la mia vita e ciò non può esimermi dalla gratitudine” (p. 49).
Nel terzo capitolo, quindi, l’autore richiama la relazione tra le cose e YHWH, a
partire dai primordi della Creazione, ove Dio si compiace della bontà e della bellezza di tutte le cose (Gen 1, 31), al punto che “per credere nel Dio biblico è anche
necessario riconoscere la qualità del suo rapporto con ogni cosa” (p. 53). Ma non
è soltanto il primo libro biblico a mostrare la vitalità del legame del divino con le
cose: il libro della Sapienza lascia cogliere l’agire di Dio che governa misericordiosamente tutte le cose (Sap 12,15; 15,1); nel Siracide è ripreso il legame del Signore
con tutte le cose (Sir 43, 31 – 32), per finire col sapiente Qoèlet, che dichiara la
vacuità e l’inutilità del creato (Qo 1, 2 – 14; 2, 11 – 17; 3, 19; 12,8), collocandosi
nella continuazione del “giudizio negativo della prima coppia circa l’indisponibilità resistente delle cose” (p. 66), per approdare alla scoperta di qualcosa di buono da
mangiare e bere, che riattiva il senso e il sapore delle cose stesse.
L’importanza fondamentale del rapporto del Signore con le cose non si esaurisce
nell’ottica veterotestamentaria: come “per l’Antico Testamento l’identità di YHWH
è pienamente riconoscibile grazie alla sua singolarissima relazione con tutte le cose,
così per il Nuovo si accede al mistero di Cristo anche confessando il suo irripetibile
legame con ogni cosa” (p. 71). Gesù, nell’eucaristia, “si consegna realmente (res!)
come uno che innanzitutto prende, riconoscendo e realizzando l’originaria compagnia delle cose, data dalla carne” (p. 77). Il Suo sacrificio è “la rinuncia alla relazione
sbagliata con la propria vita, quella cioè che – sorda al magistero delle cose – interpreta l’esistenza nei termini di dovuta, assoluta e scontata disponibilità” (p. 78).
La rilevanza del legame cosale nella vicenda umana suggerisce, nel settore del diritto, la possibilità di una rinnovata configurazione del fenomeno giuridico stesso come
realtà potenzialmente indisponibile: si tratta, come accennato, del tentativo di recupero di una giuridicità che richiami una dimensione oggettiva sottratta all’arbitrio del
potere politico, una dimensione autenticamente sociale, perché non coartata finalisticamente dall’intervento legislativo e libera di esprimersi nella sfera dell’operatività.
Un percorso che pare già essere iniziato, guardando alla poderosa crescita, a partire
dagli ultimi anni del XX secolo, della normazione di provenienza extrastatuale nella
regolazione degli scambi commerciali e delle operazioni economiche in genere.
Spetta, innanzitutto, al legislatore ascoltare le ragioni della cosa – diritto, coglierne, cioè, aspetti autentici e genuini ove occorra, senza indirizzarne l’evoluzione in
un senso o nell’altro, custodendo manifestazioni del reale: si apre, così, lo spazio
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per una configurazione cosale del giuridico che rifugge prese bulimiche che tutto
mirano a regolamentare. Alla base di questo atteggiamento totalitario ed esasperatamente normativistico troviamo, come accadde per la prima coppia, un “giudizio
negativo circa la disponibilità resistente delle cose”, cioè il rifiuto di uno spazio
sottratto all’arbitrio totale dell’umano, ma non per questo meno rilevante.
La riflessione di Pagazzi implica un ripensamento qualitativo dell’umano e della
sua dimensione pratico – manuale: un ripensamento che restituisca credibilità al
piano dell’esperienza. Un piano che, come scrive Pierangelo Sequeri nella prefazione, viene oggi troppo spesso “ridotto al gioco impersonale dei dispositivi fisici e biologici che spiegano le funzioni di sopravvivenza e di godimento” (p. 9).
Al contrario, il saggio prelude alla riscoperta della “sapienza della sostanza delle
cose”, cose attraverso le quali “il Figlio parla, e nelle quali compie le opere di
Dio” (Ibidem); per apprendere alla loro scuola, però, occorre “agilità della mente
[…] che non si fa mancare l’olio e il fuoco sul più bello”, seguendo “la splendida
benedizione della mano, che indica la via della Parola nelle cose” (p. 10). Una lezione che il diritto, se vuole ancora continuare ad esistere come sapere autonomo
e scientificamente unitario, deve (re)imparare.
Luigi Pirri
Hirokazu Miyazaki, Arbitraging Japan. Dreams of Capitalism at
the End of Finance, University of California Press, Berkeley 2013
“The subprime crisis revealed a simple fact: that is, that finance is nothing but
a fraud […] As it has turned out, finance was the arbitrage of knowledge gaps between those who knows [those in the financial industry] and those who don’t [the
public], not arbitrage between markets, and this fact has been revealed” (p. 1).
No other quote, put at the very incipit, or as a sort of epigraph, can best introduce
the reader to the content of Miyazaki’s book. This sentence by a financial market
professional, expresses also the sense of the end of an era, the era in which bankers
and financers were regarded as movers and shakers of economy and society. Hence
the questions that guided the research of the author: “What does this sense of the
end of an era, widely shared among financial market professionals, mean for the
future of capitalism, whose creative and destructive force finance has demonstrated repeatedly over the last three decades? What does it mean for financial market
professionals, whose careers and lives have been driven by utopian imaginaries and
dreams of economic, social, and personal transformation inspired by techniques and
theories of finance? What does it means for critics of capitalism, who have long predicted the burst of financial markets and their underlying deceptive and destructive
logics? And what is specific about the Japanese inflections of all these questions?”
To answer these questions the author realizes a challenging longitudinal ethnographic field research among Japanese financial market professionals in Tokyo, a
research lasted around 13 years (between 1998 and 2011). The book is a study of
a kind of utopianism or intellectual excitement that animated a group of Japanese
pioneers in derivative trading.
Miyazaki’s ethnographic account is based in the well-established field of the anthropology of finance and the social studies of finance, but also on the background
of the so called performativity of economic science, and follows the tradition of the
anthropological attention to the parallel between anthropologists and their interlocutors regarded as coanalysts, cointerpreters, and cotheorists, where his ultimate
goal is to explore where dialogue and collaboration may take place between them.
Naturally, the abovementioned questions can only provide the reader with a
glimpse of the anthropological complexities explored by Miyazaki, all of them
turning around the notion of arbitrage and the extension of this notion to many
other fields, included the life of the arbitrageurs, but also that of the researcher
himself. In this respect, the six chapters – 1) “Shakespearean arbitrage”; 2) “Between arbitrage and speculation”; 3) “Trading on the limit of learning”; 4) “Econ-
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omy of dreams”; 5) “The last dream”; 6) “From arbitrage to the gift” – are a sort
of variations on the theme of the arbitrage.
Technically speaking, arbitrage is the most important theoretical construct underling modern finance: it is a trading strategy seeking to profit from a difference
in the prices of an asset in two different markets. Nevertheless the attempt pursued
by the author is to show the ambiguity and constantly shifting conceptual boundaries of such a notion. In this respect one of the accomplishment of the book is
the departure from the long-established idea that professional traders are rational,
irrational or even hyper-rational. As thinking subjects, they embrace, as Miyazaki
argues and shows throughout the book, “ambiguity, complexity, and the ultimate
unknowability of the world” (p. 6).
Also, this ambiguity depends on the fictional status of arbitrage, which, in turn,
feeds back on the traders’ lives. Arbitrage is based on a fiction: it’s an “as if” notion
of no arbitrage. Hence the ambivalence of arbitrageurs: they believe in arbitrage
while knowing that is a fictional and theoretical construct that works and lasts as
long as you believe in it. Arbitrage has a “self-canceling tendency”, evidenced by
the way in which arbitrageurs exploit and eliminate arbitrage opportunities and
ultimately themselves. The collapse of arbitrage – and the lost of the game in the
arbitrageurs’ lives – depends also on the loss of faith in it.
Indeed, there are many other issues and/or corollaries related to the notion of
arbitrage, such as its circular logic, the crucial distinction between arbitrage and
speculation, the notion of dream, and the role of beliefs in market and life, and last
but not least the issue of hope that Miyazaki has the merit to have re-launched as
a key issue in anthropology but also in socials sciences (The Method of Hope: Anthropology, Philosophy, and Fijian Knowledge. Stanford: Stanford University Press,
2004), contributing to an understanding of the place of hope in knowledge formation (but also elesewhere), and that he has never ceased exploring (see the forthcoming book, The Economy of Hope, edited with Richard Swedberg). Of course,
all these issues would deserve a much wider analysis than this short review.
To conclude, though the disasters and injustices caused by that kind of intellectual excitement or utopianism are undeniable, Miyazaki insists on “the importance of taking financial utopianism seriously. It is only through an active
effort to reorient financial market professionals that real market reform will be
possible. And this can only happen if financial market professionals are taken
seriously as thinking subjects capable of reflecting on and reorienting the place
of their expertise in the economy and society. Otherwise the seemingly universal
appeal of finance remains intact. Diversity in the future can be guaranteed only
when diversity in the past is kept in view” (p. 23).
For all those interested in all these issues, as well as in Economics, Anthropology, and, more generally, in keeping alive the ‘spirit’ of the human being through
the ‘bread’ of the humanities and humanistic social sciences (in which I would
also like to include “Law and humanities”), I cannot but suggest to let them
nourish by this book. It’s worth it.
Paolo Silvestri
Laurent De Sutter, Métaphysique de la putain, Léo Scheer,
Paris 2014
Quando anche l’Italia, allineandosi alla normativa europea, ha inserito nel PIL
il calcolo del prodotto stimato proveniente dalle “attività” della malavita e della
prostituzione, non ho potuto impedire l’associazione mentale con l’ultimo testo
pubblicato dal filosofo del diritto di Bruxelles – già autore qualche anno fa del
pregevole testo tradotto in italiano “Deleuze e il diritto” – dal titolo provocatorio
“Métaphysique de la putain”, in cui è analizzato il rapporto, qualificato come necessariamente ambiguo, tra idea di verità e prostituzione.
L’idea estrema che nella prostituzione risieda un elemento veritativo, dotato di
potenziale fenomenologico nell’illuminare in qualche senso le relazioni umane private e sociali nella loro reale quotidianità, sembra così trovare un contesto “normativo” adeguato come supporto al discorso, con tanto di legittimazione europeista
e del sapere economico, che fa emergere tutta l’ambiguità sociale insita nel tema
filosofico e giuridico della tutela dell’ordine sociale. Il trionfo della presunta neutralità dell’economia sull’ordinamento – secondo la logica per la quale, in tempi di
crisi, è coerente inserire qualunque tipologia di attività nel calcolo economico del
prodotto della nazione: in fondo produce ricchezza! – diviene così anch’esso un
fattore di verità che pone al giusto posto le gerarchie nella considerazione sociale
dell’oggi, indicando quanto per il sapere giuridico sia in corso una “secolarizzazione”, come già avvenuto, in passato, per il teologico.
Occorre allora seguire con attenzione il funambolico itinerario concettuale e
letterario di de Sutter, tra nichilismo e Law and Literature, per evitare facili fraintendimenti. In società in cui tutto è calcolabile e monetizzabile il ragionamento del
filosofo, che problematizza le idee di segno e di verità, appare, se non condivisibile,
sicuramente comprensibile, nella sua radicalità critica. Nella prostituzione, il calcolo almeno è evidente, ineliminabile e il pagamento sempre palese: il linguaggio
dello scambio non raggiunge mai il linguaggio del dono e dell’amore, e in questa
verità si cela, à la Derrida, almeno una salvaguardia possibile dall’ipocrisia del
dono ricattatorio. Di più, sembra dire de Sutter, all’uomo non è possibile. Certo,
non è molto, ma è forse qualcosa se si pensa che di relazioni di prostituzione – o di
scambio di mazzette – occultate e celate (non facciamone per carità una questione
di genere, è tema che affetta uomini e donne) sono piene le multinazionali, le università e tutti gli altri uffici e gli spazi, pubblici o privati, i luoghi profani e persino
quelli sacri. Servilismo intellettuale, ma anche vero e proprio scambio di favori sessuali e denaro di ogni genere, sono assai diffusi: ma si tratta di attività pur sempre
nascoste, mai palesi, celate a sé e agli altri dietro una qualche forma di rispettabilità
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socialmente riconosciuta o presunta tale. Ecco allora che la anche discutibile provocazione di De Sutter trova così facile terreno fecondo nella critica della diffusa
ipocrisia sociale, senza mai indulgere in una facile rivendicazione dell’antiproibizionismo, però: la puttana può divenire, paradossalmente, un fattore di verità nella
nostra società indegna, costruita sull’immagine e dello spettacolo, sul teatro della
verità e della giustizia, di fronte all’ipocrisia dilagante. La provocazione rinnova
analisi critiche già ben note da più di un secolo, ma la tesi è autenticamente filosofica, ed emerge da un’analisi delle arti, della letteratura, del cinema, della pittura, tra
Occidente e Oriente, in un crescendo in continuo scivolamento sul costituirsi e sul
dissolversi del soggetto visto nella sua apparenza, fino a individuare un problema
semiotico centrale: il segno che non sa più significare alcunché (in fondo la recente
crisi finanziaria cosa è se non l’incapacità del denaro di significare alcunché di reale?), in un contesto che virtualizza l’intera società, coinvolgendo la stessa nozione
di verità. V’è una impensabile istanza critpo-luterana in De Sutter, celata dietro a
questo discorso apparentemente nichilistico che non vuole negare l’ambivalenza
del reale? C’è la ricerca di un impossibile giusnaturalismo del segno? Ai posteri
l’ardua sentenza. Si può trovare, mi pare, almeno la ricerca di una desolata pulizia
linguistica e relazionale in questa fenomenologia della quotidianità, che chiama
in causa la strutturale ambiguità discorsiva della verità stessa – di qualsiasi concezione solo linguistica e non evenemenziale della verità –, inserendosi nel ben noto
filone della tradizione novecentesca della critica della metafisica nel riprenderla
moralmente rovesciata, a fronte della osservabile decomposizione del tessuto sociale e relazionale di cui si nutre l’Occidente.
Qualche breve istantanea tratta dal testo, allora. Il dato di partenza è che il
semplice ingresso di una puttana in un luogo desta sconcerto, disapprovazione,
oppure interesse, per lo più non passa inosservato. Entro questo sconcerto si sollevano molte questioni filosofiche: cos’è l’arte e cos’è il cinema, cos’è il denaro, cos’è
il soggetto e cos’è la polizia, ed anche, che cosa sono economia, filosofia e diritto.
Il testo muove dall’evocazione della cosmetica della verità a partire dal cinema di
Godard. V’è nel padre della Nouvelle Vague un tema rilevante, l’idea che la verità
stessa sia strutturata come un film. La questione dell’arte in Baudelaire ne segue:
l’artista moderno accetta la condizione di prostituzione della sua arte, ove lo scrivere, il dipingere o il comporre per guadagnare denaro rivelano la condizione metafisica dell’artista, che mette il proprio talento al servizio dei potenti e dei ricchi.
L’arte che ne deriva è prostituita nella sua stessa essenza, e rivela un tratto della
moderna cosmetica della verità, in cui è il maquillage, la maschera, a divenirne il
luogo virtuale. In questo senso Godard nei suoi film rovescia Baudelaire, facendo
della sua ossessione per la figura cinematografica della puttana – contro la coquette e la femme fatale hollywoodiana – il quadro della vita moderna, ove il cinema
è medium di un regime altro possibile della verità. Il discorso allora si estende ed
entrano così i Capricci di Goya, in cui si inizia a palesare la tesi filosofica centrale,
mutuata tra l’altro da Goya, Baudelaire, Deleuze, Godard: il moderno mostra una
relazione inevitabilmente ambivalente con le apparenze. Proprio in questo senso
la puttana diviene un fattore rivelatore, in cui l’invisibile diviene visibile, “quel che
era dissimulato al fondo delle apparenze appare alla loro superficie – divenendo
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quelle apparenze stesse”. L’analisi si spinge così alle radici della crisi contemporanea dell’umano nella modernità e postmodernità. La figura dell’artista, che si prostituisce intellettualmente per denaro, da figura di avanguardia ha lasciato il passo
a una ben più diffusa generalizzazione di tale pratica, occultata, però, nelle società
rette dall’economia di mercato e dall’immagine narcisista. Questo tratto dell’arte si
generalizza, perché l’occultamento della prostituzione diviene il tratto stesso della
borghesia, della psicanalisi e di molto altro, finalmente della verità stessa.
Nell’idea che la prostituta non può essere posseduta, e proprio per questo deve
essere pagata, si trova la verità stessa del denaro, come forma della possessione
impossibile, e – idea già coltivata da Hénaff – anche che la verità filosofica ha sempre un prezzo, si conquista e si paga. Il tema delle relazioni tra verità e apparenza
diviene così sempre più complesso, nel testo – e a questa complessità ci arrestiamo – a partire dalla tesi per cui la puttana mente, ma almeno non imbroglia, non
fa passare per vero quello che non è. L’innocenza, come assenza di duplicità, e il
segno non significante, sono i veri temi dissimulati così nel testo, nelle arti e nelle
citazioni di molte altre figure letterarie, teatrali, poetiche, scultoree che costituiscono lo sfondo sul quale la tesi si avvolge in permanenza su se stessa evocando,
tra Joyce e il teatro Nô, Sartre e Giacometti, il rapporto tra il bordello e la città,
tra l’interno e l’esterno, l’autoillusione del soggetto, il fiore della verità: fino a raggiungere, lo stesso tratto radicalmente pornografico del tempo presente, di cui la
provocazione di una metafisica frammista della puttana e della verità vuole essere
paradossale rivelazione. Risposte non sono fornite, ma domande inquietanti, sullo
sfondo di quello che Paolo di Tarso denominerebbe la perversione della legge, ne
potete avere quante ne volete, in uno stile colto quanto disincantato, mai volgare.
Paolo Heritier
MIMESIS GROUP
www.mimesis-group.com
MIMESIS INTERNATIONAL
www.mimesisinternational.com
[email protected]
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www.mimesisedizioni.it
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TCRS 2/2014 Teoria e Critica della regolazione sociale

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