Norberto Bobbio (1909–2004) and Law: A Centennial Tribute

• Published date: 30 June 2011
• Date: 30 June 2011
• Pages: 173-202
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/S1059-4337(2011)0000055010
• Author: Teresa Chataway

NORBERTO BOBBIO (1909–2004)

AND LAW: A CENTENNIAL

TRIBUTE

Teresa Chataway

ABSTRACT

Norberto Bobbio’s Birth Centenary was celebrated in Turin in October

2009. This article acknowledges an important 20th century legal

philosopher whose work is yet to be fully appreciated in the Anglo-

American context. A short introduction is followed by an overview of his

works in English, and intellectual profile. Relevant excerpts aim to convey

some understanding of his legal scholarship. Three exemplars of his

contribution to law: jurisprudence, legal sociology and the general theory

of law are discussed. It is argued that a Bobbian lens can be usefully

employed to consider some of the pressing 21st century legal-political and

social issues.

It is easy to praise a philosopher. It is difficult to make clear, to oneself and to others, the

nature and significance of his achievement.

Karl Popper

1

Studies in Law, Politics, and Society, Volume 55, 173–202

Copyright r2011 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited

All rights of reproduction in any form reserved

ISSN: 1059-4337/doi:10.1108/S1059-4337(2011)0000055010

173

INTRODUCTION

Norberto Bobbio’s Birth Centenary on 18 October 2009 was marked in Italy

with a series of academic seminars and cultural events. The International

Congress held in Turin provided a range of reflective presentations on his

figure and significant contribution to scholarship and Italian public life.

2

Bobbio was Italy’s foremost legal, political and moral philosopher of the 20th

century. For over 60 years, through the breadth of his scholarship and public

engagement, he exerted a far-reaching influence on both academics and

ordinary people. He played a central role in developing the interconnection of

law, politics and morals, and communicating that knowledge to all levels of

Italian society and beyond.

Bobbio was conversant in English, French and German. His first book

in English, The Philosophy of Decadentism: A Study in Existentialism, was

published in 1948. During the subsequent three decades, several of his legal

and political theory articles appeared in Anglo-American academic

journals. Concurrently, other translations, including some law texts, were

published in Latin America, Mexico and Spain. Not surprisingly, it was in

these countries, which had experienced despotic regimes, that his theories of

liberty, equality, democracy and human rights were so well received.

Perhaps, it was also due to the conviction pervading his writings on those

principles that encouraged the germination of those seeds even in such

parched ground. Bobbio’s theoretical clarity and crystalline expression are

well acknowledged, and they operated as vital conduits to promote the kind

of free persuasion that is essential for an effective democracy: he observes

that ‘democracy needs clarity as much as humans need air’ (Bobbio, 1945,

p. 159).

Bobbio’s writings are underpinned by his eclectic understanding, which

derives from his synthesis of a body of knowledge in legal, political and

moral philosophy. Significantly, it was from such a perspective that he

engaged with different interlocutors during the difficult years under fascism

in Italy. As an engaged intellectual, Bobbio considered complex questions

from a principled position, and beyond national boundaries, and these

attributes distinguished his approach.

Bobbio’s intellectual trajectory and interdisciplinary body of writings

provide a broad spectrum of understanding, which also reveals a developed

international mind. This spans his cultural origins steeped in the Piedmontese

landscape, his synthesis of Continental scholarship and thorough assimila-

tion of the English classics, and includes his reception of Anglo-American

influences that he found relevant to particular social and legal areas.

TERESA CHATAWAY174