Exactly 100 years ago, in 1923, Carl Schmitt, a German lawyer whose controversial talent for brilliantly formulating political concepts continues to attract a great deal of attention from researchers to this day, published Roman Catholicism and Political Form. This book made him a prominent figure among German Catholic intellectuals in the Weimar Republic. Out of … Read More
In order to interpret the present political situation, Carl Schmitt’s thought is still topical; regardless of the many insights that can be drawn from it, at the present time some theses advocated by the Plettenberg thinker in the late 1920s and early 1960s, well before the contemporary “epoch,” following the collapse of communism, the “rise” … Read More
Ah, Carl Schmitt, Carl Schmitt! No man like him exists today. Political philosophy in our time is, and for many decades past has been, largely the domain of intellectual pygmies and outright morons; the age of gold has degenerated into the age of brass, or of plastic with yellow paint. Schmitt is dead, but his … Read More
One of the most thorough and interesting discussions of the relationship between federalism, constitutionalism and democracy is presented by Carl Schmitt in Constitutional Theory. A federation of states, or just a federation, is according to Schmitt a curious and structurally contradictory interstate relation, which has to be distinguished from, on the one hand, a confederation … Read More
The concept of the katechon first appears in biblical literature with two hapaxlegomena occurring in the second deutero-Pauline epistle to the Thessalonians (2:6-7): “And now you know what is now restraining him [τὸ κατέχον], so that he may be revealed when his time comes. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work, but only … Read More
Carl Schmitt, preeminent antiliberal, is that rare thing, the modern political philosopher relevant long after his time. The simple remember him only for his grasping embrace of Nazism, but the more astute, especially on the Left, have in recent times found much to ponder in Schmitt’s protean writings. He did not offer ideology, as did … Read More
War is one of the oldest phenomena of human history, which is so inseparably connected with it that it is difficult to imagine the existence of human society without it. Many treatises have been devoted to “eternal peace,” the problem of war and peace in the works of Friedrich II, Immanuel Kant, Johann Gottfried Herder, … Read More
It is traditional in the doctrine of French law, of a state formed by eight centuries of monarchy, to begin the treatment of public powers from the theological justification of power itself. This is followed by the exposition of the theory of divine right and the distinction between “doctrine du droit divin surnaturel” and “doctrine … Read More
I. Introduction Europe’s Christian identity has been a fundamental component of its history and culture, shaping not only the religious sphere but also politics, morals and way of life. This article sets out to examine the multiple layers of Christian identity in Europe, highlighting its historical roots, influences over time, and how it faces the … Read More
E principio oriuntur omnia ( Cicero, De re publica). 1. In the Esprit des lois Montesquieu wrote “Having examined what are the laws of every government, let us now see those which are relative to its principle. Between the nature of government and its principle there is this difference: that it is its nature that … Read More