Corsi di Studio del Dipartimento di Giurisprudenza

The aim of the course is to provide students with basic knowledge and elements of legal philosophy, to enable them to develop arguments and critical reflections on the main subjects of the course as well as to make a correct use of the philosophical and legal language.  

The course aims to provide the conceptual tools for understanding the legal phenomenon through the study of the main paradigms of legal science that have occurred in history, from the medieval one. This historical-conceptual framework is intended to make the student acquire a critical approach than the traditional legal dogmatics and, consequently, an 'outside' perspective, not formalistic, the study of positive law.

The lessons will be broadcast in live streaming and in part videotaped and posted on the moodle platform with relative didactic material (also audiovisual). There will be moments of meeting with students (collegiate and small groups) online and, where possible, in presence. The articulation of the calendar of plenary lessons and meetings will be communicated in time through the Moodle platform. The course modalities can obviously vary, depending on the public health situation. Any changes will be promptly communicated on the moodle platform.

Regular assesments written

Final exam in written form

in progress

The course is divided into two modules. The first track is an essential picture of the different disciplinary approaches to studying the legal phenomenon and examines critically some of the fundamentals of modern legal science (among others, the definition of law and the rule of law, the notion of power and its legitimacy, the task of interpretation of the rules drawn up by the lawyer and the ordinary citizen, the various forms of legal validity, sociology and ethics of the standard). In the second module reconstructs the complex historical process that led to the emergence of the paradigm of legal science in modern Western legal culture, highlighting, in addition to matters of legal theory, including those of a social, cultural and economic have made possible such a claim.
In the last part of the course also will address the theme of the processes of globalization that have undermined even within such a paradigm knowledge of legal dogmatics, trying to identify what are the distintive elements of a new paradigm of legal science postmodern . Part of the course will be specifically dedicated to the professional ethics of legal practitioners.

Raymond Wacks - Philosophy of Law - A Very Short Introduction (2006, Oxford University Press, USA)

Other texts will be indicated during the lessons