On the Idea of Potency

Sweeping through the history of Western philosophy of law, Emanuele Castrucci deals with the metaphysical idea of potency as defined by Spinoza and Nietzsche, upsetting entrenched theories of jurisprudence. From classical Greek philosophy to Jewish biblical exegesis, via Christianity; from Aristotle's Metaphysics to its Arabic interpretations; from the genesis of natural law theory (Augustine, Aquinas, Duns Scotus, Ockham), to Kant and Enlightenment natural law theory, to Carl Schmitt, Castrucci shows how philosophical rationalism has failed to contain absolute power in a juridical sense.

Emanuele Castrucci is Professor of Philosophy of Law at the University of Siena. He taught previously at the Universities of Florence and Genoa. His studies mainly concern the domain of the history of legal and political ideas, which include such areas as the sources and forms of modern European legal thought, the reconstruction of the legal theory of the early 20th century German State and the theological roots of the cultural tradition of Western civilization. He has contributed to the diffusion in Italy of the thought of Carl Schmitt, editing the Italian edition of Der Nomos der Erde im Völkerrecht des Jus publicum Europaeum (1991).