Santi Romano e il prospettivismo giuridico

A towering figure of the first half of the twentieth century, Santi Romano is still at the centre of contemporary jurisprudential debates in a wide range of legal fields. This testifies to the inexhaustible potential of his conceptual tapestry. This article explores it from a particular angle, one that first and foremost brings out Romano’s legal philosophy. It does so by identifying his persistent interest in the nature and function of legal techniques and legal knowledge, insofar as they have transformative effects on reality. This is the key to unravelling his legal perspectivism, which underlies both his notion of institution and his controversial theory of pluralism. Although this conception of law is too optimistic about the depoliticising activity of law, it nevertheless captures features of the legal phenomenon that contemporary jurisprudence still struggles to fathom.