Law & (dis)order. Norma, eccezione, fondamento

Law is ‘sovereign’, it has been said. Since the poet Pindar expressed this fulminating thought in the 6th century B.C., the whole western tradition, from Aristotle to Cicero, from Heidegger to Schmitt, hasn’t stopped raising questions about the ambivalent relationship connecting law, strength and violence. It has been said that law is ‘subtle’ too: establishing its widespread, imperceptible power, rooted in the institutions’ actions as well as in the directions of consciousness, it ended up ruling over the individual before this one even realized it...