The paper analyzes the sacred foundations of Western institutional order, moving from an epistemological, historical and legal–aesthetic perspective. Firstly, it identifies an epistemological theory of complexity which, pursuing Hayek’s theory of complexity, Robilant’s notion of informative–normative systems, Popper’s theory of the Worlds, and Dupuy’s theory of endogenous fixed point, will conclusively lead to presenting the hypothesis of World 0 as the World of the foundation of legal thinking, the home of the sacred and the aesthetic. Secondly, it identifies the axiological (...) character of the legal aesthetic as a discipline, a topic that will be taken up in relation to the work of the French historian of canonical law and psychoanalyst Legendre, starting from the analysis of a legal/historiographical context (Corpus Iuris Civilis, Corpus Iuris Canonici, Hobbesian Leviathan, Kelsenian Grundnorm). Thirdly, following Ellul’s thought on secularization, the idea that we now live in a secularized, lay society, lacking in the sacred is revealed as a sort of illusion, the creation of a myth of modernity, only apparently rational. Finally the paper proposes as the task of legal theory the identification of the system of “nomograms” in which the normative message is organized, according to a nonreductionistic approach that forces legal theory to recognize the plurality of the iconic forms of the normative message. The “nomograms” respond to the need of extending the field of legal science to phenomena that the positivist theory of law does not consider important, but which the process of evolution of contemporary society imposes. (shrink)

The name Stanislas Breton likely drums up a few interesting facts: chum of Louis Althusser or Michel de Certeau, author of an obscure spiritual classic or bewildering treatises on Nothing, the Imaginary, and the “poetics of the sensible” – an idiosyncratic figure at the margins, writing on St. Paul or Proclus well before it was mainstream. Coming across his name can be like discovering a great record that none of your friends are talking about or taking a chance on Netflix (...) to find an arthouse ‘hidden gem’. To facilitate that experience, I offer a brief introductory essay sounding some of the major notes in his thought and life, followed by a translation of his “Examen particulier,” written in 1988 as a late-stage critical self-interrogation. The reader should find here that Breton’s oeuvre develops a coherent and penetrating philosophy of conceptual rigor and thematic range that is as deeply indebted to its modern engagements as it is to its medieval and late antique sources of inspiration. (shrink)

Al inicio de su carrera docente y filosófica, Heidegger señala que el objeto primordial de la filosofía es la vida táctica, para lo cual propone el método fenomenológico como central. Su propia interpretación de este método para acceder al fenómeno religioso se diferencia, en un diálogo crítico, de otros ensayos filosóficos contemporáneos para aproximarse a aquel fenómeno. Heidegger encuentra en las cartas de Pablo a los Gálata y a los Tesalonicenses un "paradigma" de realización de la vida táctica que luego (...) incorpora a su propia filosofía. Al final planteamos un juicio crítico y prospectivo de la empresa heideggeriana desde una perspectiva teológica. (shrink)

Is there something wrong with the Mass? Reflections on the Eucharist in light of recent developments and Vatican II The starting point for this paper is the observation that the first decade of the twenty-first century has shown considerable interest in the Eucharist, at least from the side of the Vatican. There was not only the last encyclical of John Paul II, Ecclesia de Eucharistia, and the postsynodal apostolic exhortation of his successor Benedict XVI, Sacramentum caritatis, but also the promulgation (...) of the third editio typica of the Missale Romanum after Vatican II and the motu proprio which made it possible that the mass is celebrated according to the rubrics in use just before de council, Summorum pontificum. All these initiatives may be surprising given the fact that the cultural and societal influence of the Eucharist is waning. And yet, those Catholics who are attached to it, seem to quarrel over its most appropriate, or most comprehensible, form. This article aims to shed light on these different developments through a fundamental reflection about the Eucharist, rather than through a survey of the different positions. It puts forward the hypothesis that ‘problems’ with the Eucharist may arise when its actual celebration, its shape or form, and its essence are torn apart. In that respect, reference is made to the seminal work on the Eucharist by Johannes Emminghaus, who made a powerful case that these three levels are, and should be, interdependent. If this perspective of mutual dependence and enrichment is taken seriously, one can ask questions about the often ideology-driven accounts and evaluations of the Eucharist of both leftist and rightist voices. For it is unsure whether their theories and opinions will ultimately be beneficial to the Eucharist. (shrink)