Legal Theory

Knowledge and comprehension
The course aims at introducing students to a number of major topics in Legal Theory, focusing particularly on the contemporary developments of the classical theories of law. The general goal is to acquaint students with a theoretical background encouraging a critical method in considering social, political and legal institutions.
Ability to apply knowledge and comprehension
Analysing some basic questions, associated with the classical terms of the legal-philosophical debate, we will also focus on main contemporary practical and normative applications coming from these debates. Besides, we aim at offering a critical review of the most important current paradigms in Legal Theory in the light of the Nation-State crisis and within the concrete perspective, for lawyers too, of post-national legal and political institutions.
Making judgment
The course aims to develop student’s ability to independently upgrade their knowledge and to formulate judgements in complex theoretical situations, especially those that have an impact on the evolution of the law. This acquisition of critical and interpretative skills revolved to mature an autonomy of judgment also through the active participation in conversations called in class.
Communication skills
Throughout the course, suggestions and advice will be provided to the student to adequately address the proposed issues in order to achieve a qualitatively significant learning. The essentially dialectical structure of the lessons will allow the student to proceed in the learning with autonomy and critical sense. This continuous interaction process will also be useful to the teacher, who, based on the questions and doubts posed by the student, will be induced to confront the level of learning attained.
Learning skills
The student will be encouraged to carefully take care of the ability to communicate the acquired knowledge in a clear, essential and scientifically correct way and to support the argumentative comparison convincingly. To this end, he will often be invited to discuss the philosophical issues underlying the normative dimension, using appropriate language, in an attempt to also improve his argumentative skills and language property