Comparing Comparativisms, Nomos and Narrative as Cultural Legitimation

Authors: Pier Giuseppe Monateri

ABSTRACT

This paper is an inquiry into the scientific roots and the ‘normative’ justification of comparative law, moving from the historical consciousness of the inextricable bond that grasps human behaviours and human sciences. The research path – chosen at this aim – leads through the complex and not univocal paradigms of philology, emphasizing their proper structure open to multiple uses and different declensions. The Author studies the inherent essence of philology, that reflects the range of meanings and interpretative activities included under the notion of λόγος, so to offer a more deep explanation both of its various branches and of its structural relation to theology. A parallel analysis discovers the reasons behind the success of comparative literature as a critical scholarship and as an intellectual tool fitted to the persuasive construction of cultural icons and identity narratives. As a consequence – and in conclusion of the investigation carried out – the innermost coherence of humanities testifies what is at the stake: the cultural legitimation of the ‘normative’ function of comparative law, insofar as it turns into a geopolitical project mapping the historical sense of ‘belonging’ and ‘otherness’.

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