The eternal return of the problem of methodology

Abstract

Fabio Ciaramelli’s book L’ordine simbolico della legge e il problema del metodo proposes a convincing methodological perspective for legal knowledge in contemporary constitutional democracies. The central claim is that a middle path between strong objectivism and absolute discretion exists. Ciaramelli thinks that the key concept for legal methodology is that of “symbolic order”. In this paper I deal with this notion and try to emphasize some features of it from a perspective slightly different from Ciaramelli’s one.