Counteracting with healing antidotes. Beyond Kelsen, towards Ross
Abstract
My aim in this essay is not to compare the thoughts of Norberto Bobbio and Alf Ross on all matters. Instead, I intend to examine some key areas of their legal philosophy in which one can reasonably see Bobbio as responding to or influenced by Ross, or in which comparisons between their theories are particularly interesting. The comparison is especially purposeful with regard to Bobbio”™s sixties works where Kelsenism, along with all attempts to ground law in a presupposed grundnorm and of purifying legal science  fail in his view. Particularly, the need for scientific clarity  and adherence to reality by appealing to the basic tenets of analytical philosophy and logical empiricism display levels of approval for Ross. Although Kelsenian legal positivism has continued to figure in Bobbio”™s legal thought long after he rejected Kelsen”™s purity thesis, Bobbio”™s devoted discussions on legal positivism and the doctrine of natural law, his later studies on legal norms and on the interplay between law and force, may be seen as some of the more significant ways in which he integrates valuable insights of Ross”™ standpoints into his own theory.
