L’oceano senza legge

Starting from the famous Kantian page, within the Critique of pure reason, relating to the distinction between phaenomena and noumena, the present article intends to verify what role the sea plays in the structuring of law by focusing on some salient passages of the modern Western tradition. Through Hegel’s texts, with particular attention to his Elements of the Philosophy of Right, the novel Moby Dick written by Melville, Michelet’s essay entitled The Sea, and above all through the reference to Schmitt’s texts, the article attempts to connect the land-sea dialectical to some of the decisive issues of the contemporary age: the transition from legitimacy to legality; the statute of national borders with respect to the formation and permanence of a State identity; the dynamics favored by the element we call “sea” on the level of political economy.Starting from the famous Kantian page, within the Critique of pure reason, relating to the distinction between phaenomena and noumena, the present article intends to verify what role the sea plays in the structuring of law by focusing on some salient passages of the modern Western tradition. Through Hegel’s texts, with particular attention to his Elements of the Philosophy of Right, the novel Moby Dick written by Melville, Michelet’s essay entitled The Sea, and above all through the reference to Schmitt’s texts, the article attempts to connect the land-sea dialectical to some of the decisive issues of the contemporary age: the transition from legitimacy to legality; the statute of national borders with respect to the formation and permanence of a State identity; the dynamics favored by the element we call “sea” on the level of political economy