Assumptions and Theses of Carlos Cossio’s Phenomenology of the Law
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15633/lie.60205Keywords:
law, phenomenology, conduct, egology, intersubjectivityAbstract
The Argentinian legal philosopher Carlos Cossio developed his concepts from the 1930s, being an academic lecturer and actively participating in social life. In assumptions, theses and postulates, his theory of law examines the social role of law, primarily the role of judges and judicial institutions. In his phenomenology of law, Cossio refers above all to Edmund Husserl’s phenomenologist theses, but also to Immanuel Kant’s ethics and to the philosophy of existence – to the construals of Miguel de Unamuno and Martin Heidegger. Cossio systematically emphasises the first-person, i.e., egological and individualistic, perspective of knowledge, decisions and actions. Such a perspective allows us to recognise law as acting towards and for human individuals, taking into account their specific biographical situation and their conduct – law is defined and gaining importance in a concrete social world. At the same time, the position of the subject in the world is determined by the intersubjective context of culture, which is identical to the specifically human “world of life”. Cossio directs our attention towards anthropological theses (the anthropological need for rules and normativity) and towards the language and other sign systems presumed to be specific human products and giving meanings to “cultural objects” (Wilhelm Dilthey), i.e., towards intersubjectivity (Lebenswelt) broadly understood as a symbolic, semiotic and semantic sphere.
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