Norberto Bobbio

Norberto Bobbio (Turin, Italy, October 18, 1909 – January 9, 2004) was an Italian jurist, lawyer, philosopher, and political scientist.

Life

The son of Luigi Bobbio, a surgeon at the Ospedale S. Giovanni in Turin, and Rosa Caviglia, he belonged to a wealthy pro-fascist family. In 1927 he organized the section of the Avanguardia Giovanile Fascista at the Massimo d'Azeglio high school where he was studying and, the following year, when he began his university studies, he joined the National Fascist Party. After graduating in Law and Philosophy at the University of his native city, he was professor of Philosophy of Law at the University of Camerino from 1935 to 1938, in Siena from 1938 to 1940, and in Padua from 1940 to 1948, finally returning to teach in Turin until 1979, date on which he was appointed emeritus professor of Political Philosophy. In 1943 he married Valeria Cova, from whom he had three children: Luigi, Andrea and Marco.He belonged to the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei and was a corresponding member of the British Academy since 1966.

In 1935 he was arrested by the regime for the first time, along with his friends from the anti-fascist group Giustizia e Libertà. Between 1942 and 1943, during World War II, he was imprisoned due to his belonging to the Italian resistance.

He was appointed senator for life of Italy while Sandro Pertini was President of the Republic. He was Doctor honoris causa by the Universities of Paris, Buenos Aires, Complutense of Madrid, Bologna, Chambéry and Carlos III of Madrid.

Political activity

Bobbio has been called a liberal socialist in the tradition of Piero Gobetti and Carlo Rosselli. He participated since 1942 in the Movimento Liberalsocialista created by Aldo Capitini and Guido Calogero. In October 1942, he joined the clandestine Partito d'Azione, for which he would become a candidate in the elections to the Italian Constituent Assembly in 1946. During this period Bobbio was also influenced -due to to his studies in law and economics - both by Hans Kelsen and Vilfredo Pareto.

In 1943 Bobbio joined the anti-fascist resistance, joining the Giustizia e Libertà movement -of social democratic inspiration- due to which -in December of the same- he was imprisoned.

After the war, and for a long time, Bobbio moved away from active politics, especially after an unsuccessful attempt to occupy a seat in the Italian congress, despite which he continued to participate in different activities of a cultural nature.

In 1967 Bobbio participated in the constituent assembly of the Unitary Socialist Party. His greatest contributions to political life have taken place in the ideological and programmatic sphere, especially his academic activity at the University of Turin -in which he became founder of the Chair of Political Economy and dean of the Faculty of political sciences. Through his work in these areas he became a member of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei and the British Academy. In addition, he was named (in 1979) emeritus professor at the University of Turin and senator for life (1984).

As a senator, Bobbio registered as an independent in the socialist group.

This situation coincided with a particularly unstable and confused period in Italian political life, culminating in the kidnapping and death of Aldo Moro by the Red Brigades, (1978), the Propaganda Due lodge scandal (1981); the assassination of the head of the Carabinieri, General Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa by the Mafia (1982) and finally the collapse and dissolution of the Christian Democrats (1991-1994) (see also: Clean Hands (Italy))

During this period Bobbio showed himself to be a strong supporter of the principle of legality, the limitation and separation of powers and, at the same time, as a socialist, he opposed what he perceived as the authoritarian and anti-democratic tendency of the majority of the communist parties. He was in favor of the Italian historical commitment, of the reunion between socialism and democracy and of a policy for peace, both internally and internationally. In 1996 he joined the Left Democratic Party.

Later, he became a harsh critic of Silvio Berlusconi.

For all of the above, Bobbio is perceived as the philosopher of “Democracy in the contemporary world”, understood as the critical search for consensus. In his opinion, collective and non-coercive participation in common decisions, non-violent alternation of the parties and social sectors in power, etc., are essential. (see, particularly: Bobbio: L'età dei diritti-The time of rights; 1990).

Thought

Both in his teachings and in his many works, such as Politica e cultura (Politics and culture, 1955), Da Hobbes a Marx (From Hobbes to Marx, 1965) and Quale socialismo? (What socialism?, 1976), Bobbio has analyzed the advantages and disadvantages of liberalism and socialism, trying to show that those who defend both ideologies base their activities on respect for the constitutional order and the rejection of anti-democratic methods, including, obviously, the analysis and criticism of the corruption that has characterized Italian political life in recent years and the terrorism that he energetically opposed during the decades of the years 1960 and 1970.

In the fifties, Bobbio dedicated various writings to the defense of Hans Kelsen's pure theory of law against the criticisms of natural law and Marxists. At that time, Bobbio conceived the legal system from a structural point of view inspired by the legal positivism of the aforementioned Austrian author. Bobbio is one of the main exponents of liberal socialism.

In philosophy, his thought underwent decisive changes, going from a position initially close to the approaches of phenomenology and existentialism (which can be dated between 1934 to 1944) to a position close to logical empiricism and analytical philosophy. He will abandon phenomenology because he appreciates in it a sort of theorization of the doctrine of the "double truth"; and therefore a return to the old metaphysics. He will also abandon existentialism, denouncing it as anti-personalist and apolitical.

Called by many the «philosopher of democracy», in political matters Bobbio always tended to defend three self-implicating ideals and which he himself expressly recognized: democracy, human rights and peace; This is how he already quoted it on pages VII to VIII of the introduction to L’età dei diritti:

Diritti de l’uomo, democrazia e pace sono tre momenti necessari dello stesso movimento storico: senza diritti de l’uomo riconosciuti e protetti non c’è democrazia; senza democrazia non ci sono le condizioni minime per la soluzione pacifica dei conflitti. With altre parole, democrazia è la società dei cittadini, e i sudditi diventano cittadini quando vengono loro riconosciuti alcuni diritti fondamentali; ci sarà pace stabile, una pace che non ha la guerra come alternative, solo quando vi saranno cittadini non piú soltanto di questo.

Human rights, democracy and peace are three necessary moments of the same historical movement: without the rights of recognized and protected men there is no democracy; without democracy the minimum conditions for the peaceful solution of conflicts are not given. In other words, democracy is the society of citizens, and the subjects become citizens when they are recognized some fundamental rights; there will be stable peace, a peace that does not have war as an alternative, only when we are citizens not of this or that State, but of the world.

Theoria generale della politica, p. LVIII.

Works

• Politics and culture (1955)
• Civilized Italy. Retracts and testimonies (1964)
• From Hobbes to Marx (1965)
• What socialism? (1976)
• Norberto Bobbio: The philosopher and politics. Anthology, Editorial Fund for Economic Culture, Mexico, 1996 1st. Edit. Preliminary study and compilation of texts by José Fernández Santillán.
• Neither Marx nor Marx
• The Future of Democracy (1984)
• State, Government and Society: by a General Theory of Politics (1985)
• Right and left (1994, second edition 1995). Castilian translation of Alessandra Picone, Taurus, Madrid, 1998.
• Liberalism and Democrazia Simonelli Editore (1985)
• General theory of law (1958 and 1960). Castilian translation of Eduardo Rozo Acuña, Debate, Madrid, 1991
• The Problem of War and the Ways of Peace
• The problem of legal positivism. Castilian translation of Ernesto Garzón Valdés, Editorial Universitaria de Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1965 (Mexican reeddition in Fontamara, Mexico, 1991).
• Equality and freedom
• The Time of Rights
• Ideologies and power in crisis: pluralism, democracy, socialism, communism, third way and third force
• The doubt and the choice. Intellectual and Power in Contemporary Society
• Elogio de la templanza
• The left in the era of karaoke
• The third absent
• Senectute and other biographical writings (1996)
• Autobiography (1997)
• 20th century ideological profile in Italy, Turin, (1960)
• Right and left (1994)
• Dialogue around the RepublicBari, (2001)
• Crisis of democracy (1985)
• From state reason to democratic government (2014)
• Democracy and secret (2011)
• Studies of Philosophy History (1985)
• Theory of the forms of government in the history of political thought (1985)
• Origin and foundations of political power (1985)
• Theoria General de la Politica (2003)
• Tomas Hobbes (1989)
• Dictionary of politics (2004)