Norberto Bobbio (October 18, 1909 – January 9, 2004) was an Italian philosopher of law and political sciences and an historian of political thought. He also wrote regularly for the Turin-based daily La Stampa .
Bobbio was a liberalsocialist in the tradition of Piero Gobetti , Carlo Rosselli , Guido Calogero , and Aldo Capitini . He was also strongly influenced by Hans Kelsen and Vilfredo Pareto.
Bobbio was born into which his Guardian obituary described as "...a relatively wealthy, middle-class Turin family" whose sympathies Bobbio would later characterize as "'filo-fascist', regarding fascism as a necessary evil against the supposedly greater danger of Bolshevism".
At the high school he met Vittorio Foa , Leone Ginzburg and Cesare Pavese. At the university he became friend of Alessandro Galante Garrone .
In 1942, under the Fascist regime of Benito Mussolini and during World War II, Bobbio joined the then-illegal radical liberal party Partito d'Azione ("Party of Action") and was briefly imprisoned 1943 and 1944. He ran unsuccessfully in the 1946 constituent assembly elections. With the party's failure in a post-war Italy dominated by the Christian Democrats, Bobbio left electoral politics and focused back in academia.
A strong advocate of the rule of law, the separation of powers, and the limitation of powers, he was a socialist, but opposed to what he perceived as the anti-democratic elements in most Marxism. He was a strong partisan of the "Historic Compromise" between the Italian Communist Party and the Christian Democrats, and a fierce critic of Silvio Berlusconi.
He died in Turin, the same city in which he was born and lived most of his life.
Academic career and honors
Bobbio studied Philosophy of Law with Gioele Solari; he later taught this curriculum in Camerino , Siena, Padua, and ultimately back in Turin as Solari's successor in 1948; from 1972 to 1984, he had a chair in the newly created faculty of political science in Turin.
He was a National Associate of the Lincean Academy and longtime director (together with Nicola Abbagnano) of the Rivista di Filosofia (magazine for Philosophy). He became a Corresponding Associate of the British Academy in 1966; in 1979 he was nominated as Senator-for-life by Italian President Sandro Pertini. He received diplomas honoris causa from the Universities of Paris, Buenos Aires, Madrid , Bologna, and Chambéry .
Major Works
L'indirizzo fenomenologico nella filosofia sociale e giuridica (Phenomenological Turn in Social and Legal Philosophy, Torino, 1934
Scienza e tecnica del diritto (The Science and Technical Aspects of Law), Torino, 1934
L'analogia nella logica del diritto (The Use of Analogy in Legal Logic), Torino, 1938
La consuetudine come fatto normativo (Custom as a Normative Fact), Padova, 1942
La filosofia del decadentismo (The Philosophy of Decadence), Torino, 1945
Teoria della scienza giuridica (Theory of Legal Science), Torino, 1950
Politica e cultura (Politics and Culture), Torino, 1955
Studi sulla teoria generale del diritto (Essays in the General Theory of Law), Torino, 1955
Teoria della norma giuridica (A Theory of Judicial Norms), Torino, 1958
Teoria dell'ordinamento giuridico (A Theory of Legal Order), Torino, 1960
Il positivismo giuridico (Legal Positivism), Torino, 1961
Locke e il diritto naturale (Locke and Natural Law), Torino, 1963
Italia civile (Civil Italy), Torino, 1964
Giusnaturalismo e positivismo giuridico (Natural Law and Legal Postivism , Milano, 1965
Da Hobbes a Marx (From Hobbes to Marx), Napoli, 1965
Profilo ideologico del Novecento italiano (An Ideological Profile of Nineteenth Century Italy), Torino, 1960, 1990 (new edition)
Saggi sulla scienza politica in Italia (Tests of Political Science in Italy), Torino, 1969
Diritto e Stato nel pensiero di E. Kant (Law and State in the Thought of Immanuel Kant, Torino, 1969
Ideological Profile Of Italy In The Twentieth Century (1969) ¹
Una filosofia militante: studi su Carlo Cattaneo (A Militant Philosopher: Essays on Carlo Cattaeno ), Torino, 1971
Quale socialismo (Which Socialism), Torino, 1977
I problemi della guerra e le vie della pace (The Problem of War and the Roads to Peace), Bologna, 1979
