Dalla "lingua" ai "linguaggi": su alcuni intrecci tra filosofia, linguaggio e diritto nel Novecento

The essay focuses on the close relation among philosophy, language and law throughout the nineteenth century and it is divided in three parts. The first one is dedicated to the transition from the “philosophy of language” (based on a historical horizon) to the “theory of language” (connected to linguistics and to a structural/formalist turn), with particular attention both to the origins of modern linguistics and to the main aspects of the linguistic formalism (from Saussure to Chomsky). The second part takes into account the historical-theoretical sequence Neopositivism-analytic philosophy, by putting in light the conceptual bases of the so-called Wiener Kreis (verificationism, physicalism, language) and the fundamental questions of the analytical approach. In the third part, starting from the continuity between structural-functionalist linguistics and the pair Neopositivism-analytic philosophy, some theoretical-legal corollaries are considered and, especially, the perspectives elaborated by Kelsen, Parsons and Luhmann. Nevertheless the process of formalization and de-substantialization of language developed in the last century allows the rediscovery of the classical model of the relation philosophy-language-law.