The One and the Many: A Critical Reflection on the Foundations of Hans Kelsen’s Democratic Theory
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15203/ozp.3815.vol51iss3Keywords:
Monism, Pluralism, Relativism, Indeterminacy, Democracy, EpistemologyAbstract
This paper offers a critical examination of the foundations of Hans Kelsen’s democratic theory in neo-Kantian epistemology. It argues that, while such an epistemological framework provides coherence to his intellectual endeavor by reconciling his monistic legal theory with a pluralist democratic theory, it weakens the theoretical fertility and analytic edge of his political thought. Furthermore, I also claim that the Kelsenian epistemological turn, in its understanding of both law and politics, remains very much entangled in the dilemmas and modes of thought of a philosophical tradition that Kelsen himself believed to have entirely surpassed. His nevertheless insightful analysis of modern democratic institutions would therefore benefit from being read through different philosophical spectacles.
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