Reali presenze

Appropriation (Jaspers) Comprehensiveness (Eliot), Compulsiveness (Coetzee), Collusion (Benjamin) are some of words to describe our deep, personal relationship with the exemplary minds of the past. What is a classic cannot be defined exactly, but there is no doubt that we know the pathos that ties us to a classic. The essay shall consider three aspects of this emotional and spiritual link: the pathos of influence (the act of acknowledging our limitation), the pathos of distance (the embracing of otherness and the allowance for cultural and spiritual differences), the pathos of tradition (the accountability to the past). All these aspects affect fundamentally the historical development of law and the identity of the jurist.