Political theology is a complex multi-valued concept, the use of which is often associated with the discrediting of certain ideologies, beliefs or value systems. Meanwhile, this concept has a serious theoretical and methodological potential, which due to numerous inversions is almost forgotten. Political theology in the legal sense, from the point of view of C. Schmitt, is a methodological approach, implying a historically changeable analogous similarity between the two systems of concepts — metaphysical (theological) and state-legal, which form corresponding visions of the world of a particular era. The content of this approach consists of three interrelated theses: 1) political theology is a kind of sociology of legal concepts ("sociological" thesis); 2) political theology assumes an analogy between the concepts of the doctrine of state and law and theological concepts (the thesis of the conceptual analogy); 3) political theology implies an analogy between the metaphysical and state-legal visions of the world of a particular epoch, in the structure of which these concepts exist (the thesis of structural analogy). The heuristic significance of political theology as a methodological approach remains hidden. It is perceived as a kind of conservative ideology or even rhetorical practice. In fact, political theology, by contrast, can be a useful tool for discovering the hidden rhetorical potential of various political and legal arguments. In addition, with its help, new aspects of such classical problems of the theory and philosophy of law as validity of legal order and its grounds, the concept of sovereign, the essence and limits of justice, strategies of judicial argumentation, etc., are revealed. Being the core of C. Schmitt’s theoretical and legal thinking, political theology appears to be connected not only with the German lawyer’s direct application of its basic theses (for example, to study the concept of sovereign or the neutralization and depoliticization movement), but it also appears in the Schmitt’s basis of the validity of legal order, which German lawyer interprets as common ideas about the "normal" for a specific community, including the "normal" state-legal system, which are similar, according to the political theology, to the metaphysical vision of the world. Political theology as a methodological approach reveals itself in Schmitt’s criticism of the axiological foundations of constitutional justice. In the essay "Tyranny of Values" the practice of direct application of values by the courts, which is the content of a realistic strategy of judicial argumentation, is interpreted by a lawyer as a special case of the manifestation of a political and theological neutralization and depoliticization movement.
Translated title of the contributionCARL SCHMITT’S POLITICAL THEOLOGY: DISCOURSE AND METHODOLOGICAL APPROACH
Original languageRussian
Pages (from-to)49-78
JournalТРУДЫ ИНСТИТУТА ГОСУДАРСТВА И ПРАВА РОССИЙСКОЙ АКАДЕМИИ НАУК
Volume14
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - 2019

    Research areas

  • Political Theology, legal methodology, Carl Schmitt, the validity of law, CONSTITUTIONAL JUSTICE, sovereign, institutionalism, Axiology, realistic strategy of legal argumentation

ID: 48417504