Abstract

The most relevant political and philosophical performances regarding the West - quite a polemical and vague notion - are Hegel's and Schmitt's. Both readings stem from the critical viewpoint defined by the eurocentric political modernity. Hegel's and Schmitt's West is still able of producing a political form. In Hegel the 'accomplishment of reason' includes the 'political' within the speculative, thereby determining a 'fulfillment' which is permanently crepuscular, impossible to exit: Europe is the 'land of sunset'. For Schmitt reason is simply an absence, which renders unavoidable and always possible a 'decision' which produces effectiveness. So, the West is at the same time global 'nomos' and its breakthrough.