Abstract

By reconsidering the key features of Giuseppe Zaccaria's legal hermeneutics, we can arrive at an understanding of law not only as an instrument for making rules but also as a deliberative activity aimed at implementing relations, harmonizing conflicts, and creating intersecting areas of agreement functional to an increasingly pluralist society. As a consequence, if we disavow the role that practical reason plays in legal science and legal theory, we will inevitably end up misunderstanding the meaning of law.