Abstract

The essay aims to analyze the doctrines of Kelsen and Schmitt with reference to some themes, the special interest for which is shared by both jurists and was at the center of comparisons and clashes between them. These are particularly two issues: the epistemological one, concerning the problem of the foundation of knowledge, and the well-known one, the so-called “guardian of the constitutionµ issue. The reference to the idea of decision acts here as an intermediary between these two themes, in its original emergence within Schmittian thought with its value as a judicial decision.