Abstract

The article critically examines two contemporary theoretical proposals, namely those made by Axel Honneth in "Struggle for Recognition" and by Alain Supiot in "Homo Juridicus", both aiming at dismissing the contemporary formalistic accounts of the law. The article underlines that the two authors give similar answers to the same question as they share a similar epistemological approach, although they choose different options. While Honneth aims at re-thinking the Hegelian tradition of the "Sittlichkeit" in post-Metaphysical terms, Supiot questions the contemporary contractualisation of the law by highlighting the impossibility of a self-sufficience of the subjects of the agreement without making reference to some third external instance. Both these positions, although in different ways, do not question the conditions of the realisation of their premises by assuming them as guaranteed at the epistemic level whereas they are pragmatical, and therefore cannot be anticipated in purely speculative terms.