Form and unit as conditions to a pure science: the influence of Marburgo’s neokantism over the “first” Hans Kelsen

Abstract

One of the most leading features of Hans Kelsen’s long intellectual trajectory was the persecution for the construction of a pure juridical knowledge; free from any kind of consideration in what concern its content. The comprehension of this leitmotiv depends on the exam of the Kelsen’s first methodological phase, the one that the neo-kantism was his main reference. Insomuch appears Kelsen’s reduction of the normativity in the pertinence to a logical system endowed with unity, coherence. Only in this way the juridical knowledge may be considered as valid and proper to the science; an argument that will be very present in the rest of Kelsen’s intellectual activity. Thereby understanding this “first” Kelsen, the neo-kantian one, results to be a precondition to a more complete comprehension of the work of the Vienna’s jurist.