Robert Spaemann e la normatività del reale

(Robert Spaemann and the Normativity of the Real)

Abstract

The current essay aims at understanding the notions of “normal” and “pathological” on the grounds of the historical-theoretical reconstruction of the crisis and rediscovery of theological thought made by Robert Spaemann (1927-2018) in Natürliche Ziele. A meaningful and vital experience of the real ultimately depends on the rehabilitation of telos, which also makes possible the full intelligibility of the real in a way that escapes the dialectics between two opposed forms of reductionism, namely: naturalism and spiritualism. It is only on the background of a similar understanding of the self and the world, which are the object of both the philosophical tradition overall and the sociological reflection of Émile Durkheim, Max Weber, and Max Scheler, by whom Spaemann is inspired, that the distinction between “normality” and “pathology” avoids losing its rooting in life as such.