Former Fellow

Merio Scattola

Professor of Political Philosophy, University of Padua

Research project: Political theology in the early modern period

As a guest of the Cluster of Excellence “Normative Orders” and the International Research Training Group “Political Communication from Antiquity to the 20th Century”, Merio Scattola will research and teach in Frankfurt on the epistemological prerequisites of ancient and modern natural law, in particular on the concept of law and justice in ancient scholasticism and in modern science, and on the question of transcendence in political orders from both a historical and a systematic perspective.

Events:

July 9, 2014
Presentation
“The School of Salamanca as a Discourse Community” in the colloquium “Discussions about the School of Salamanca”, chaired by Prof. Dr. Thomas Duve and Prof. Dr. Dr. Matthias Lutz-Bachmann
Location: Max Planck Institute for European Legal History

July 21 to August 1, 2014
Workshop
“The law and the city”, led by Dr. des. Andreas Wagner, Anselm Spindler and Prof. Dr. Merio Scattola

July 25 – 26, 2014
Presentation
“Jean Bodin and international law” at the conference “System and Order in international law”, chaired by Prof. Dr. Stefan Kadelbach

July 22 to August 1
Workshop
Changes of State – Political Theory in the Transition from the Middle Ages to the Modern Era
Location: Goethe University Frankfurt am Main

October 27, 2014, 4 pm
Lecture
The doctrines of natural law in the 18th century
Location: Goethe University Frankfurt am Main

August or November 2014
Workshop
“Political communication from antiquity to the 20th century”

November 2014
Lecture at the workshop of the research project of the Cluster of Excellence “The Bible as norma normans”

Winter semester 2014/15
Guest lecture as part of the lecture by Prof. Dr. Schorn-Schütte
The emergence of natural law in the European 18th century

  • Biografische Angaben

    Merio Scattola is Professor of the History of Political Ideas at the School of Human and Cultural Sciences at the University of Padua. His research focuses on the history of natural law doctrines, political theology and the history of political thought in the early modern period. His book "Dalla virtù alla scienza", in which he described the history of academic politics in Germany, was named one of the "Legal Books of the Year 2003" by the "Neue Juristische Wochenschrift". Merio Scattola has developed the concept of a 'political epistemology' and he likes to examine the forms of knowledge and the literary genres in which political language is expressed.
  • Publikationen

    Das Naturrecht vor dem Naturrecht. Zur Geschichte des ius naturae im 16. Jahrhundert, Tübingen, Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1999. Teologia politica, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2007. Dalla virtu alla Scienza. La fondazione e la trasformatione della disciplina politica nell’eta moderna, Mailand, Franco Angeli, 2003. Eine innerkonfessionelle Debatte. Wie die Spanische Spätscholastik die politische Theorie des Mittelalters mit der Hilfe des Aristotelismus revidierte, in: Alexander Fidora, Johannes Fried, Matthias Lutz-Bachmann und Luise Schorn-Schütte (Hgg), Politischer Aristotelismus und Religion in Mittelalter und Früher Neuzeit, Berlin, Akademie Verlag, 2007, (Wissenskultur und Gesellschaftlicher Wandel, 23), S. 139-161. Widerstand und Naturrecht im Umkreis von Philipp Melanchthon, in Luise Schorn-Schütte (ed.), Das Interim 1548/50. Herrschaftskrise und Glaubenskonflikt, Gütersloh, Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 2005, (Schriften des Vereins für Reformationsgeschichte, 203) S. 459-487. Emilio Bonfatti, Giuseppe Duso und Merio Scattola (Hgg), Politische Begriffe und historisches Umfeld in der Politica methodice digesta des Johannes Althusius, Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz Verlag, (Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek), 2002. Von der Politik zum Naturrecht. Die Entwicklung des allgemeinen Staatsrechts aus der politica architectonica, in: Jacques Krynen and Michael Stolleis (Hgg.), Science politique et droit public dans les facultés de droit européennes (XIIIe-XVIIIe siècle), Frankfurt am Main, Vittorio Klostermann, 2008, (Studien zur Europäischen Rechtsgeschichte, 229), S. 411-443. „Models in History of Natural Law“, in: Ius commune. Zeitschrift für Europäische Rechtsgeschichte, 28 (2001), S. 91-159.

News from the research center

Event
19.06.2026 | Frankfurt

„Dass niemand wirklich frei ist, bevor es nicht alle sind.“

Symposium

International Symposium in Memory of Jürgen Habermas. Featuring international panels on the rise of authoritarianism and the threats to democracy as well as on the communicative turn in philosophy and sociology, followed by a keynote from by Axel Honneth.

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Event
17.06.2026 | Frankfurt am Main

Agency Under Oppression: Feminist Perspectives

Conference

International Conference on agency, heternonmy and the current opression of feminist perspectives. Among others with Manon Garcia, Serene Khader, Regina Schidel and Francesca Cesarano.

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Event
23.06.2026 | Frankfurt am Main

AI Truth Regimes

Panel Discussion

Artificial intelligence is currently transforming the way knowledge and truth are produced and understood. With the advent of AI, people are progressively transitioning from being active subjects and producers of epistemic processes to becoming their mere objects. The of this discussion will be critical engagements towards these developments as well as opportunities for resistance. With Antonio Somaini, Júlia Nueno Guitart (Forensic Architecture) and Medico International.

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Event
22.06.2026 | Frankfurt am Main

Rechtsextremismus und Polizei - Erscheinungsformen, Umgangsweisen, Perspektiven

Panel Discussion

Die Diskussion knüpft an den Sammelband „Rechtsextremismus als Herausforderung für Polizei und Gesellschaft“ an, der aktuelle Perspektiven aus Wissenschaft, Praxis und Zivilgesellschaft zusammenführt.

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News
18.05.2026

Videopodcast-Reihe „Our Planet, Our Health“ gestartet

Mit „Our Planet, Our Health“ startet eine neue Videopodcast-Reihe zu Fragen globaler Gesundheitsgerechtigkeit. Die Reihe, gehostet von Dr. Romina Rekers, ist eine Initiative des Global Health Justice Postdoctoral Programme (GHJ), gefördert von der Höppschen Stiftung.

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Publication
12.05.2026 | Online article

Disinhibited Informalization: Talk Radio, Bro Podcasts and the Aesthetics of Populism

This essay by Johannes Völz is a revised and updated translation of “Enthemmte Informalisierung: Talk Radio, Bro-Podcasts und die Ästhetik des Populismus,” WestEnd: Neue Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung 22.2 (2025): 3–24. It is published here as part of the b2o Review’s “Stop the Right” dossier.

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Event
25./26.06.2026 | Frankfurt

Shifting Regimes, Changing Orders

Conference

Conference as part of WDC2026 in collaboration with Deutsche Gesellschaft für Designtheorie und -forschung (DGTF), Kunstgewerbemuseum/Design Campus SKD and Design and Democracy

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Publication
22.04.2026 | Chapter

Körpergeschlecht und Selbstbestimmung

Britz, Gabriele (2026): "Körpergeschlecht und Selbstbestimmung". In. Mangold, Anna Katharina; Völzmann, Berit (Hrsg.): Gerechtigkeit als Thema der Rechtswissenschaft, Nomos, S. 41-48.

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