Renato Treves (1907–1992) was an Italian
sociologist.
Biography
Treves was born in
Turin
Turin ( , ; ; , then ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital from 1861 to 1865. The city is main ...
,
Italy
Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...
of a Jewish family. According to Vincenzo Ferrari, Treves "devoted his first academic study to the diffusion of
Claude Henri de Saint-Simon
Claude Henri de Rouvroy, Comte de Saint-Simon (; ; 17 October 1760 – 19 May 1825), better known as Henri de Saint-Simon (), was a French political, economic and socialist theorist and businessman whose thought had a substantial influence on po ...
's (17601825) doctrines in Italy" before turning his attention to the
neo-Kantian
In late modern philosophy, neo-Kantianism () was a revival of the 18th-century philosophy of Immanuel Kant. The neo-Kantians sought to develop and clarify Kant's theories, particularly his concept of the thing-in-itself and his moral philosophy ...
movement and
Hans Kelsen
Hans Kelsen (; ; October 11, 1881 – April 19, 1973) was an Austrian and later American jurist, legal philosopher and political philosopher. He is known principally for his theory of law, which he named the " pure theory of law (''Reine Rechts ...
's
Pure Theory of Law
''Pure Theory of Law'' is a book by jurist and legal theorist Hans Kelsen, first published in German in 1934 as , and in 1960 in a much revised and expanded edition. The latter was translated into English in 1967 as ''Pure Theory of Law''. The t ...
.
Treves also exerted considerable influence on the development of the
sociology of law
The sociology of law, legal sociology, or law and society, is often described as a sub-discipline of sociology or an interdisciplinary approach within legal studies. Some see sociology of law as belonging "necessarily" to the field of sociolo ...
in Italy and is one of the founders of the
Research Committee on Sociology of Law Research Committee on Sociology of Law (RCSL) was established in 1962 by William M. Evan (University of Pennsylvania) and Adam Podgórecki (University of Warsaw), with the support of Renato Treves (University of Milan) during the congress of the I ...
.
He kept faith with a Weberian and Kelsenian vision of sociology of law, as distinct from legal science. He advocated empirical research as a means of testing theories critically and favoured open as opposed to closed social portraits of law. Primarily, he argued in favour of a perspectivist and relativistic vision of law and society, combating all kinds of absolutism in both science and politics, from a liberal socialist stance that he upheld in many of his writings.
[Ferrari 2007: 1521.]
Primary publications
* Treves, Renato (1933) ''Il diritto come relazione'', Torino.
* Treves, Renato (1941) ''Sociología y filosofía social'', Buenos Aires.
* Treves, Renato (1943) ''Benedetto Croce, filósofo de la libertad'', Buenos Aires.
* Treves, Renato (1947) ''Diritto e cultura'', Torino.
* Treves, Renato (1954) ''Spirito critico e spirito dogmatico'', Milano.
* Treves, Renato (1962) ''Libertà politica e verità'', Milano.
* Treves, Renato (1972) ''Giustizia e giudici nella società italiana'', Bari.
* Treves, Renato (1977) ''Introduzione alla sociologia del diritto'', Torino.
* Treves, Renato (1987) ''Sociologia del diritto. Origini, ricerche, problemi'', Torino.
* Treves, Renato (1990) ''Sociologia e socialismo. Ricordi e incontri'', Milano.
See also
*
Sociology of law
The sociology of law, legal sociology, or law and society, is often described as a sub-discipline of sociology or an interdisciplinary approach within legal studies. Some see sociology of law as belonging "necessarily" to the field of sociolo ...
*
Research Committee on Sociology of Law Research Committee on Sociology of Law (RCSL) was established in 1962 by William M. Evan (University of Pennsylvania) and Adam Podgórecki (University of Warsaw), with the support of Renato Treves (University of Milan) during the congress of the I ...
References
* Ferrari, V. (2007) "Treves, Renato" in Encyclopedia of Law and Society: American and Global Perspectives (Thousand Oaks: SAGE).
Notes
External links
* A Short Biography of Renato Treves: http://www.iisj.net/antBuspre.asp?cod=4146&nombre=4146&prt=1
* Renato Treves Grants http://www.iisj.net/antBuspre.asp?Cod=2059&Nombre=2059&prt=1&sesion=1347
{{DEFAULTSORT:Treves, Renato
Sociologists of law
1907 births
1992 deaths
Italian sociologists
20th-century Italian Jews
Writers from Turin