Searle vs. Conte on Constitutive Rules

The concept of “constitutive rule” is inextricably linked with the philosophy of John R. Searle. It is less known, however, that starting from the ‘70s, a discussion on constitutive rules emerged in Italian legal philosophy that reached a level of complexity and depth hardly matched in the rest of the world. This is due primarily to the work of two main authors: Gaetano Carcaterra and Amedeo G. Conte. This paper takes a step forward in connecting these two sources: It shows how the evolution of Searle’s concept of constitutive rule can be the ground for a criticism of Conte’s concept of constitutive rule, and how, conversely, that same evolution is coherent with a well-grounded criticism by Conte of Searle’s original theory.