Behemoth and Leviathan in the Ocean of the Political. Carl Schmitt: Space, Law, Politics. Part 2 Cover Image

Behemot i Lewiatan w oceanie polityczności. Carl Schmitt: przestrzeń, prawo, polityka. Część II
Behemoth and Leviathan in the Ocean of the Political. Carl Schmitt: Space, Law, Politics. Part 2

Author(s): Tomasz Tulejski
Subject(s): Philosophy, Law, Constitution, Jurisprudence, Political Philosophy, Sociology of Law
Published by: Łódzkie Towarzystwo Naukowe
Keywords: Schmitt; geopolitics; international law; spatial revolution; law of war

Summary/Abstract: The Author analyses Carl Schmitt’s concept of the opposition between land and sea as a universal historical construct. According to the author of Nomos der Erde world history is the history of wars waged by maritime powers against land or continental powers and by land powers against sea or maritime powers. He uses biblical symbols to denote this historical conflict: a land power is symbolically represented as a giant land beast Behemoth, while a maritime power is portrayed as a giant sea beast Leviathan. The Author argues that the Age of Discovery marked the beginning of a new era of war between talassocracy and telurocracy. According to Schmitt, this spatial revolution constituted a part of the fundamental forces of history, which bring new lands and new seas into human awareness. The process of the colonization of the New World by Europeans included a struggle between terrestrial Catholicism and maritime Protestantism, between the sovereign state and the liberal state as well as two kinds of international law.

  • Issue Year: 2016
  • Issue No: 99
  • Page Range: 137-156
  • Page Count: 20
  • Language: Polish