This book provides a multifaceted investigation into the relationship between law, normativity, and the spatio-temporal coordinates in which legal phenomena emerge and transform. It offers a cross-disciplinary and philosophically grounded perspective that rethinks the categories of space and time as fundamental dimensions of the normative experience. Bringing together contributions from legal theory, philosophy, semiotics, comparative law, and cultural studies, the volume explores how law is affected by, and in turn affects, evolving conceptions of time and space and how the legal experience belongs to human history. This book investigates the ontological status of legal norms and the implications of their despatialisation or deterritorialisation in digital and transnational contexts. Several chapters address questions about the existence and longevity of legal norms, others examine the distinction between the spatial scope and the actual validity of norms in light of the effects of political change, cyber-activities, and global regulatory trends. The temporal dimension of legal responsibility is re-examined with regard to concepts such as negligence, intention, and agency.
Moreover, the book explores challenges of decision-making posed by algorithmic governance and behavioural regulation involving classical models of normativity based on rationality and chronological linearity. Furthermore, the volume draws on intellectual traditions from across the world (Western phenomenology, classical legal thought, non-Western cosmologies and ethical frameworks) for reconsidering the way normativity is shaped by paradigms of space and time related to peculiar dimensions (rhythm, ritual, kairos), which offer alternative temporalities encompassing legal practices and our understanding of some philosophical-legal categories. By integrating legal philosophy with intercultural and technological-ecological perspectives, this book opens new avenues for understanding law’s dynamic entanglement with space and time.
This volume is intended for scholars and advanced students in legal philosophy, jurisprudence, legal semiotics, comparative law, and interdisciplinary legal studies interested in exploring emerging paradigms of normativity beyond traditional legal frameworks.

Giovanni Bombelli is Full Professor at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart of Milan where he teaches Philosophy of Law, Introduction to Philosophy of Law and Legal Methodology and Informatics. He has published and edited books and essays on the Western notion of "community", the epistemological-cognitive roots of law, the reticular paradigms of the legal sphere, the multicultural issue and the relation between law and literature. Among his writings, the books “Comunitarismo” e “comunità”: un percorso critico-esplorativo tra filosofia e diritto (2010), Un ordine inquieto: koinonia e comunità “radicata”. Profili filosofico-giuridici (2013) and Diritto, comportamenti e forme di “credenza” (2017)
Paolo Di Lucia is full professor at the University of Milan (Italy) where he teaches Philosophy of Law. He has published numerous books and essays and edited volumes on topics related to the philosophy of law, social ontology, the philosophy of normative language, and deontic logic. Among his most recent writings is the book Hans Kelsen. Giustizia, diritto e realtà sociale (Hans Kelsen. Justice, Law and Social Reality), co-authored together with Lorenzo Passerini Glazel (2024). Together with Passerini Glazel, he also edited the Italian translations of Hans Kelsen’s posthumous volume, Secular Religion (2014) and John R. Searle’s unpublished lectures, The Basic Reality and the Human Reality (2019).
Paolo Heritier is Full Professor of Philosophy of Law at DIGSPES of the University of Eastern Piedmont. At the University of Turin, he teaches Legal-anthropological Philosophy, Law and Film, Legal clinics on Disability. He co-directs the journal Theory and Critics of Social Regulation, the series of Aesthetics and Legal Anthropology and Anthropology of Freedom, is a researcher at ISEAS Kyoto and a member of the scientific committee of numerous journals and series. He has published two volumes of Legal Aesthetics (2012) and The Dignity Disabled (2014), The Screen of Law (4 volumes, 2025), and a hundred articles in Italian, English, and French.
Paolo Silvestri is Associate Professor of Philosophy of Law at the University of Catania. His research lies at the intersection of legal and economic philosophy, with particular focus on liberty, liberalism, institutions and good government; markets, morals and regulation; tax justice; institutions of fiscal subsidiarity. He has taught and conducted research at leading international universities, is the author of six books and nearly one hundred scholarly publications, serves on several scientific committees and editorial boards of journals and series, and has received several international research grants and fellowships. Among his books: (with B. Walraevens) The Political Economy of Good Polity. Adam Smith’s Revolution (2026: forthcoming); (critical edition) L. Einaudi, On Abstract and Historical Hypotheses and on Value judgments in Economic Sciences (2017); Economia, diritto e politica nella filosofia di Croce. Tra finzioni, istituzioni e libertà (2012).
Silvia Zorzetto is Full Professor of Philosophy of Law at the Faculty of Economics and Law of Telematic Pegaso University (Naples, Italy). With a background in law and economics, her research in general jurisprudence focuses on the analysis of legal concepts and legal reasoning, as well as on interdisciplinary topics such as the precautionary principle, risk, BES, nudges, and legisprudence. She is the author of numerous publications in Italian, English, and Spanish, and has published the following books: La ragionevolezza dei privati (2008), La norma speciale (2010), Repetita iuvant (2016), Concepto de riesgo y principio de precaución (2018), and Precedenti giudiziari e argomentazione (2024). She serves on several scientific, steering, and editorial boards of national and international journals and book series, and research centres.