• 1 F. Nietzsche, La volontè de puissance, Paris, Gallimard, 1995, T. 1, p. 62.

I notice one thing and I look for its reason; this means originally that I look for an intention, that I look above all for the one who had this intention, the subject, the author; every fact is an act – formerly we saw intentions in all facts, it is our oldest habit.
F. Nietzsche, The Will to Power1

• 2 In the same book, Professor Di Lucia observes that the concept of effectiveness of the norm can be (...)
• 3 It is a question of considering the possibility of a thought endowed with a “long view” in order to (...)

1In the exergue of one of his works, dedicated to normativity, Professor Paolo Di Lucia (2003) resumes the formula of Maurice Blondel quoted: “The norm constitutes the living and secret armature of the beings”.2 It is a possible answer to this “secret” that expresses according to us, the “philosophical dispositions”. They seem to convey “this cement of the things” (Tiercelin, 2021) which makes us capable of projecting ourselves with efficiency in the future and in a world which appears from then on as endowed with a certain continuity.3 It is this continuity that one finds in norms and legal dispositions.

• 4 The intentionality of a mental state is thus the fact of being directed towards “something” or of h (...)

4Intentionality, on the other hand,offers us the opportunity to stick to reality, and it also participates in norming it: in philosophical discourse, it usually designates the fact of “being-about” something.4 This intentionality that is granted to the norm will thus play in two senses: one the one hand, it allows us to “form” a description of reality (on the basis of a certain belief linked to it: reality is thus poured into the norm which participates in norming the latter); one the other hand, it offers to measure the correction of the action with respect to the norm. In this way, regulatory norms of our behaviors and constitutive norms with respect to our reality are manifested. In this sense, it appears that belief (in the sense of a habit of action that is exercised in a reality constructed by the norm) and the desire for action (which will itself be measured by the norm) are intentionally inscribed in the measuring tool that the norm forms.

• 5 On these issues, see also Pascal Richard (2017).
• 6 Intentionality is logically related to the concept of referential opacity. In the framework of logi (...)

8This research will then allow us, through the analysis of “dispositions”, to approach various (and delicate) legal questions: the nature of the norm (and the singular way in which it participates in the construction of our reality and our agreement with it5); the orientation of our behaviors with regard to the effects of discourse that it implies (or the reality of its presence); the typicality of the norms (as well as, the greater or lesser transparency that this one implies with regard to its reference)…6

• 7 “In addition to the observable properties and effective processes it undergoes, a thing is filled w (...)
• 8 In a slightly different sense from that used by Michel Foucault (1994, pp. 299-300), for whom the d (...)
• 9 On this question, see W. V. O. Quine & J. S. Ullian (1970/2021). In this perspective, believing is (...)

9It is possible, in a very classical way, to apprehend the consequences of certain dispositifs (of arrangements or systems) from various models. These allow either the prescription of certain behaviors, or anticipate the behaviors of operators. It is thus a question of norming behaviors. In this perspective, certain “things” (the “dispositions”: for us devices, arrangements or systems) would harbor a world of “threats and promises” (according to Goodman’s classic formula) which would weigh on individuals.7 They would involve (or imply: this is part of the issue) a certain determinism as well as the presence (from an internal point of view that would be proper to the thing) of a “power”, or of a “capacity”. Our purpose will not be to create entities without real identities, but to understand the use and the possible function of this dispositive.8 They allow to install a belief (which is, in this sense, only a disposition to react).9

• 10 Hilarity would be, for example (to take up a classical illustration) the constitutive cause of laug (...)

10Traditionally they would manifest a property which would be intrinsic (and which would be affirmed in the form of an ordinary evidence10).

• 11 A dispositional conception of beliefs in the sense of note 8.
• 12 The capacity to perceive in a reality a certain intentionality proper to an intentional system? It (...)

11It is thus this “mysterious force” that one would find at work in “dispositions” and which would offer to attribute to things (but also to persons, to tools, or to beliefs11) powers, capacities and to deduce from them habits of action and possible behaviors.12 This force is embodied in the legal domain in the famous and classic metaphor of the “force of law”.

• 13 We will only quote Lorenzo Passerini Glazel’s text (2012, ch. IV “Norme in disuso: agire nomotrofic (...)

12Various research, developed recently by eminent jurists, are now trying to break down the mode of existence of the norm in this way, and this not only in the law (“in law”), but also “in” the world. These works try to apprehend the various ways in which the norm works and operates on (and in) social reality. It is in accordance with this perspective that work is being developed on: nomotropic action or inferential modalities linked to the norm…13 They try to apprehend the way in which the norm is in interaction with its implementation environment.

• 14 The latter would be involved with regard to the reflections proper to the causality inherent in the (...)

13Nomotropic acting as well as the analysis of inferential modalities can thus be enlightened from contemporary debates on dispositions, which concern attempts to reduce them to epistemic or semantic questions, or attempt to apprehend them from a certain degree of ontological commitment.14 It would be possible to reduce dispositions either to statements or to physical states which would then be the physical basis of the disposition.

• 15 The idea that the norm generates effects (through a disposition of its own – normativity) has been (...)
• 16 In the perspective of semantic holism, the knowledge of a concept implies the mastery of the infere (...)
• 17 The question of mental causality is manifested by means of the difficulty to accept jointly the thr (...)

14This approach expresses in its own way the “force of law” and the mystery of the effectiveness15 of the public word. A legal operator (or a political or administrative operator) will thus develop an action under the effect of what manifests itself to him: either as a cause (physical or mental), or under the authority of a reason,16 or finally (and this is our hypothesis) under the yoke of a certain disposition inherent in what he “is” (and which drives him to act in this sense): one recognizes, for example, the disposition proper to the “statesman” to be able to “decide” in times of troubles.17 The disposition embodies (and synthesizes) these problems and offers, through intentionality, which is its mark, a grid for explaining causal force. The dispositions would be in this way the actuation of intentional systems.

• 18 See C. Tiercelin (2002, pp. 127-157): “For a long time, dispositions had a status as little respect (...)

15However, the dispositions are becoming frequent again, as C. Tiercelin regularly observes (and partly thanks to her efforts): they are moving from the delicate status of filles-mères (teenage mothers) to the more respectable status of mères célibataires (unmarried mothers).18 Now that they are frequentable again, they seem to open up new avenues. In these different analyses, it appears that “intentionality” (as an index of the presence of a disposition) clearly offers a way to understand the norm as well as its effects and its relations with dispositions.

• 20 “The etymology is very enlightening in this regard: the verb to command comes from the Latin expres (...)
• 21 Amselek (2017, p. 34) writes: “What is the purpose of rules in general? What is the common denomina (...)

16This intentionality appears, obviously, within the framework of Professor Paul Amselek’s work and his integration of norms in the field of metrology. We know that for him (in his famous distinction between norms and commands20) the norm is presented as a “tool” allowing the measurement of what is possible for the individual. The norm is an illustration of the importance of this science of measurement that is metrology.21

• 22 For a luminous analysis of these notions, see D. Dennett (1997/1998). This approach was also perfec (...)

21This idea can be illustrated by means of a classic metaphor in this domain: that of the key and the lock. What intentionality expresses is thus the fact that it (through its aiming) involves a kind of “metaphorical” arch that aims at another object – this aiming-at object is the “intentional object”. It can, of course, be real or not.22

• 23 For a general analysis of these questions, see D. Fisette & P. Poirier, Philosophie de l’esprit: ét (...)

24This reflection is part of the very rich debates that are present in contemporary philosophy of mind.23 This approach seems to us to have a heuristic scope with regard to legal norms and normativity. Indeed, it seems to be able to be invoked in order to support certain analyses specific to the perception of the norm as a tool as well as of normativity or nomotropy.

• 24 The works of D. C. Dennett published in France are: Théorie évolutionniste de la liberté (2003/2004 (...)

27For Dennett24 the mind does not really have a conscious life, but reactive dispositional properties. There is no real reflexive consciousness accounting for an intentional will to aim at a reality, but an unconscious information. Moreover, these dispositions do not have an intrinsic reality, but exist only through shared social use.

• 25 For an analysis of the intentionality in its relations with the artifacts, see M. Ricciardi (2003).

30Dennett then focuses on a “common sense” approach to intentionality (understanding the responses manifested in behaviors as intentional actions or behaviors that are based on beliefs and desires).25

• 26 This is the purpose of the book: La diversité des esprits (Dennett, 1997/1998).

32This “intentional system” makes it possible to attribute a “mind”26 to things (and this as long as this attribution seems to be an efficient way to allow the prediction of a behavior). Things will be disposed to beliefs and desires.

• 27 It is not the object of a perfect success simply of the result of the success notice of a regularit (...)

34The intention attributed to the norm would then be to stick to reality and to normalize it: to make regularities appear for the benefit of men who would perceive this intentional system. The norm would have beliefs and desires: the belief in its necessity and the desire to impact reality (through a creation or a conformation of action). Not knowing the social laws that would necessarily be imposed, I adopt (it is the interpreter of the belief carried by the norm: the legal operator) then an effective strategic point of view. “I order” the norm to implement a force (a disposition) allowing to transform reality and I notice that globally it manages to accomplish this function.27

• 28 Thus, it appears that with regard to the selection process of evolution, the devices that will beco (...)

37The function attributed to norms (understood as an intentional system) is thus to allow a certain production of the future. In this respect, it appears that human beings are always ultimately confronted with two strategies, according to Dennett: either they lock themselves into a castle that allows for the defense of what they “are”; or they develop methods, stratagems, in order to protect themselves against the obstacles that they will inevitably encounter.28 One recognizes here the two approaches that are traditionally adopted with regard to the law itself: either it appears as guaranteeing the maintenance of a given order or it is apprehended as an instrument to make a society evolve.

• 29 For example: to take up an illustration of Dennett’s that seems to us particularly clear, the axis (...)

39These systems enhance our ability to survive.29 Legal norms that allow for the expectation that social behaviors will be measured by specific standards or yardsticks clearly offer an advantage in the regulation of human relationships.

• 30 The form of life is, according to the beautiful analysis of Professor Amedeo G. Conte, “a set of co (...)

40In the context of our “form of life”30 dispositions and their intentional properties are real, but in an extrinsic way. They allow, from the perspective of ordinary social physics, to pursue regularities. The observer discerns patterns and will develop a strategy (and, indeed, this strategy clearly works on a day-to-day basis in the best possible way).

• 31 The Italian philosopher initially developed this research in an old analysis entitled Codici deonti (...)

41This analysis is, in our opinion, likely to echo the reflections of the Italian jurist and philosopher Amedeo G. Conte in his work on validity or adeontic regularity (1990/2019).31 He indicated in the works developed on this theme that the distinction between deontic and adeontic regularity could be enlightened by the distinction between following a rule and pursuing a regularity (which is deontically neutral). The rule (unlike regularity) is never “one” (it is never necessarily identical to itself). The rule leads us into “gardens that fork” to use the formula of the Argentinian poet J. L. Borges: the real sometimes forks the rule and generates complexities.