La norma come status deontico. Una svolta ontologica nella semiotica del normativo

Semiotics and the philosophy of language had a great influence on the investigation of normative phenomena, particularly in the philosophy of law. We argue that the resort to a semiotic approach does not necessarily imply a linguistic conception of norms. We notably examine the notion of deontic states-of-affairs, as elaborated by A.G. Conte, to show its importance for a theory of deontic validity and for a more general inquiry into the ontological dimensions of norms.